Sd. Kfz. 251/9 ‘Stummel’ – Panzergrenadier heavy weapons support

I commenced work on those Revell Panthers a couple of weekends back because I’d finished those three Hasegawa 251/9 ‘Stummels’ – they had just been sitting around on my hobby table waiting for me to stop running around so busily and take a couple of piccies of them. The one time I was ready to photograph them, the weather wasn’t – heavy rain pounded down all morning. My photos are all taken using morning sunlight, but in the shade and without flash. That way, the lighting and colouring looks as natural as possible. With pounding rain, the possibility of photographing the 251/9s was thwarted.

These are similar to the 234/3 ‘Stummel’ that I did two months ago – the 75mm L24, its gun laying mechanism & gun bed are all identical. Assembling the kit was very straightfoward. I elected not to put any crew figures in – the Italeri chap I put in with the 251/22 was a bit too big for the vehicle (ie. his scale was not 1/72…possibly 1/70) and I didn’t want the same odd look with these…but since I have a surplus of crew figures from the Hasegawa 234/2 Puma kits, I might use one of those figures in the future, as they are to scale with their vehicle.

How many more to do? The Panzerfaust army list for Panzergrenadier companies gives me a pair of 251/9’s as a heavy weapons cannon section for s standard company.  A Panzergrenadier heavy weapons company has a cannon company, comprised of three sections with each section having two 251/9s.

I’ve done my standard heavy weapons cannon section (numbered 241 & 242) and one of the heavy weapons company vehicles (numbered 251). Here  are 241 & 242:

Now all three: 

and here’s a view from above: .

If I was to go completely silly, I have five more to go. Only if I can get them on a big discount or at a swap & sell…

Now, some extra resources I found online for this project were:

1. colour and b&w photos by The 9th Reenactment Society of their own ‘Stummel’,
2. a walkaround with colour photographs of the 251/9 museum piece from the Deutsches Panzermuseum in  Munster on a site called “The Panzer Tank Walkaround or Panzer Photo Gallery” (there are other Panzers there to look at, too!); and lastly
3. the same as #2. immediately above but taken by a different photographer. Also with more photos.

I really like the green cammo scheme on the Munster 251/9…I might try to use it on the Panthers when they are ready.

***

Through the superior firepower (well, superior CNC & milling tools of a colleague) I have been able to get an identical replacement part for the MAC Distribution Horch 108 (Kfz. 70) & 20mm Flak 30 that I shelved back in the first half of the year due to losing a critical piece of the gun bed. I have nearly finished assembly and will do a similar camouflage scheme but with Dark Angels Green instead of Goblin Green.

I figured with all these fumes from assembling 7 Panthers, what harm was one more kit going to do?

It’s not been easy to assemble, either (just like the first time). I’m not looking forward to working on the four MAC Horch 108 passenger cars I’ve got!

Time to breed some more cats

I’ve begun assembly of 7 Panzerkampfwagen V “Panther” (Sd.Kfz. 171), known by their nickname of Panthers. These are the Revell kits, #03107 however most were bought as the combi-sets with accompanying figures (those of Fallschirmjäger). I’m only in the early stages, glueing road wheels onto the chassis and partially assembling the turrets.

My main tank kit assembly order nowadays is as follows:

1. Lower chassis
2. Wheels onto lower chassis
3. tracks
4. Paint lower chassis and tracks
5. Join lower and upper chassis
6. Turret
7. Remaining mandatory chassis details as well as any crew figures or wire aerials
8. Any kitbashed field modifications (me using bits of other kits to add on stowage etc.)
9. Painting

The detail on this kit is pretty good. I’m going to assemble them as A types and have selected an acknowledged and photographed Infantry Regiment Großdeutschland camouflage for them, of green mottling over Dark Yellow. To see the black and white photographic evidence (and then a colour illustration of how it would look), get a copy of Panzer Colors III: Markings of the German Army Panzer Forces 1939-45 by Bruce Culver (and look Ma, I’m using LibraryThing again!!!).

I’m assembling 7 so that I have a platoon on 5 plus an HQ of 2. Panzerfaust: Armored Fist is written with German ad-hoc companies in mind…my recommendation is to always buy a platoon of a major vehicle and then the requisite number of HQ vehicles of the same type, in case you want them to be the HQ too.

Heat, trucks, guns and scenery

Still 4 weeks of Spring left, but today is the second day of over 30 degrees…in fact, looking at the MelbinYewni real time temperature graph, today got to just over 34! This means it’s time to think about doing lots of wargames terrain / wargames scenery, as there will be the heat to cure and dry everything thoroughly and promptly.

I’ve made a start: the three telegraph posts from an old ESCI Diorama Accessories set have been assembled, based and given some lumpy earth around their bases…ready now for painting.

I finished off a platoon of PaK 36 anti-tank guns with crews, plus that ICM Krupp truck, so that they wouldn’t bother me and so that “Operation Barbarossa” next year will be a reality. The PaK 36s are from Fujimi, the crews are the one worthwhile figure from the Fujimi set the gun comes in, a chap from the  Revell  Fallschirmjägers and one of the two ESCI / Italeri Sd. Kfz. 251/1 crew. Photos: .

Some more comments about the ICM Krupp L2H143 Kfz 70 kit…it turns out pretty well and looks great painted. I opted to have the MG 34 on a pintle mount in the rear tray option, to fit in with the Kubelwagen Type 82 which also had pintle-mounted MG34. I don’t like the decals that ICM provided for this kit, though. There is too much excess clear decal surrounding the rear number plate, and even drybrushing with Kommando Khaki as a coat of dust didn’t help…in fact it made it worse and drew attention to the excess. There was also far too much excess on the front number plate – which is meant to wrap around a front bumper bar which is probably only a milimetre wide. Stupid! It wrapped but wouldn’t glue. I know some modellers add a special glue under any decal they apply, but I don’t have that glue and don’t think it should be necessary. The front number plate decal’s glue didn’t hold and so the whole thing popped off during drybrushing. A shame. Sorry ICM, sorry Roden, but I’m not having much luck with your decals.

Now, Fujimi’s product is meant to be 1/76 scale, but it isn’t. Let me clarify…the house probably is, but the figures and PaK gun supplied with it are definitely 1/72 scale or even larger…possibly even 1/70 scale! Anyway, only one figure from that product is worth using with the anti-tank gun because the others are even worsely sculpted and moulded than the figures Hasegawa provide with their WWII AFVs. Hence why each PaK 36 base I’ve done has figures from other manufacturers to make up the two-man crews that Panzerfaust: Armored Fist requires.

Lastly – a couple of Battlefield Accessories wall sections (enough to make two simple houses) have been assembled and are being painted, along with a Faller German, Austrian or Swiss log cabin that I bought at a model railroad shop.

Oh, and there’s a Wespe and that other Kubelwagen still in Tankoberg…but I’m feeling the time is nigh to make a caulk creek / stream following the laws laid down by Nikolas Lloyd.

 

 

“Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast!” – ‘Ace’ Rimmer, Red Dwarf

Since starting to play “Panzerfaust: Armoured fist” a few years back until 6 months ago, I’ve had thoughts niggling away in the back of my consciousness about making my own wargaming smoke. I used to have about four litres’ volume of wargaming smoke, a hand-me-down from Stephen at Nunawading Wargames Association. I can’t remember now if I sold it when I was having financial dificulties, gave it away or chucked it – but whatever I did, it wasn’t worth it. His wargaming smoke clouds were made from cotton wool and the ink from parcel markers/whiteboard markers, somehow extracted using Turpentine or Methylated Spirits. They were a perfect mix of dark greys, fluffy but not peeling apart, could be squashed up or pulled apart a little and could serve to show a brewed-up AFV or a wall of smoke from smoke shells or a smokescreen from  smoke dischargers. I haven’t seen any other smoke as nice as that stuff of his.

6 months ago, I decided to finally act. I asked Stephen about how to make smoke like his old smoke puffs / clouds, but he couldn’t remember how it was done and wouldn’t recommend trying it again, as he said it stank; was too much effort and could be done more cheaply nowadays. I’d have to come up with a method myself. I began experimenting with various materials to see what might work and, when my day job permitted, searched the Internet for recipes from others.

I didn’t find much! It seems that very few wargamers are interested in documenting how they made their smoke – if they had even progressed beyond just using white bits of cotton wool (which can be purchased as is). I found a YouTube video that offered a possibility, which I did try, but I finally found sensible advice at Gabriel Landowski’s wonderful e-book, “Miniature Gaming, Volume I” which features his own wargames rules, called “Rules of the Damned Human Race”.

His recipe was refreshingly straightforward – use artifical pillow stuffing and darken it. I purchased some siliconised polyester stuffing from a cloth & craft shop and set to work.

I wasted half a bottle of valuable original (and now extinct) Citadel Black Ink dyeing a sample tuft. It took too much time to dry and left small congealed lumps on individual fibres which looked a little odd. This was going to be impractical. I tried the YouTube method, and sprayed Citadel’s Chaos Black spraypaint directly onto a second sample tuft. This worked well until you picked it up and tried to manipulate it, when the white fibres underneath became visible leaving a very unusual and unrealistic effect (and also staining my hands black).

I wondered about the pillow stuffing – perhaps this was the wrong type of material to use? As a fish-keeper, I had plenty of much thicker polyester filter wool sitting around. I wasted the other half of the Citadel Black Ink dyeing some filter wool. It turned out a marvellous  uniform medium grey, but had hardened the wool considerably – it would not be easily teased apart and was no longer “fluffy” at all. No good.

Here are the three sample tufts, after the experiments detailed above, in order from left to right:

I went to an art & craft shop to enquire about suitable paints or dyes for dyeing the pillow stuffing. Although they could’ve sold me expensive clothing dye for about $50 (I was willing to try it), I bought a simple bottle of basic black acrylic paint and experimented with it. I watered it down to a consistency of 50% – 50% and thoroughly impregnated a sample tuft with it.

Next day, once the tuft was dry, I tested it to see what it would be like if I needed to pull it apart a bit to make a smokescreen – and found wet paint in it’s core! I wrung it out and let it dry over a few more days. No problem. I quickly established an assembly line and now I have great-looking wargaming smoke for an extremely cheap price, with little effort or risk. Here’s a good-sized cloud comprised of a few tufts:

and here’s a ‘group photo’ of the major test tufts and components: , the winning result lying between the paint bottle and the spraycan.

PS. you’ll definitely want disposable rubber gloves, old clothing you don’t mind getting splashed with paint and a work area that can be easily cleaned up and doesn’t matter if not all paint can be removed…alternately, lay some plastic groundsheets / dropsheets / thick layers of newspaper around the place. Getting the wet paint into the fibres got a bit splashy and messy!

Hasegawa Pumas ready for recon

The first two of what will end up being a platoon of six Pumas are done. I even numbered them ‘1″ and “2″:

As you can see, I went for both a dust coat but also a bit of dirty water and some mud splashed around on them. #2 has some rather unusual stowage on its rear deck – a case of 120mm mortar shells plus two boxes of  81mm mortar shells (left over from my Pegasus Hobbies mortars). I chose a while ago to give my AFVs plenty of interesting and unusual stowage courtesy of Scott Nicholas, whose own collection of 1/72 & 1/76 WWII Germans for Panzerfaust: Armoured Fist set extremely high standards for me in terms of painting, detail and stowage.

Now here they are together:

Do please note the rear jerrycans with the white painted crosses on them – I felt that if these guys were doing deep recon, they may well want to take plenty of drinking water with them.

I’ve really enjoyed putting these Hasegawa kits together. Yes, they involve lots of parts and lots of stages but the final product is trouble-free and looks very accurate. Even the wheels, which I thought I might do incorrectly, came out perfectly. I know some people don’t like the tyres on these kits, but as a wagamer I’m not fussed by them.  Looking at those photos from Sd Kfz 234/2 by Francisco Javier Cabeza & Carlos Martín and then comparing them to Hasegawa – certainly, they don’t have the newest and deepest tread on them, but why should they? Why not have them well-worn?

I’m putting the finishing touches to a crewman for their 234/3 kit which should be finished by next weekend. It’s taken more time because of the detail for the crewman and the fiddliness of the gun – but it too has turned out well. It’ll get more paint and extras than these Pumas – you’ll have to wait to see exactly what more and what extra!

A quick game is a good game? – third game for the year

This was a return to infantry vs. infantry, but with one side being mobile…in this case, Peter’s Soviets were a Guards company and they were riding in Lend-lease U.S. M3 Halftracks.

Here’s the map, looking from East to West: – a kolkhoz on the very edge of the Soviet Union or a hamlet somewhere on the Eastern Front,as the Germans slowly withdrew back to Germany. Date: 1944. Nine buildings, with the roofless building with white walls (and black floor – a terrain item still being painted) being the objective for the Soviets.

A 6 was rolled for winds – Gale force winds! No smokescreens today, then. The winds were heading to the East (direction was diced for using a purpose-made polyhedron).

TURN ONE: The Guards Company came onto the board from the Northeast and immediately began deploying some artillery. Those Guards riding in halftracks quickly sighted Germans:

This was my Third Platoon, who had a 81mm mortar section attached to it. I needed 8’s to hit the Soviet artillery with the mortars  – I rolled a 9, a 15 and an 8 – one of four artillery guns was thus wiped out. Peter tested Morale, but was fine.

TURN TWO: The closest halftracks raced in, trying to get into close-quarters combat (CQC).  The others advanced. Third Platoon got to shoot as the Soviet forces approach.

Each section in the platoon could fire a Panzerfaust 100 each turn. At point-blank range a 10 is needed, modified to 11 because my troops are Veterans. Only one of three hit; for damage, a 13 was rolled – an Immobilizing result (if I’d rolled 14, it’d be destroyed!) . The halftrack’s crew and passengers roll low for Morale and so bail out – the rest of the Soviets’ Morale is fine.

The Guards now returned fire  . 5 LMG bases and 8 SMG bases is a total of 58 fire factors. Peter then rolls a 4. The Germans are prone but not in cover. 4 German teams are lost.

Overall, the Germans lost 5 teams and the Soviets lost 4 teams.

The surviving squads of 3rd Platoon now test Morale – one is Shaken for 6 turns, the other is Shaken for 4 turns. The whole platoon is then tested and the result is that the whole platoon is Shaken for 1 turn, but that doesn’t over-ride the individual squads’ tests. This means the troops who count most are pinned down for a long time while the rest of the platoon is only temporarily hitting the dirt.

All Soviet Morale is fine (as is usual).

Both my mortars and his artillery fail to add to the carnage. Here’s what Third Platoon now looked like on the board: . A few individual teams plus the mortar section.

TURN THREE: I mused aloud my strategy for this new turn – Peter kindly reminded me that the M3’s had HMGs (heavy machine-guns) on them – thus I decided that Platoons 1 and 2 would stay put and wait for the Soviets to come to them…they wouldn’t leave their positions to try to assist the remnants of 3rd Platoon. 3rd Platoon commenced its forced Withdraw but more teams are gunned down, including one of the two mortar teams.

I had to test Morale again for these latest deaths and it was going to be even more important I succeed, because a whole platoon of mine had now been  destroyed. I roll a 4 – the whole company is Shaken. Normally, I would botch this more dramatically – but Peter confirmed that once his AFVs come within 40cm of my troops, they would Flee. Since that would be next turn, it was Game Over at the end of Turn Three.

I did better this time – but should’ve purchased a FAO for my mortar section prior to the game. Silly oversight on my part. Overall, I’m improving.

Second game for 2009 – scary, I know!

Two fridays back Peter and I had our second game for the year. Last year so many events worked against us playing – we only had three games for the year…and so far it’s been a game a month (effectively). Yay!

Since we had an armoured slugfest last time, we decided to revisit the infantry-vs-infantry style of game that we had enjoyed last year.  In fact, it even ended up being infantry and artillery only – no armour or SPGs at all (although if fellow club members could’ve loaned me six Wespes, I woulda gone for some mobile artillery too). I had a few vehicles – some Opel Blitzes and two 251/1Cs, but none were meant to be used in the attack. It was just going to be my Infantry company with some Offboard Artillery against whatever Peter had points for.

Let me detail the agreements made pre-game. This was to be a Quality German Attack – so whatever Point Value (PV) total I had, Peter would have half that for his forces. We agreed on No Vehicles (meaning no tanks or SPGs that were also tank destroyers). We agreed on each having Offboard Artillery. I ended up with approximately 2200 PV, so Peter had to take half that. In Panzerfaust: Iron Fist, German forces are expensive because most troops have good experience and Morale by default. Peter may have had only 1100 points to build his army with, but I knew he would end up with at least an Infantry Company plus some Offboard Artillery because Soviet troops are so cheap. Whatever else he was able to afford would prove interesting and challenging.

Here’s the map/board for the night:

The idea was for the terrain to represent a village or hamlet in a valley. Thusly I placed as many hills and elevated ground around the edges of the board as I could. The village was just four buildings, with a pond in between two of them…it represented a clean source of drinking water (maybe a large well or natural spring). Some good-sized fields of crops and an obligatory apple orchard on the edge of town…apples were a popular crop back in Russia and the Eastern Front in general…and it’s easier to buy the pre-made trees or components to make apple trees than to try and do something more exotic like cherry trees (and not Japanese cherry trees, or poor old Anton Chekhov would really be rolling in his grave). Some copses of trees on the town outskirts and some trees on the hills too.

Preparation: a Light, Westerly wind was rolled. My troops were coming in from the Western side of the board. The Objective that I had to reach in 10 turns was the road in between the four buildings.

Turn One – my forces came on board safely, in the Northwest, travelling Southeast. My 150mm Offboard Artillery was aimed at the nearest edge of the nearest house to my forces. Before I began rolling, Peter said he had deployed badly – but when he heard I had 150mm artillery, he said it would be a quick game! (He even suggested post-game that if I had selected only 105mm artillery, then I would’ve had much more trouble breaking his troops’ Morale).

I had two pairs of 15omm guns. I rolled two hits and two misses – killing a Soviet platoon HQ base and squad straight off. A good opening for me!

Turn Two:  Now I could see some of the defenders,  right in the outer edges of the fields, closest to me. Peter had opted for an aggressive defence and deployed accordingly.  He had mortars – they rained down fire on my Company HQ as it was moving down to its intended position. The Russians opened up on my infantry with MMGs, LMGs and rifles  for a fierce 46 Fire Factors at 25cm range. He rolled a 6 to get +1, but then suffered -2 for being Conscript troops. So, in conclusion he was -1 at 40cm…I lost 7 bases, which I spread out amongst the squads. I had to test Morale for 4 squads…the overall platoon was fine but some squads were Shaken, so they hit the deck and were just going to fire back.

My 3rd Platoon also came under heavy fire, losing the Platoon HQ. I rolled a 6…-5 left me with a final result of 1…that platoon was Shaken. They also were going to stay still and just shoot back, too.

My Artillery now came down. Even though I rolled shockingly, I still wiped out all the troops concealed inside the building, forcing Peter to test Morale.

The Germans returned rifle & LMG fire, killing a Russian MMG and some grunts. The killing of the MMG was due to Peter determining that my German LMGs could target the MMG, with leftover factors carrying over onto the surrounding bases as “splash damage”. This is an unofficial decision that worked well and will need codifying somewhere…stay tuned.

The nearest platoon of Russians have had enough and began to Retreat – the first time I’ve ever got Peter to retreat! Still, the Russian Company as a whole rolls 3 Morale, so they are OK…just.

The Russian mortars come down again on my Company HQ and softskins – killing my Company HQ. For once, I roll well in testing the Company Morale in a crisis – and get 8, leading to a final result of 1. We are Shaken for a turn but still in the game.

Turn Three – No more advancing for me – I’m Shaken so can only stay still and fire back. I disembark the four 120mm Battalian Support mortars out of the surving Opel Blitzes – they can fire on Turn Five. The 251/1C in front of the Opel Blitzes that I was using to make a FAO mobile  kills off some Russians with its LMG, so the other Russian bases near it surrender to me.

One of Peter’s platoons continued its retreat but sadly for them they ran into my 150mm Artillery Barrage and were all killed.

Turn Four – I can move again! I had set up my company 81mm support mortars last turn and they could now fire. They missed. His mortars killed off a LMG base attached to my Company HQ teams.

Turn Five – I decided to change my Offboard Artillery fire from Pre-determined as I wanted to silence his mortars and so I had to roll to Call Down my Artillery onto a new target. I succeeded and silenced one of the Russian mortars, but his Mortars hit my 120mm Mortars whom are forced to flee off the table (they were right next to it).

I roll my Company Morale again – a 3 – leading to a Retreat. Game Over. I was so close this time to forcing him into a Retreat and winning…arghhhhh.

Here’s a photo of the FAO in the 251/1C directly fighting Russian infantry:

This time I had remembered everything.  Smokescreens, the lot.  It was him hitting my Company HQ so early on that prevented me winning…I must place them somewhere safer, not on a wing, and certainly not let them start high on a hill where they can be seen and mortared!

First game for 2009

A fortnight back, Peter and I went to NWA for a game of Panzerfaust: Iron Fist. Here’s what happened:

First thing was to set up a map for an Encounter scenario. The map agreed upon was thus:

Just a road with some hills, copses, a burnt-out forest (impassible terrain for vehicles – see earlier posts for its construction) some thickets and good grassland. A roll of the dice resulted in there being No Wind for the duration of the game. I asked that we play lengthways, rather than the traditional widthways. Since I was fielding Jagdpanthers, Peter agreed to this…even so, there was some concern that it might take too many rounds before enough tanks were in effective range to decide the outcome of the game.

I was playing with 5345 Points Value (much higher than normal) – 4 Jagdpanthers, 6 Tiger Is, 4 StuGs – that comprised one ad-hoc company. Peter had three tank companies.

TURN ONE: The objective was to reach the exact centre of the board.

Peter reckons he’s stumped about deployment, but I’m not. Any plan is better than no plan! My Tigers will take the left flank, the Jagdpanthers the copse on the right flank, and the StuGs will hold the middle (but just hold it…they can’t expect to kill much).

The StuGs and Jagdpanthers advanced to or through woods, depending on their proximity to same  . The Tigers stayed in the woods and opened fire on the IS-2s that appeared opposite them. There was one hit but it bounced off an IS-2 hull.

TURN TWO: I continued to cautiously move the StuGs and Jagdpanthers forward. Another Tiger scored a hit but to no effect. The Russians moved the bulk of their threatened IS-2s to hull-down positions while three returned fire, knocking out Tiger #22. I tested Morale – all OK.

TURN THREE: Now I aggressively pushed my StuGs and Jagdpanthers forward, trying to get them into optimum firing positions. The Tigers moved cautiously. A company of T-34-85s now made their presence known, emerging from behind a wood. The IS-2s hit a second Tiger, destroying its main gun (the mighty 88mm). To protect his comrades, that Tiger laid down a smokescreen with his smoke launchers.

TURN FOUR: The Jagdpanthers finally reached their firing position, from where they could gain a little concealment and kill the ISU-152s opposite them. The StuGs knew they had to fire a smokescreen to block the LOS (line of sight) of the ISU-152s, so they swivelled and loaded smoke shells. The Tigers moved to a better position to try to deal with the superior IS-2s. An ISU-152 killed a StuG, but the remaining StuGs successfully laid down a smokescreen .

TURN FIVE: Battle was now truly joined. Both sides manouvered extensively, jockeying for position.

The ISU-152s and Jagdpanthers opened up on eachother, with one Jagdpanther lost for two knocked-out ISU-152s. A second Jagdpanther was tracked. The Russian Morale Check was passed OK.

The StuG platoon command vehicle was immobilised. This was bad, but there was no need for me to test the whole platoon’s Morale, just that of the command vehicle itself.

TURN SIX: The Jagdpanthers swivelled to shoot up IS-2s and T-34-85s . StuGs that could advance did so and the Tigers stayed obscured by trees while they advanced.

The Jagdpanthers then experienced a savage exchange – two more were lost, including the platoon command vehicle. I checked the survivors’ Morale – Shaken. I tested the whole Company – OK.

TURN SEVEN: With more IS-2s killed, the Tigers came back into the action. My lone Jagdpanther was Shaken – so he simply held his position and fired, since he was not being forced to flee or surrender. He killed a T-34-85 platoon command vehicle , and that platoon became Shaken. Trying to get revenge, the T-34-85s returned fire and hit the Jagdpanther, but to no effect.

The Stalins killed another Tiger, but I rolled a strong Morale check of 11 – Fine! I was still in the game!

TURN EIGHT: Where the T-34-85s failed in killing that lone operational Jagdpanther, the ISU-152s succeeded. I tested my whole Company – a 9 – Fine. Then the IS-2s killed my Company Command Tiger – and that was the end of the game.

RESULTS Not only did the Russians put a lot of my vehicles out of action, they got closer to the objective than I did. I got to see the killing power of IS-2s, ISU-152s and Jagdpanthers in action…those Jagdpanthers are deadly, even at long range.

I was disappointed by my Tigers vs. those IS-2s…but this was a historical outcome, the Tiger was outclassed and outgunned by the IS-2, even the early IS-2s.

Tip for the game? Use my smokescreens earlier!

All photos are over at my Flickr account.

Out of the blue

Soooo…I was going to start assembly of the second Horch 108 yesterday, knowing that I was going to have to find a replacement arm to support the AA gun. I was hoping to kitbash one out of spare styrene sheet carefully cut and carved with a scalpel or by cutting and carving a suitable piece off old sprues from other kits (don’t ever through them out, folks!). I glued on a few pieces for the undercarriage and then prepared to do the axles – only to find one of the two axle covers was missing.

I spent a full fifteen minutes looking everywhere. Nope. Gone. No idea where, either. I could’ve sworn I had it when I begun assembly of the first Horch 108.

I even cut open and searched through the vacuum cleaner bag…not there. There were screws, bits of dried polyfiller, dead insects and a curtain rod end, but nothing resembling either missing piece from this kit. Damn.

It doesn’t feel right to assemble a kit without such an important part, even when it won’t be visible during play…so I’ve put that kit away. Hopefully I can pick up an unwanted kit at a swap n’ sell and combine the two to make a perfect kit.

I still need a second AA vehicle. Last year’s IPMS Swap n’ sell at Ashburton saw me purchase a Sd.Kfz. 7/1 20mm AA vehicle. It’s a Revell kit, but the comments over at On the Way! simply state the following: “Re-boxing of Hasegawa’s fairly poor kit. Vinyl tracks.”

Yesterday I washed and dried the sprues. Today I undercoated them with the intention to commence assembly tonight. Looks like it should be a quick kit to assemble. It should do the job as a second AA vehicle for Panzerfaust, too – given so many of our games involve ad-hoc German companies! On Friday night Peter and I had our first game for this year – more of that in other post.

Something new to buy for later – reviewed by seasoned professionals, too

Italeri should soon be releasing 1/72 scale WW2 German motorcyclists (kit #6121).  I’ve been toying (pardon the pun) with getting some recon cycles for a while. The wonderful Plastic Soldier Review has a comprehensive review of this new product, which you can read here. If you’ve never heard of Plastic Soldier Review, then get over there and start reading now – they cover all 1:72 scale figures, from all periods – prehistory to today.

I’m particularly happy that “…these are very much better models than the Armourfast equivalents…” (you can read the reviews of Armourfast’s offerings here and here), because that was my only option if I wanted to do up a recon platoon or even company for Panzerfaust!