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.

 

 

A Kubelwagen, a 251/22, a 263 and a 234/3 walk into a bar…

Tankograd had four more come off the production line. Here they are:

From left to right: a Hasegawa Sd. Kfz. 251/22, a Hasegawa Sd. Kfz. 234/3, a Hasegawa Kubelwagen and lastly a Roden Sd. Kfz. 263. The Kubelwagen comes from the Hasegawa ‘Kubelwagen & BMW Side-car’ kit (MT-12) – the rest are stand-alone kits.

The 251/22 was a great kit to complete. The only trouble I had was with assembling the mount for the PaK 40 anti-tank gun. I included a loader holding a PaK 40 shell – he comes from the Italeri “PaK 40 AT gun with servants” kit. The PaK 40 shell is tipped in black – designating it as an AP shell.

The 234/3 was straightforward and lots of fun. Nearly all my comments about the Hasegawa 234/2 apply to it. I included a loader for it too, another figure from the Italeri “PaK 40 AT gun with servants” kit. That particular figure is sitting down andjusting the gun elevation, so he is molded with an elevation wheel in his left hand. I cut it out and glued a PaK 38 shell there in its place – the shell being surplus from the Roden PaK 38 kits I did some time ago. That shell was tipped with white, designating it as HE.

The Kubelwagen was problematic. I painted up the driver seperate to the rest of the vehicle – and then couldn’t fit him into place once he was finished. The steering wheel had to be removed; the machine gun mount and machine gun mount supports had to be re-done (and new supports kitbashed from leftover parts from old sprues). I learned my lesson – glue any drivers into place first and then paint, which is what I’m doing with the ICM Krupp truck.

The Roden 263 wasn’t too hard. I think their decals didn’t work so well for this kit. The large aerial overhead frame was fiddly but turned out OK. There was also a bit of flash on the sprues that needed some careful scalpel-work.

The Kubelwagen and the 263 got standard Dark Grey with heavy dust coats, for the start of “Barbarossa”: 

The 251/22 got my first attempt at a ‘ambush’ paint scheme. I gave it the same paint scheme as per the notes in my Jagdpanzer 38 “Hetzer” book by MBI. Sure, it’s a little bit stylised, but I love it! The 234/3 got a simple disruptive pattern in Citadel’s Goblin Green. I went and added some foliage – Woodland Scenics’ lichen.

So, just gotta get them bikers done and the Recon game can happen…

Trying to make my own Citadel Black Ink

Having found an original bottle of Citadel Black Ink at a sale, I decided that using a little of it in order to make my own ink was an urgent task. I’ve written earlier about Citadel changing their inks. I’m not impressed with their decision to only sell very-watered down inks – you can water down a stronger product but you can’t make a weaker product stronger!

Using some of my recently acquired, now extremely precious Black Ink, I made a colour card to compare it to their new ink called Radab Black. Here’s the colour card:The difference is very noticeable – you can see how much lighter Radab Black is. Very watered down.

Now, I like a mix of about 50% original Black Ink and 50% water for the inking that I do around the hatches of AFVs…the hatch becomes nicely shaded and the vehicle looks much more three-dimensional (as well as more realistic!).

I used 50% Chaos Black paint and 50% water to try to make Citadel Black Ink. As you can can see from that colour card, 50% paint watered down was too strong. It seemed logical to try a mix half that strength, 25% Chaos Black paint and 75% water, as you can see on that same card. I felt that I was getting closer to the original product, but was still not there quite yet.

I then went right down to a ratio of  (about) 1 part paint to 5 parts water, or about 15%. This was pretty good, as you can see: but 20% Chaos Black to 80% water is what I’ll comfortably call Citadel Black Ink.

I have sealed the original Black Ink bottle with cellotape and made sure the cap was very tightly screwed on. I did the same with the original brown inks I have. Making my own versions of the brown inks is a task that can wait a little while, as I have two bottles of each so there’s less urgency to do so. I did make a point of sealing them and making sure their caps were extremely tightly screwed on. I may even keep all these in the fridge during the upcoming summer.

As for AFVs – at a different sale I bought a Roden Sd.Kfz. 263. Assembling the wheels (see stage 1 on the assembly instructions Henk has on his website) has been unnecessarily difficult. Each wheel has it’s own axle – and trying to get those axles to sit properly while glueing everything led to me stuffing one up horribly. All I could do was cut all of it away, drill new holes for everything and use some brass rod (secured with Flash Cyanoacrylate glue) as a substitute. It worked much better! Why didn’t they just do one axle, moulded on an angle, for two wheels?! Hasegawa have made assembling thier wheels and axles into a pleasure, why can’t Roden?? I’m not sure if I’llbuy any of thier 232s if it’s going to so annoying…

Apart from this grizzle, the rest of the kit has been easy. It looks OK…I feel some of the surface detail could have been raised a little more off the surface to make it more distinct – I guess I’ll see if I’m right about that whenI come to paint it.

MAC Distribution Horch 108 (Kfz. 70) – very initial thoughts

Last year I ordered two of MAC Distribution’s 1:72 scale Horch 108 (Kfz. 70) AA heavy cars. Late last year I even washed the sprues in hotwater with detergent, carefully sun-dried them and then undercoated them with Chaos Black spraypaint. February 16 this year – I’ve cut the first pieces from the sprues and begun glueing.

I didn’t get very far due to 1) other hobby commitments and 2) because of the assembly sheet / instructions.The assembly sheet / instructions could be much clearer.

First of all, there is only one angle of perspective given – and the arrows showing where some pieces go are not very clear. A smaller inset diagram showing where the pieces should go from a different perspective would help dispel an uncertain modeller’s fears. Secondly, the sprues themselves have nothing indicating which piece is which. Manufacturers like Revell and Airfix always have little numbers next to each piece on the sprue. Thirdly, and compounding the second difficulty, the same numbering scheme is given twice across three sets of sprues! This means that if you don’t keep looking at the diagram of the four sprues and its key of which piece has which number, you could well be about to glue an ammo magazine on where you are meant to be glueing on a footplate (as I nearly did) – since both pieces are number 20.

Manufacturers like UM have a different letter for each unique sprue and progressive, non-repeating numbering system for each part, as does Roden. Revell just has a progressive, non-repeating numbering system for each part. Because MAC doesn’t, I spent a lot of time flicking back and forward between the diagram of the four sprues and then checking the shape and suitability of which piece I’m about to cut off the sprue and that they match the appearance of the piece in the assembly picture. Gah! I’ll photocopy off that diagram of the sprues, so I don’t have to keep flicking forward and backward.

Two last things – fantastic intricate details on some pieces! Really great quality there! However, excess flash from moulding arms is a bit of a problem on two pieces – as one piece had a “stump” that I thought I might need. In the end, I cut it off as it was for the undercarriage of the vehicle and no-one would see it in gaming if I’d stuffed up. But – I had intended to assemble both cars simultaneously so I could get them finished as a project more quickly. Had to kibosh that idea – I’m completely assembling one car first, then the other.

The saggy baggy Jagdpanther

Well, they may be 1/76 scale, but these Revell Jagdpanthers (originally Matchbox) come up looking the part.

This post will address two things, as follows:

1) These kits come with two jerrycans that are glued onto the starboard side of the Jagdpanther. The racks forward on the superstructure, where pioneering equipment was stored, are all empty. This clashes with all the other kits I’ve assembled or are assembling, where there are plenty of items of stowage or pioneering tools. There is a mallet on the rear plate, but nothing else.

Now, wisely I have retained leftovers from previous kits, so I’ve added plenty of extras to make these tank destroyers look like working units and not museum pieces. From the Roden Opel Blitz kits, I saved a rolled up tarpaulin. One got that. From the UM Marder IIIs, I saved spare picks and shovels. From the Italeri StuG III, I saved buckets. Picks and shovels were divided up and glued on different sides of different units. now they look like working vehicles! The moral of this is: always save unused materials, especially stowage. You’ll want them for kits that don’t have enough (or any at all).

2) Bad track sag – I mentioned that I’ve come to realise that the track sag I did with the first kit matched the track sag of a Tiger…but when I checked my sources, didn’t match a Jagdpanther’s track sag at all. For example, have a look at these historical photos. As you see, the historical evidence shows that the sag is more like a bow – the first vehicle I did looks like the tracks are much looser, so loose that they are lying on top of the return rollers.

Now, to get more accurate sag (using these horrible soft vinyl tracks that can’t do a proper job anyway) some more careful glueing was going to be involved. Two months ago, my household decided to retire all its old chopsticks and use freshly-purchased uniform ones from China. I saved all the old chopsticks for use with my hobbies. So, I cut them up, split them, broke them into little pieces, etc.  Then, wedging them in at the right places after shaping them, I achieved better sag with the remaining three. The moral of this is: always check historical sources first before assembly.

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The Tigers are moving forward slowly because I’m painting the stowed pioneering tools and all the other little fiddly bits. Procrastination strikes, too. As Summer is just two weeks away, I have to get a wriggle on, or it’ll get too hot to do much hobby work done.

A pleasure to be in Tankoberg

Even though it’s been spread over a week, it’s only taken about two hours to assemble a Jagdpanther. Now, the particular kit I’ve assembled is Revell kit #3152, “Jagdpanther & Deutsche Infantrie”. Although the box says that all the contents are 1:72 scale, the Jagdpanther is actually 1:76 scale. As Henk of Holland and On the Way! both state, many of these “Kombi-packs” of vehicles and soldiers contain 1:72 scale Revell soldiers but 1:76 scale Matchbox vehicles – kit #3152 being one of them.

I bought two of the Jagdpanther kombi-packs earlier this year and decided to buy two more, to make a platoon of four Jagdpanthers and also because I intend to use all the soldiers for a company of Panzergrenadiers. I decided to commence work on the Jagdpanthers now as a sort of flow-on from the most recent game of Panzerfaust: Iron Fist I played, so that rather than always playing early and mid War, Peter and I could play late War, when the Eastern Front reversed and moved back across Eastern Europe to Berlin.  I want to see those mighty tank destroyers up against some IS-2s.

Having undertaken my usual preparations of washing the sprues in hot water with some dishwashing liquid in it; thoroughly air-drying the sprues and finally undercoating them with Chaos Black, I began assembly and soon realised I was nearly done in only an hour. In fact, waiting for the glue to dry on the wheels was the longest part. Why?

Well, this kit has one-piece vinyl tracks. Yes, those old-fashioned, horrible soft vinyl tracks that harden and crack after a few years (less if left in the heat). Yes, they are too short to actually fit around the wheels of this kit (believe me, I tried). But if you can stand to put the vinyl tracks on and live with the gap by not trying to make the tracks into one loop (like I was forced to with Roden’s Opel Maultiers), then you get great track sag and quick assembly.

Anyway, it meant that last sunday I had to put all work on the first one on hold as I’d run out of Desert Yellow to begin working on it’s paint scheme!

It’s been a pleasant week, working on this kit. A lot of the detail is permanently fixed on the hull due to the mould, but it’s good detail and should paint up well. Tonight I was working through the Doug Chaltry track-painting technique. Tomorrow I commence work on more modular scenery (including working with another water product) and an AA vehicle!

A panzerfaust in any other colour…will still have the same effect in-game

The bases of teams with panzerfausts for that Infantry company are now up to the basing and flocking stage. I spent a fair bit of time and inconclusive researching trying to determine what was the factory colour for panzerfausts. The photo evidence of panzerfausts delivered by the Wehrmacht but unused showed them to either be a green that I had not previously sighted anywhere in use, or a sort of off-white / beige. I decided to select Citadel’s Cammo Green for my panzerfausts, feeling that it was distinct enough and not wanting to try to make a blend to match a colour photo taken with a weak flash in a dark room. So, my panzerfaust teams will look like this:

That’s good enough.

The first of my StuG III’s by Italeri have come off the assembly line and are complete.

I’m doing some minor kitbashing to modify and enhance them.  Have a look at this photo:

On the back, I used leftover parts from the Roden Opel Maultiers and Opel Blitzes to make an equipment frame for the crew’s gear. This was a common field modification and some were even added in the factory. Panzer Grenadiers also found them useful as handholds when riding on the back. They were simple bits of metal welded into a crude frame.

Using leftover brass wire from the ACE PaK 38’s and my fine hand screwdriver, I added the aerial. I also wanted the vehicle to look battle-hardened, so I used my scalpels and files to remove the first plate of the left-hand-side schurzen. Schurzen plates were often lost from enemy fire or were snagged and ripped off when moving through rough scrub and rough terrain.

Lastly, I didn’t want this vehicle to have an autumn of spring look (mud everywhere), so I went for a high summer look and liberally coated it with dust. The effect is quite good. Careful observers will notice I painted in some sides of the track links being used as extra armour…again, another field modification by some crews.

I like this Italeri kit. Yes, it’s been simplified and doesn’t allow much modification but turns into a fine kit with a little extra work and love.

Nice houses, Fujimi – thanks!

The birthday presents are complete, Dullcoted and ready for a game. They are quick to assemble and come out looking great. Judge for yourself:

So, thanks Fujimi, you make some nice, cheap but great-looking terrain pieces. I know that you aren’t the scale I’ve chosen, but for these, I’ll make an exception. Each house almost holds two bases of Panzerfaust: Iron Fist infantry!

As well as some some straight Citadel colours, there was some blending going on, with a number of bricks individually picked out and also careful drybrushing. I have not glued the roofs on – that way they came be quickly removed and infantry bases placed there instead.

It’s been a productive weekend, because the Opel Maultiers were Dullcoted and put away at the same time as the houses. Having purchased some reference material, I’ve been kitbashing and modding the Italeri StuG IIIG that has been sitting alongside the houses. Just a couple of hours ago, the Revell Tigers began construction. Tankoberg, go!

Opel Maultier Winter camouflage schemes are completed

So, there they are. The left and middle vehicles have a more ‘typical’ scheme (if such a thing can be said), whitewashed wavy lines representing tree trunks and limbs to help break up the blocky outline.

The right vehicle is more of an experiment. In gathering online information for the Soviet forces I’ve acquired, I came across this Soviet Winter camouflage pattern. You can see a very similar paint scheme on the same type of vehicle (a SU-76) in the Bovington Museum collection in Britain. I also have, in one of my reference books*, the following colour plate:

and the camouflage scheme in that plate is described as an “unusual” camouflage pattern for Soviet forces (even in 1945).

I began painting that camouflage scheme on the Maultier before re-consulting these two sources, so it came from my “mind’s eye”. I think it looks good, if perhaps a little too uniform…it should have been more random, with more bunches of spots and bent or angled lines as well as short, straight ones, like you’ll see at the Bovington SU-76. Oh well, too late now.

* Zaloga, SJ, Kinnear, J, Aksenov, A & Koshchavtaev, A 2002, Stalin’s
heavy tanks 1941-1945: the KV and IS heavy tanks, Concord, Hong Kong.

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Trey Partin has a new stop-motion film up, this time using 54mm miniatures…

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Been having a play with VuFind at work. It’s a step towards seamless, one-stop-shop search and retrieve. It’s feature that lets a user search by tags is a good innovation, but how does someone affix a tag to an item, and are tags controlled or edited by the library? Otherwise someone may just put lots of obscenities as tags…did I just give anyone ideas?!

(One quibble about the demo – I didn’t like the fact that so few items have been tagged. If you do a search and that search word hasn’t been used as a tag yet, then you get all items returned as having that tag, with a tiny note saying that tag doesn’t exist. Shouldn’t it just return zero results?)

Here in the National Library up in Canberra, they’ve implemented VuFind. Comparing the old catalogue (still in action) to the new, 1) being able to narrow a search and 2) checking your search history, are very helpful. Commercial databases allow these, so should all OPACs. Search by…Occupation is unusual – but obviously useful to certain institutions.

Examining one result about prisoners in Changi, I was offered a link to go examine LibraryThing! I’ve commented last year on LibraryThing. While searching for material about the European theatre of the War, the results returned (about Polish memories) brought up the option to assign an RSS Feed to this search.

Some valid tools for my work.

A completed piece of wargaming terrain and a snapshot of Winter camouflage for the Opel Maultiers

Two things to cover in this post – A) the thicket that I made using sheet styrene, lichen, talus and flock are finished, and B) I’ve got enough fiddly stuff done on the Maultiers to begin the winter/snow camouflage pattern on them.

Here’s a photo of the thicket in play but without a unit in it/entering it:

and now a photo of the thicket with a Marder III(h) moving through it:

As you can see, when something moves into, across or is revealed to be hidden in the terrain, simply lift off the beautifully made modular piece and there is still the template or base below (as you can see, painted to exactly replicate the bushes and rocks above it) so all know that it is abnormal terrain.

Because this is a small piece (about 5 inches by 3 inches), I only made the top in halves. Previous projects have involved the terrain piece being cut into thirds or fifths (the one into fifths was for 28mm fantasy wargaming).

However, you get beautiful terrain which never gets damaged in play.

On to the Maultier – I’ve opted for a hasty, streaked pattern (deliberately not going over the GrossDeutschland stahlhelm on the cabin doors). I won’t even give the pattern a second coat…I want it to lookquickly done with watered-down whitewash. I’ll do the tray sides and rear plus completely do the tarpaulin.

Oh, and those Caesar Panzergrenadiers have arrived! Overall, a good set of figures. Full review to come very soon.