WW1 Oddities and Some SCW

I've been finishing off some odds and ends over the last few days. First up, some unusual French WW1 aircraft.

The big one is a Caudron G.4, an odd aircraft characterised by its enormous engines relative to the fuselage. I did this one in RNAS colours as (at the time of painting) I was fresh out of French roundels, and now that I have a new consignment from Dom's Decals it may get a change of ownership, but for now it gives my RNAS Tripes something to escort.

The smaller one is a Spad A.2. Even more of an oddity, this one is "mid engined" (but is no hot sports car). Instead, this was an attempt to solve the same gunnery problem that the British "pushers" managed, but solved by putting a gunner in a pod ahead of the engine (!). This is a lovely little model, to which I only added the guide rail for the nose gun (and a couple of pilot/gunner figures). 

I think if I was doing this one again I'd cut off the propeller and replace it an an angle, or replace it with a clear plastic disc to show off the real oddity of this aircraft. Otherwise its one of those things where you need to know what you are looking at to know what you are looking at, if you know what I mean :)

On the SCW front, some transport for my irregular units. On the left is an Ertl traction engine from the "Thomas the Tank Engine" series of toys (for those of a nervous disposition, I didn't file off his face; it is still there, hiding behind a disc of card. OK kids? move on). Now I don't know if they had traction engines like this in Spain, but I'm sure someone in the UK may have exported a few, and if not it will always do for my "imagi-nation" extension to the period.

The blue "technical" is a Zvezda ZIS-5 truck, augmented into a semi-armoured personnel carrier through the addition of card armour over the radiator, door sides and the cargo space. The cab windows are covered by brass mesh offcuts which I'm using for another project. 

Finally, a 1/600 Thoroughbred model of CSS Chicora, one of the Charleston squadron. The ship is often described as being painted pale blue, so I thought this would make an interetsing change from the normal black or light grey. 

A decent model and I don't really think the pictures do her justice. Now, the ACW is off my "to do" list for the year, but this model plus an impulse purchase (infrastructure rather than models or figures) might see this change in the next few weeks......

Anyway, currently on the workbench are some naval projects. More on these later :)