Pansarbil 405

 Last week a kind person posted a picture of a Swedish-built Pansarbil 405 armoured car on the "AK47" Facebook group. Its an unusual looking vehicle and I decided I needed something like that for my AK47 armies but there didn't seem to be any 15mm models of STL files around, so I made my own :)

The original

The 15mm version 

It was a fun model to create. I'm thinking of putting it up on my Wargaming3D page when I'm completely happy with it.

A Binding Resolution*

 I've not posted much recently but I've been busy. apart from a load of new ships for "Those Who Seek Death" I've printed off some badly-needed APC support for the UN troops in my AK47 collection. The first are a trio of Dutch YP-408s, a vehicle I've always liked - it would look fine in a science fiction film (and I might indeed print a few more for my 15mm sci fi collection).  The model is from the prolific Mike Bergman on Thingiverse.

The others are a trio of Swedish "White Elephant" M42 by RobC1956, again on Thingiverse. These are used in the Congo during the civil war so they'll go nicely with the Katangan M8s I worked on recently. I have another three printed which will end up in the ONU camouflage scheme used on combat operations (more M8s needed, this time for the UN, and some M3 Scout Cars too)

 

*Whenever I hear about the UN I am reminded of Tom Cruise's best role as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder. Go on Youtube to see what I mean.....

 

Oh no, its the AK47 Rozzers

 Whilst working on a project that needed some background info on Marmon Herrington armoured cars I came across a piece describing how a few were adapted for use by the Rhodesian and South African police after WW2. Of course this got me thinking about AK47 games and 3D modelling proved to be the answer again as I had some of Mike Bergman's excellent 1/100 models on file. 

After a bit of playing around in MS 3D Builder I had this:

And a couple of hours later the printer had thrown out these:

The only thing I was unsure about was whether the top of the cupola was closed or open. I went for closed but on reflection that probably wasn't correct. But if so its not a big job to amend the 3D model and print some more.

Something a bit different for our next AK47 games at Berkeley Vale, assuming we ever get to play again!

SADF Completed At last!

Many years ago, QRF released a rather nice collection of modern South African armoured vehicles. I had always been rather fond of the Ratel series of wheeled MICVs and, being an AK47 player these seemed like a natural thing to get. I also got a few Casspir APCs, some and some Buffels. When I git them home from whatever show I went to I had a look and crikey those Casspirs looked like a nightmare to build!I put them in a box to think about later......

Now, many years later they are done. I a extremely pleased a how they have turned out and if the world wasn't closed right now I'd be quite keen to get a game of AK47 up and running so they could have a day out. The QRF models have been joined by a G6 Rhino SPG which I found on Thingiverse. Not in the photos are a trio of 3D printed Staghounds (I didn't realise they still used them into the late 1970s at least) and a trio of Peter Pig Centurions which are filling in as Oliphants.

Photon Phun

You could be forgiven for thinking that a lack of posts here suggests I've not been up to much recently. Au contraire, I have been extremely busy, Laura headed off to New Zealand for a gap half year last month so I've been up to my eyeballs in horse care and looking after the alpacas, but in the margins I've been giving the Photon a good thrashing. Here's some of the items I've printed off in the last few weeks:

First up, a series of Napoleonic naval fortifications. The release of Black Seas has prompted the 3D modelling community to  deploy their expertise. There are a number of ships available to download, but the things that caught my eye were a couple of martello towers and a sea fort, the Chateau de Taureau. All are lovely renders of the originals and print up nicely. I printed a set martellos in 1/450 to fit in with my Peter Pig small ships of the same nominal scale.

The sea fort didn't print too well as one end detached from the print bed. However, the upperworks of the fort were fair and since the fort is supposed to sit o its own island I decided to fill in the missing area with some miliput "rocks". 

Of course the joy of 3D modelling is that you can rescale your models to print at just about any size, so I printed off soem examples in 1/1200 and also in 1/2400 to fit in with my Fleet Action collection.

Another set of models I found were the lovely 1/200 WW1 collection by Mike Bergmann on Thingiverse. One of my plans for 2020 is to resurrect my 1/300 WW1 Western and Eastern Front games, probably using Bloody Big Battles. So I decided to do some test prints of the 1/200 models scaled down to 1/300.I was not disappointed.......

This is just a small selection of the models in Mike's WW1 collection. The detail is lovely and they come up a treat on the Photon.

Finally for this post, a rather nice set of "Technicals" for my AK47 games. I've been after some alternatives to the Peter Pig Toyota Hilux. The Land Cruiser I printed out a few montsh ago (with the Tetrarch and Alecto) is a nice addition, but these really fit the bill.

These are from two sets of files on Thingiverse. The first is a collection of "tin cab" 4x4s, in basic, cut-down and "uparmoured" versions. The file set also contains a variety of weapons to fit into the flat beds, including a rather nice ZPU-2. The second is a rendering of the infamous "4x4 with BMP turret" seen during the Libyan Civil War. Again, this was on my "must do" list. A few hours after finding the files my African warlords are in possession of some nifty self propelled firepower :)

Thats it for now. I have many, many more models to share with you dear readers, but they will have to wait for now.......

T55s

Sometime around the middle of 2017 I bought one of the first boxes of PSC 15mm T55s on a pre-order. They arrived early, I built the first two, then they sat in a box as other projects overtook them. They have become the first models that I've completed in 2018 :)

The PSC model allows you to make a basic T55, T55A or a T55M. I was intending to use mine with my AK47 collection and thus be typical of types seen in Africa, with various mods, mudflaps missing etc. (I saw a few like this in Eritrea in March and, as an aside, one enterprising householder who had build the front wall of his garden entirely out of T55 main road wheels!). So I kind of followed the instructions - but not completely.

The results are, I think, extremely pleasing. I am a big fan of PSC's ranges and these are well up there in terms of quality and ease of build. They also seem to paint up rather nicely too.

The Plan – 2014

Having reviewed progress in 2013 yesterday, today I set out my plan for 2014. As a cursory look at the last 2 years will show I achieve between 50% and 75% of my objectives so I am confident I will be reporting a similar ration of success and “deferred success” in 364 days time J

1 – 15mm Colonial. Sort out those blasted Bashi Basouks and some river boats. Then look to see what we need extra (if anything) for the hinted-at Berkeley Vale campaign.

2 – Form Line of Battle. A surprise entry, but here because (a) I’ve remembered how much I love the rules and (b) Rodger at the club wants to give them a try. The plan here is to renovate the fleets and complete at least six ships from the “lead pile”

3 – Project X. Mysteriously referred to over the last 2 years, PX has three elements to it. I will complete at least 2 of them this year. You’ll know when I do J

4 – 1/600 Coastal. Resurrecting last year’s objective, I will renovate the existing fleets, finish any odd models that have yet to be completed, sort out soft copies of ship data cards and get some games in! A stretch target will be to do the same for my 1/1200 models.

5 – Armada Invencible. Another surprise entry, but 2014 should see the rules for this hit the streets. I have a couple of the ships already and it looks like my stock of old Airfix galleons might work with them at a pinch. The objective here is to get a copy, knock up small English and Spanish squadrons and try them out. And if they don’t work then an Armada variant of FLoB may be on the cards J

6 – Games. I’m well set up to run a number of games, including Wings of Glory, X Wing, Sails of Glory (of which more in the coming days I hope), War Rocket and a few others so the plan here is to get a number of games of each in. I’ll also try to run a one day campaign, maybe two. These may or may not be connected with Project X.

Inevitably there will be some mission creep. I can guess where the mission may creep to over the coming months (those 15mm Vikings would like a day out, as would my 7^th cavalry and Plains Wars Indians, and then there’s the “not the Spanish Civil War” stuff…..). So expect some variation.

However, one very firm target – NO NEW PERIODS!

And now to end, the first completed models of 2014 (which don’t fit in to objectives 1-6) – a pair of Zvezda 1/100 T-35s. They really are quite imposing! 

Loaches, Landing Craft and Little Friends

Many years ago I built up a sizeable collection of Peter Pig 15mm Vietnam figures, backed up by a load of Roco Minitanks vehicles and Revell Hueys. Of course, "Apocalypse Now" was a great influence, and I always wanted some Loaches to go with my Hueys. Some months ago Battlefront brought out a box set of two Loaches. Lovely models, they go together very quickly and easily, and come with a decent set of transfers (decals to you colonial types) and soe nice flying stands. They were quickly assembled, then languished in the painting pile until this weekend. As I discovered yesterday they are als a dream to paint up. And here they are.

 I'm very pleased at how these came out. But I now have a suspicion that 15mm Vietnam skirmish is about to find itself a higher position in "the plan"

I also finished off the LCM - a basic resin model with some additional bulwarks, a couple of gunners and a covered deck. I have another one of these - not sure what to do to soup that one up.

Finally I've finished off a couple of Siemens Schukhert D.IVs that I've had waiting to be painted for a little while. One painted in the colours of my altar ego, "The Black Hand", the other in a corn snake and purple scheme for Laura. a bit of fun.

Technicals

Like so many things the following is (in part) Steve Blease's fault. You see, he shared a picture on Facebook of a Libyan "technical" where some brave souls had stuck the turret from a BMP on a 4x4 (along with a park bench, or so it seemed - and I was also intrigued by the choice of football strip a modern day Arab revolutionary would wear, as well as the use of a machine gun as a pogo stick!)

anyway, Steve's throwaway comment was "one for the scratch builders" so I immediately had a go. I didn't have a BMP turret to hand but the following was knocked up in pretty short order...

Still some work to do, but a passable starting point for my AK-47 armies. But that got me thinking. We have recently bought a Toyota Hilux Twincab as a "tractor" for the girls' horse trailer and I was joking that we could put a replica HMG in the flat bed, dress up in random footie gear with sunglasses and arab headgear and go to wargames shows and re-enactment events as the Libyan Resistance Re-enactment Society. of course my brilliant idea was poo-poo'd, but I was still left thinking what out truck would look like as a "technical". So I whipped out a spare Peter Pig model, fashioned the extended cab out of Miliput, added the running boards and stuck a 107mm RCL in the back. And here's the result:

Again, not quite finished yet, and Liz wants me to add a horse trailer (presumably carrying ammo - and now that I recall there was an old matchbox horse trailer model that might fit the bill), but good enough and hopefully making an appearance at Berkeley vale soon.

btw, if anyone knows where I can get a cheap replica or decommissioned HMG.... :)

SCW (And Beyond) - Part 2

Today's completed items are some more bits and pieces for my 15mm SCW / "imagi-nation" collection. This time we have a maritime component, the police make an entry, and we've been working on the railroad :)

First up - the submarine. many years ago the kids were given a bath toy submarine. s luck would have it, the toy looked like it would make an ideal 15mm surfaced submarine when its lower hull was removed. and several years later, it came to pass. The toy was about to be thrown out and I salvaged it. It still took 2 years to get around to making the model though :)

The deck gun was made from an old Airfix 6pdr anti tank gun, trimmed and mounted upside down to mimic a 1920s 12pdr / 3" naval gun. Now that I've finished the model I'm thinking it may have been better to remove part of the "foot" in front of the conning tower and fin to make more room for the gun, but I think the result is reasonable (and now that its done I don't feel much like changing it).

Accompanying the boat is a small naval landing party, made up of Peter Pig U-Boat crew. This is a nice little set with riflemen, POs with SMGs and a couple of officers. I might see about adding an LMG team and a rubber boat or two to this group next year, but for now I think they'll do.

The railway subject of the next shot will be familiar to a few readers. Having seen the Siku railway locomotive and wagons on "Jims Wargames Workbench" I decided to get some for myself. its more suited to my AK-47 collection, but could just pass for a 1930s diesel. Rather than repainting I decided to give the loco and wagons a black wash, varnish and then heavy weathering. They came up OK, and fit nicely on the 15mm track I got for use with my Sudan armoured train. Alongside the train you can see the Policia figures (more on these later)

Whilst searching for the railway loco on eBay i noticed that Siku also make a steam locomotive and coaches. This has a very nice, dumpy "European" look about it, and so it fits nicely into my 1930s setting (it may not be authentic for Spain, but close enough!)

And so finally the Policia. I over-ordered on Civil Guard from Peter Pig and, having finished the CG unit I wanted to use them for something else. So they have become a small unit of local police (augmented with a couple of officer figures form the PP WW1 range). Seem here with their ultra modern transport (courtesy of Minifigs) and a BT-42 skulking in the background.  

Looking through my box of stuff to do, the SCW pile is down to some refugees, casualty figures and some 1930s biplanes. So it should be a fairly quick job to get these all squared away early next year.

Fort L'Escroc

A little while back that awfully nice chap, David Crook, very kindly sent me an old Airfix Fort Sahara that eh had discovered at a car boot sale. I'd been after one of these quite liteally for years (after missing out on a mint one at The Keep many years ago I'd never seen one since).

Being second hand it was obviously "pre-loved" but some judicious application of plastic card, cardboard and chopped up coffee stirrers, along with a paint job combined with a sprinkling of sand to give a suitably rough surface to the inner walls has led to what i think is a pretty satisfying conclusion.

I'll probably make a few "lean-to" buildings and a well to go in the courtyard, but for now its finished.

I have  a whole raft of uses for this now. It can just about do for a fort in the Sudan, and fits nicely with my plans for a hypothetical SCW-based campaign setting (not to mention working nicely with my AK-47 armies).

A French Foreign legion setting would be good too, wouldn't it? Well, up until a few days back that was an aspiration but wasn't likely to come to anything. However, whilst trawling through te "lead pile" and sorting out the stuff that is going to the Lincombe Barn tabletop sale I found a box of unpainted Irregular FFL and Tuaregs that I bought many, many years back. So maybe more a "project for later" than an aspiration :)

Busy Weekend

This weekend was rather busy, what with philip's guitar lessons and footie, Laura's horse riding lessons, cat cuddling at the local animal rescue shelter and planting out a whole load of shrubs that SWMBO and Laura had bought. However, in between those I still managed to get a good deal done.

First up, some 1/600 ACW - CSS Governore Moore from Thoroughbred,

USS Lioness from Bay Area Yards (a lovely little stern wheeler), and a generic sidewheel transport from Thoroughbred.

And a Peter Pig sidewheel ferry, but this time done up as a generic European 20th century ferry for use with my 1/600 WW2 coastal forces games.

Terrain has been getting a look-in as well. I bought an Airfix "Forward Command Post" for the kids' WW2 project. A nice kit from my younger years, I recall this coming with a very nice vac-formed base. The latest Airfix offering doesn't feature the base so I used an old CD instead, with PVA and sand for basing material, and coffee stirrers cut up to make floorboards.

AK47 (the original edition) is on my "to do" list, so I also made some generic bits and pieces for that. the smaller one is made from corrugated cardboard from Hobbycraft and cut up drink stirrers, the large rone from foam core. and and twigs from the garden complete the scenes.

And finally another WOW repaint - my altar ego "The Black Hand" now has a Roland C.II for those days when a 2 seater is required.

There's also a couple of 1/600 WW2 coastal models on the workbench and a pair of Airfix Matilda IIs in the paint shop.

Rather worryingly though my camera seems to have picked up a "shadow" at the bottom.  I wonder what I can do about that.