End of Year Modelling

 The last few weeks at home and at Uni have been quite hectic so I've not had time to update the blog, but I have been busy on the modelling front. Here's a summary of some of the things I've been working on.....

An old edition of Airfix Magazine featured the various converted "erzatz M10" Panthers and StugIIIs used in the Battle of the Bulge. I'd always fancied a few if these, and so when suitable 3d models appeared on Thingiverse I was naturally going to print off a set for my 15mm Winter Skirmish collection.

The prolific Mike Bergmann upissued his 1/100 WW2 collection and added a Valentine bridgelayer. This one will join my 15mm Burma/Pacific collection. I printed a second which is in Russian markings and now sits in the Winter Skirmish collection.

Another new model from Mike is the venerable Austin K2 ambulance. This one is heading for Burma as well. I should probably have made the red crosses and circles a bit bigger.

Finally in 15mm, Mike also added a lovely model of an "X Craft" mini submarine. I printed out a few examples in waterline configuration in 1/300 and 1/600.

For my own paert I've been working on a load of ACW ironclads in my various 3D modelling packages. This is the twin turreted river monitor USS Winnebago. I have a coiple of these printed that are in the final stages of painting just now.

A diversion from my regular modelling - Rob Heath (Twylite Games on Wargame Vault) posted a nice set of alarge ancient galley models - Greek, Phoenecian, Roman and Carthaginian. I've printed some squadrons for each of these with the Greeks and Phoenecians the first to be finished. These models are around 3" long and I'm planning to use them with a fast and fun set of rules that I'm working on. 

Some terrain for my 1/1200 (or if I'm feeling epic, my 1/2400) ancient galleys, this is the lighthouse at Alexandria. 

Finally for now, I've caught up on "The Mandalorian" (I discovered that we have a Disney+ subscription - surprise!)  so I printed off a 1/270 model of the Razor Crest (or is it the Laser Quest? :) to use with X Wing. I need to work on the paint scheme for this, its a bit "flat" so I'll be painting in panels in various shades and other details as I work out what needs doing.

This isn't everything that I've been working on over the last couple of months - watch out for another update soon, maybe combined with my assessment against "The Plan" for 2021 (which I don't think will make pleasant reading!)  

NKL-16s finished

 My latest aerosan models are finished. The NKL-16 came out well I think and a couple have been finished in Soviet livery. I'm thinking I'll be printing some more of these and some of the smaller NKL-26s next time I'm able so that I can build a small Finnish force as well. 

For those that might want to print their own I've put these and other models up on Wargaming3D:

NKL-16 Aerosan 15mm / 1:100 - Wargaming3D

Kabunza Shipyard Archives - Wargaming3D

Now that I've got these done I've been challenged to make a model of the 02SS aerosan "tank", which should be an interesting project:

And also the smaller GAZ-98 (which looks like a LOT of fun!)

Alas today I also demonstrated to myself the fragility of these resin models as one of the NKL-26s took a tumble and literally exploded into pieces. I've managed to salvage two skis but the rest of the model was trashed. So I think I'll also be mounting them on some bases to give them added protection.

More Aerosans

 Having been chastised by friends for only doing a single type of aerosan I had a go at modelling one of the larger types, the NKL-16. Its a bit more rounded than the smaller NKL-26, and I had more fun adding recessed windows, side rails and other details. The model is in the printer now, waiting to see how it comes out.....

Aerosans Done

 I printed out the aerosans a few days ago but then other stuff got in the way. I've just finished them now. For wargames quality vehicles I think they have come out just fine. I need to find some crew figures and probably some clear plastic disks to represent spinning propellers, but for not I'm happy with them.

Aerosans

 So, a chance comment on one of the FB groups this morning had me thinking about Aerosans for my 15mm Winter Skirmish collection. As a result a carefully planned morning was completely diverted into some impromptu 3D modelling. Here's the result - hoping these come off the printer OK in a few hours :)

Not brilliantly detailed (I can paint on what I need), hopefully good enough for the wargames table.

First Turtles, Now a Tortoise

 One of the nice things about havibg a 3D printer is that of you have a sudden urge to have a model of something odd for your wargames table there's a fair chance that someone will have created a 3D model file for it. Last weekend I had a sudden urge to make a Tortoise tank, probably because I caught sight of it mentioned on the Bovington Tank Museum Facebook page. Sur enough there was a free STL file on Thingiverse, so now I have a Tortoise in 15mm :)

Just Another Winter's Tale

After the test game recently I was looking at my winter skirmish table and thinking it looked distinctly "flat". I was unsure whether I wanted to go with polystyrene hills and feature on the table, or whether to put them under the cloth like I did in the old days. Anyway, yesterday I set to a pile of old poly packing pieces with my hot wire cutter and after an application of watered down polyfilla, some sprinkled sand, an overall coat of white paint and some relief through a distant application of desert yellow and grey spray paints I had a load of snow covered hills and a few gun/tank emplacements. I also made a set of ruined and damaged walls to provide more cover. In this case they were strips of foamcore, suitably distressed and then glued to some wide "lolly sticks" from Hobbycraft. A thin black wash to bring out the detail of the damage, and then some white flock on the bases to complete. Whilst I was at it I also made a set for my AK47 games, this time a light brown wash and sand on the bases.

The hills, emplacements and walls took no time to make and I think they look quite effective. I've just realised the hills will work fine with my 1/300 "war on the moon" sci fi collection as well. And being made of effectively bits of junk the whole lot cost virtually nothing.

Still not decided on hills on top of or under the cloth though.

A Winter's Tale

Last night  tried out my "FireForce" skirmish rules as applied to the Eastern Front, Winter 194x. I was curious to see how this set of 1960/70s African conflict rules, borne out of a set of Vietnam rules, would work in a WW2 setting.

I tried a small scenario, a German infantry platoon supported by a panther and a Stug IV engaging a small Russian force on the outskirts of a village, essentially an infantry squad, HMG, a T34, an M4 Sherman and a 45mm ATG.

The Germans distributed their squads on the left, centre and right, with the Stug supporting the central team and the panther on the right. Early Russian shots from the ATG disabled the central Sdkfz 251, and the Sherman came up to engage and then kill the Stug. The infantry team went to ground and never really moved forwards despite the urgings of their squad leader, instead they fell back into cover to avoid the uncannily god shooting of the Russians to their front and the machine guns in the Sherman. On the right the infantry headed for cover when the HMG opened up on them. The T34 moved out to engage the Panther and scored a hit on the front armour but with no effect. The tanks traded more shots until a solid hit brewed up the T34. The panther then advanced and put a 75mm HE shell into the HMG. The infantry, still shaken from the effects of the HMG, took a while to gather their wits and advance. In the meantime the Panther hit and immobilised the Sherman, then moved ahead to try to outflank it.

The Germans advance. Yellow dice indicate casualties suffered. I may think about some better markers for the future but they'll do for now

The T34 advances and gets a sneaky early shot in at the Panther - missed!

Stug and infantry advancing in the centre

The right hand section head for cover 

T34 brews up, and German LMG fire peppers the HMG

 On the left the German squad doubled across open ground and into cover, their half-track providing covering fire. From the woods they spotted the ATG and a lack of covering troops. The Russians spotted the threat and limbered up the gun, heading to the rear as the Germans doubled across the open ground to occupy the earthworks. From there they assaulted the Russian in the centre; their attention concentrated on the central German squad, they  didn't spot the threat to their flank until too late. In a fierce melee two Russians lay dead, as did a coupe of Germans but the remaining Russians, now heavily outnumbered, fled to the rear. The Germans, now in cover alongside the Sherman, rued the lack of a panzerfaust, but the Panther emerged from cover and killed the Sherman with a shot through the side armour.

The Germans on the left flank charge the ATG position

Oh for a panzerfaust!

Never mind, the Panther got him

It was all over in an hour or so and I thought it went rather well. A few tweaks in terms of leader capabilities, pinned troops and the lack of a vehicle close assault rule (now rectified), but I was very pleased with the results and I'm satisfied that I have a sound basis for a set of rules covering WW2 as well as the post war insurgencies. 

Rules Conundrum Solved!

Regular readers will know that I've been at loggerheads with myself over which rules to use with my 15mm Winter Skirmish and 20mm Burma Skirmish collections. The answer hit me today when I remembered my old "FireForce" rules that I wrote over 20 years ago. Based on Martin Goddard's "Search and Destroy" Vietnam set, I had adapted them for use in post war African games. Looking at them just now it dawned on me that they would work fine for WW2 with a few tweaks. And that this would be ideal as I can have one core set of rules covering a range of periods and settings.

So I've set up an Eastern Front test game for tomorrow (chores tonight, plus sorting out a play sheet for the game). Fingers crossed it works!

A Night at the Movies

Some more Photon-generated new models from the last three weeks, this time inspired by a couple of my favourite war movies. I'll not say what they are, they should be obvious to most readers :)

Stalins

My lack of posting might suggest that I've not been up to much recently, but that would be wrong. At present there are 1/3000 Spainsh American warships, 20mm Japanese ans Australian WW2 forces, a load of generic satellites for my SF spaceship gaming and several 1/1200 ACW forts on my wrk bench.

But recently completed were two 15mm IS-3 tanks from Zvezda to go with my WW2 Winter Skirmish collection. Its a lovely model, builds up very quickly and easily into the rather modern looking Russian classic. Some stowage and a grubby whitewashed paint scheme completes the models, with which I'm very pleased as they bring back happy memories of my 1/76 Airfix model (for which I rebuilt the turret since the rear shape was completely wrong).

Jagdpanthers!

In amongst preparing fr next week's big game ** I've been finishing off a couple of Zvezda Jagdpanthers that I bought from the local model shop a couple of weeks ago. The Jagdpanther is one of my favourite vehicles of WW2, probably because I had a lovely model of one when I was a youngster (the old Matchbox model, I saved up for weeks, bought one from the local newsagents (remember when newsagents sold plastic kits?) and my brother then took it off me and made a lovely job of building and painting it for me - it was a treasured centrepiece of my 20mm German WW2 collection for many years until the lot vanished).

Anyway, Zvezda's recent release is a lovely model, nicely detailed and easy to put together. Its a snap-fix model, but as always I used MEK to glue the pieces together permanently. I added "clutter" to both, side skirts to one and a commander figure from an old PSC kit to the other. Both were then "winterised" to fit in with the rest of my 15mm collection. I'm really rather pleased with these, they bring back happy memories of my old Matchbox model. No doubt they will be as successful at plinking Shermans and T-34s as the original :)

** what is this big game I hear you ask? You'll just have to wait ans see. But a clue - we really should have been doing it this weekend.......