Panzerwerfer and Opel radio truck

A couple more vehicles for my German Rapid Fire project. Both these plastic kits where knocking about in my kits box both are made by ESCI (which probably tells you something about their age). Quite frankly they where horrid kits to put together lots of fiddly bits and instructions that miss out half the components do not make for a fun time.

The first five pictures are of an Opel blitz ambulance that I've converted into a radio truck. Not much of a conversion really I added a bedstead aerial from my bits box and some stowage made from some bits of balsa and plastic covered with some PVA soaked kitchen towel. I also added some plasticard windows to the cab rather than leaving the cab open and having to bugger about with a driver.

The second set of pictures is of a sdkfz 251 with rockets. I saw a picture in wargames mag somewhere of one of these set up firing it's rockets so I thought I'd give it a go. I assembled the rocket boxes and then drilled out the rockets an added wire. I dipped the wire in PVA and covered them in cotton wool to represent smoke from the rockets and then glued them into the boxes. I also added a Valiant miniatures officer for some interest and replaced the original MGs with Valiant ones. I'm quite pleased with the way it's turned out however it's quite flimsy so I don't think this one will be making any trips to the club.

Cheers Jon

First panzer grenadier battalion for rapid fire

Well finally got my first battalion finished for rapid fire. This one is supposed to be a battalion of 20th panzer grenadier regiment 9th SS panzer division. The miniatures are 1/72 Valiant Germans from both the Germans in Normandy and classic Germans boxed sets.

It's a pretty standard Rapid Fire set up three companies of infantry (8 miniatures each) an HQ (six miniatures) and a machine gun company (9 miniatures 2MMG and a 120mm mortar). Of course it's not quite finished as they are missing the battalion's trucks but those will have to wait until payday.

Next up is a German infantry battalion to represent troops from the 716th static Division.

Cheers Jon

German 37mm SP AA gun

Not a very productive weekend due to family commitments but I did get this Hasawega SP 37mm AA gun done. I figured as the club has plumped for late NWE my Germans will spend a lot of time being bombed and strafed by allied air power so some mobile AA is in order. I found this kit in my plastic kit box it must of been there a while as the price sticker was from Beatties a chain of model/toy shops that went bust many years ago.

The kit is quite nice but the crew supplied with the kit where horrible (helmets looked all wrong, static poses and massive size differences) so I decided to convert up some spare Valiant Germans to crew the gun. The two seated figures where the worse requiring some chopping and green stuff work. All in all I quite like it. Next job is to finish of the heavy weapons for my first Panzer grenadier battalion.

Cheers Jon

Useful German Camo article

while rooting around the net looking for info on the dreaded German camo subject I found this helpful little article thought I'd post up a link for anyone else who has struggled with the subject like I have.

http://www.artizandesigns.com/guides/germanpatterns.pdf

Valiant Germans and diecast panthers

first update for a while as real life has been winning out over hobby time the last couple of weeks. I managed to finish the sea witch (my pirate ship) and base coated in time to play some pirate games at the club against Jim (some pictures here on Jim's Blog http://jimswargamesworkbench.blogspot.com/2010/11/pirate-ship-skirmish.html ) but I want to finish it properly before I post up pictures here.

The Slann are still on going the cold one riders are close to being finished, and I've added some extra scouts and painted up a couple of character models, When the cold ones are finished I'll post up some pics.

In the mean time Jim kindly flogged me a box of valiant Germans at a knock down price so I've been distracted into making a start on the rapid fire in 1/72 project that I've always wanted to do. Up above you can see pictures of my first attempts at painting 1/72 infantry these miniatures are supposed to represent SS panzer grenadiers of the 9th SS panzer division. to be honest once I started researching German uniforms for late war I wish I hadn't lots of different camo gear plus field grey (a colour which no one seems to be able to agree on) and the SS and Heer wearing different stuff it all got a bit confusing. In the end I plumped for a mix of field grey and 1944 pattern shirts in pea dot (I think).

Pictured above are the first batch of 12 infantry there are 18 more on the painting table and then I need to build the support weapons (mortars, Panzershrecks and HMGs). As with most of my projects this is threatening to get out of hand as I picked up two extra boxes of valiant Germans (one of each type classic and Normandy) to go with the one Jim sold me which works out as 204 German infantry. At the moment I'm thinking of four rapid fire battalions one SS panzer grenadier battalion, a battalion from the 21st panzer division, an infantry battalion and maybe a fortress battalion made up with the left overs

As well as the infantry I've added a couple of re-painted diecast Panther tanks to support my SS panzer grenadiers.

Cheers Jon