15th and 21st Panzer Divisions Muster
Now that the Plastic soldier Company additions to the DAK have been
assembled, a small parade is in order. Work remains to be done, but the
divisions could drive out into the desert tomorrow if required. The look
that I went with was of mud, or hastily applied dark desert tan, over
the original panzer grey. I was struck by the way that grey showed
through in contemporary photographs on the top edges of vehicles where
crew had hung on for support, or scuffed the wearing edges climbing into
the vehicle, as seen on these examples above.
The grass bases look incongruous and will need fixing somehow. I will
probably just replace them with new and reuse the originals somewhere
else. 15th Panzer is on the left, and 21st on the right above.
Seen in with the other armour, particularly the PzII, the 1/87 Roco
Pz IV looks overscale, but it will do until a suitable replacement
arrives. The panzer grenadiers have not been added yet. It looks as if
the Germans have overrun an airfield and captured a Dodge fuel bowser!
Mimi Finds his Trousers – Work in Progress
Suzanne has been wondering how Mimi has been coming on.
Here he is …
Here he is …
… and again after a cursory paint job. I don’t think the whole Legion
will parade in buff order for battle, but it was fun doing a couple of
stands this way. “Andiamo ragazzi!“
I think that in future, a few Peter Pig headswops will be the way forward, now that he has an excellent Fascist Fez head (Range 6 – 94), even down to the jaunty angle of the fez and a curly fringe sticking out at the front!
Dodge/Chevvy Tanker – sort of
Last week has been spent filing and chopping Phil’s articulated
Poundland tanker to make something that looks vaguely like a WWII 3-ton
tanker. It looks a bit like a Chevvy or a Dodge, so the Desert Airforce
gets this one. I reckon that there are at least three more tanker
bodies to be had out of the two semitrailer mouldings. The weakest part
of the toy is the hotwheel, so I may yet add some better wheels if I can
find a cost-effective source, or the patience to mould some out of
Milliput. For now though, the conversion is passable enough to go onto
the table.
The background shows all the Sdkfz 251s needed for DAK. Yes, that’s
four! I already have 4 metal models, but they are on grassy bases and
the Plastic Soldier Company offerings are too good to resist.
Feast of Epiphany – Yes Those Trucks
The festive season was rounded off in style with a duck dinner. Yes That Phil
came round with a very decent bottle of Chateaux Margaux ’86, to show
off his Pound Shop treasures, and he had a few spare. As it happened, I
had a spare Matador to offer in return, so over Port and cheese, when it
became permissible to talk wargaming, we sat and happily pushed the
trucks around the tabletop as Phil outlined his 2013 plans for Megablitz Squared. Suzanne wandered off at this point to read her new book about the Dunkirk evacuation – Military Truckfests are not her thing.
Here is the treasure fleet!
Sporting a new quiff and nose bar, the Leyland Retriever continues to take shape.
Bar a few coats of paint, the Retriever is just about finished now, Cheers Arthur!
Best Christmas Present Ever!
Every small 50-year old boy awaits Christmas with eagerness. This
year was no disappointment. In amongst the parental socks and bottles of
port were these Pound Shop trucks:
Ignore the Hurricane in the background and the Japanese in loincloths
waiting for their shorts to set. Concentrate instead on the wheelbase
of these beauties. I thought that I would have to chop up two Zvezda
Matadors to make one of these Leyland Retriever recovery trucks, but the
Pound Shop chassies are close enough:
Notice the Matador cab glued onto the truck on the far right; it
turns out that it is the same width as the original diecast if you are
not too fussy (and I’m not!) So here is my work-in-progress (WIP) shot
of a Not Quite Accurate workshop unit for one of my UK armoured
divisions:
From the picture above, it is clear that the Matador cab and body are
not an exact match, but that the Milliput roof, a girder and a
camouflage net with a thick coat of paint will go a long way to fixing
that. The cost of the project was a total of 20p for the chassis and
£2.99 for the body with perhaps 20p for the bits. At first I assumed
that the anti-gas plate in front of the windscreen was on the wrong side
of my reference picture, but viewing more shots showed that this was
not so. I will have to correct that before my final coat of paint.
Camouflage net secured using Evostick and copper wire.
Undercoat on.
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