Sherman Fireflies

Since I figured out how to effectively use Vallejo paints through an airbrush, I've been dying to finish (and in some cases, redo) my 15mm British Late War Armoured Squadron.

Königstiger Rescue, Part III

This post is a quick check-in on my Königstiger rescue project. Painting is coming along nicely, with most of the hull stowage and markings all painted, as well as the commander poking his head out of the cupola.

Happy Tanksgiving!

I just wanted to take a moment to wish all of you a very Happy Tanksgiving! And thank you for reading!

Königstiger Rescue, Part II

This is the second installment of my Königstiger refurbishment project...

Königstiger Rescue, Part I

My friend ZE Whitlow has given me a rescued Tiger II for Christmas. He had acquired it second-hand, and it had some issues, which he figured I could correct. The original model is a Panzer VI Tiger II, with a Porsche turret. However, the turret was missing all hatches, the radio operator's machine gun was missing, the exhaust system was destroyed, and, oh yeah, the previous owners had glued the wrong gun onto the front!

Currahee!

In order to create a balanced opposing set of Flames of War, I needed to add an infantry element to my allied force. After more waffling than a house of pancakes, I finally settled on painting up an American Parachute Rifle Platoon to run as allies to my Britished Armoured Squadron.

Looking at references for the color of the M42 Jump Uniform, there is a lot of disparity between the shades of khaki-green-brown between the examples. I found one image of a spread of at least seven variation of the same color from original uniforms. This became the photo on my artistic license.
In no small way influenced by Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan in the decision, I opted to paint them based on their appearance in the polular series and movie, rather than from a strictly realistic stance. This means mainly adapting the colors from the films, which were slgihtly altered, but the overall color is still within the spectrum I'd observed. This gives them a desaturated, somewhat sepia-toned apperence.

Seen here is my first test figure. This project follows the painting advice of cracdeschevaliers in regards to painting process, skin tone, and gunstocks (the last of which I have been painting too dark on models of this scale!). I also chose to lighten the webbing equipment beyond the average of actual examples so that they don't get lost on the small scale sculpt.

Overall I am pleased with my first attempt, and hope that I can continue on with the same fervor for the rest of the platoon. This will also mark a first attempt at more dashing scenic basing. With the models being painted separately from their bases, this allows for more scenery to be added later. I intend to create a tutorial based on my attempt.

Does anyone know of any guides that show this sort of work? I've seen some great examples where they've basically built a village/town that is divided among a platoon's bases, but can't find them now that I'm looking for it explicitly.

Roadblock

In a busy life, it is a rare treat to be able to spend an evening playing games with a friend. It turns out that this last week was one. I was lucky enough to get a game in with my friend Zach again, this time it was to be Flames of War. The match was to be 1600 points, pitting my British armoured company against the German Panzerkompaine for some late war tank on tank action. Zach chose to play German, and selected a list consisting of StuG IIIs and Tigers, with SP artillery support. The british armour was a force of Sherman IIIs and Fireflies for additional antitank, with air support.

British Armoured Column driving along a hedgerow road in Western France, right into a Wehrmacht trap!

We played the Roadblock mission, and I was set to be the attacker, with Whitlow's Panzer Division defending. My armoured column had to secure a road though Western France along a small town among the hedgerows. The game would start with an ambush against one of my platoons.

Tiger Ace Whitlow takes aim at the Armoured Column's command section

Wisely, Mr Whitlow chose to ambush my command platoon. With so few units in the game, this could cripple an army and force it to withdraw before they acheive their objectives. His heavy tank platoon sprung the trap, knocking out 3 of the 4 Shermans in the command team, and driving the fourth into fleeing the battle before the fighting even really began. At such close range, their armor had no hope of stopping the fearsome 88s shells.

Four to one, the Shermans rush the Panzer VI squadron

The Sherman platoon ahead of the Company Command team on the road responded to the ambush, and raced cross–country to engage the Tigers head on. Between their combined firepower, they got a lucky shot through and managed to knock out one of the Tigers.

Our Hawker Typhoon looks absolutely NOTHING like a P-47!

After an uneventful round the remaining Tiger wiped out the attacking squadron, but Allied air support came through and unloaded its cannon into the remaining Tiger, clearing off the objective it was holding.

The British gains, however, came too little, too late. Despite making a decent account for themselves against two StuG platoons, a third arrived as reinforcements, and did just enough damage to drive another Sherman team from the table. This put the column below half strength, and without their company commander to lead them, they fled the battle with the Germans still in possession of the road.

MG42 Teams

As more light fire support to the late war German force in Flames of War, allow me to present my MG42 HMG platoon. The models are fairly straightforward, with a heavy machinegun team on each base. Interesting to note that the gun is the same MG in each infantry squad, but mounted on a more stable tripod and supplied with more ammunition for continued fire.

The only difference between an MG42 squad weapon and MG42 Heavy Machine Gun is how it's used. In game terms, the sustained fire comes in the form of a great many more shots than a normal MG infantry team gets, serving mostly to pin down enemy infantry either to prevent an assault, or to aid your teams charging the enemy.

There are minor variations in the sculpts from gun team to gun team. Also worth noting that the men of this blister pack seem a little skinnier than the other LW Germans I've painted from Battlefront. These seem more realistically scaled and proportioned, and look lankey against the normal builds of the series.

German Grenadier Mortar Teams

To privide my Flames of War LW Germans valuable indirect fire support, I painted up tehse mortar teams. Some of the teams came in my first Festungkompanie box, while others are from a supplimental blister pack.

Uniforms are painted to match the existing Grenadiers, with some field grey, some Heer splinter camouflage, and some field-applied helmet camouflage.

Mortars themselves are painted in the typical dunkelgelb of my armor. To ease basing, I built them onto small skids of cut plastic card to help raise them above the level of the sand i would add later, and also to put them at the same elevation as the crew members. I painted the completed stands with the figures and their mortars, then added the basing material over the finished assembly.

Schwalbe

My first bit of air support I constructed for my Flames of War Late War German force was actually this Messerschmidt Me 262 Schwalbe model by Trumpet. The kit is 1:144, which is the commonly used relative air scale to FoW.

I painted it up fairly quickly using Charadon Granite and Goblin Green as stand-in colors for the Luftwaffe camouflage, and gave it a pinwash of black ink into the panel lines. The recent update for the Ardenne's campaign introduces the ground-attack Sturmvogel version, so this bird may see some official action in-game.

At the time there was no official rules for using the first jet fighter in the game, but I liked the plane. I still have plans to convert it into an objective by building it a field workshop with support equipment.

Shermans, Part II

Continuing with my windfall Sherman tank find, I've been going through these rather quickly, as they all have fairly simple paint schemes. It is somewhat hard to keep the attention span going on so many identical tanks, however.

To command my British Armoured Squadron, I've converted one of the tanks to have an open hatch on the turret, and added a commander figure left over from one of the Firefly VCs. I drilled out the solid molded cupola and cut a hatch from plastic card. However, I am a bit unsure of how the command tank should be marked, so for now it only has generic allied stars on it.

And below we have a group shot of all the completed Shermans so far. As I make a final decision on which unit i'm portraying, some more markings, perhaps decals, will be applied to the front hulls.

Opel Blitz Part II

A quick FoW update - for my second Opel Blitz transport truck by Battlefront, I tried my hand at the other famous German paint scheme, dark panzer grey. Chosen for variety sake, and to look more like the truck from Raiders of the Lost Ark (sadly there is no FoW model for the Mercedez Benz E3000).

Ju87 G Stuka

Having played a few games, I've realized the importance of air support. This also gave me a good excuse to build a model airplane. I found a good 1:144 scale Stuka at my local gigantic hobbyshop, and went home to assemble. Much to my delight, instead of being only a Ju87D kit, the instructions told you to ignore the antitank guns included in the kit: it had the parts to build a G model! The detail was great for this scale, and included parts that could have been glossed over, such as adjustable dive flaps, and struts for the tailplane. Also included was an etched brass machinegun for the backseater, but I broke the piece trying to bend it.

 

The plane is finished by hand. The Luftwaffe camouflage was acheived using GW's Charadon Granite and Goblin Green, and I am satisfied with the effect.

I built my own flying base with a spare clear plastic flying stand from an old GW kit, of which the vertical peg had long since broken off. Instead i drilled out the center and put in a piece of stiff steel wire. It is based according to the rest of my LW Grenadiers. Then I drilled a hole in the belly of the airplane to accommodate the flying stand. I made sure that it was aft of the balance point so that the plane would be in a dynamic strafing pose, which is much more interesting than a static flying position.

Achtung, Tiger! Part 2

Having completed my first Tiger, I had to do another, (remember that bit about willpower?) I picked up a second kit from my friendly local game store, and set to building and painting. One of the first things you notice is that Battlefront's sculpting has improved quite a bit in the last 8 years! The new sculpt of the Tiger has far more detail, and many more options for finishing. All of the hatches can be assembled opened or closed. You have your choice of fender(s), and there are enough crewmen to really bring the model to life. It also sports later cast road wheels and wider tracks, and improved details on hull stowage, exhaust vents, and a much nicer commander's cupola.

Breaking my tradition of painting all tanks unique, I decided to give the Tiger platoon a unified feel with very similar camouflage.

Despite being separated by several years of production technology on the part of Battlefront, the two tigers look pretty good together!

Well, I guess I haven't quite finished. Missed a spot on the tracks. But below that you can see one of the road wheels in a primer grey, to give the model bit of interest on this side, and represent a replaced part, not painted up to the camo scheme of the rest of the tank. I liked that the kit gave the option for how many track links hang on your turret.

 

Another recent improvement is my photographic studio. My wife finally prevailed upon me to clean up my desk/workspace where i do my modelling and also where I photograph my work. With the clean space, I am able to mount twin desk lamps to converge on a small white backdrop (11x17 white paper). I am now able to get much cleaner images shot of my work. I was surprised to see how much it  improved my pictures!

All in all, this was a joy to build and paint, and though I don't have much of an in-game use for more, I am quite tempted to try a third one...

Achtung, Tiger! Part 1

If not impossible, it would be a feat of superhuman willpower well beyond my meager abilities to paint up a German WWII force without including at least one Tiger tank. As it would happen, years before I got into this particular game, I had picked up a single Tiger 1E with Zimmerit model from the then new game system. I painted it up as best I could at the time, but was never really satisfied.
Having recently become airbrush-savvy, I could not resist redoing my Panzer VI to a higher standard.

Tiger 1E

The Tiger is the Holy Grail of historical armor modelling, at least for me. In Flames of War, such heavy tanks tend to be centrepieces and focal points for your entire army, If anyone would scrutinize anything in your force it would be that vehicle. No pressure. After practicing airbrushing at this scale on some of my StuGs, I was finally comfortable enough to try my hand at the ubiquitous Tiger.

Having tried unsuccessfully with Vallejo Air Color, I reverted to what I know, and used the appropriate tones from Tamiya. I cannot say that they are better than the Vallejo paints in an airbrush, but having learned on them, I find them easier to get predictable results with. The tanks start out with a Dark Yellow basecoat, then the camouflage of Olive Drab and Nato Brown are applied over top. Then a very thinned out layer of dark yellow filters the colors back together. Some shades and filters of various browns and blacks went thinly over top before the final details were picked out with a brush.

Hummel Battery, Part III

Finishing out my Self Propelled Artillery Battery for the Late War German Army in Flames of War (a real mouthful!) is the third and likely last Hummel SPG. I went for a little extra flourish on this model, customizing the solid resin hull and gun compartment to open up the rear doors as they would be while firing a barrage. I carved out the closed doors and filed the opening flat. New doors were cut from plastic sheeting and attached to the hinge mounts.

Camouflage was applied by brush, using the technique described on the Panzer III, and based on historic photos for the pattern on the vehicle. Markings also applied by brush rather than by transfer decals, as I have not had much success blending them onto my models, especially at smaller scales.

Also modified is the gun barrel lock, which I cut down into its stowed position, folded on the forward hull. I am yet to decide on adding crew to this model or not...

The Whole Battery

Now that I have 3 guns firing, it is time to begin work on a spotter team and radio truck. For the time being, an Opel Blitz is being used as a stand-in and my PzIII plays the part of OP tank. However, I am planning on modelling an infantry spotter team mounted in a half-track.

A sweet little tank

My family tends to get competitive with seemingly innocuous things like, for example, gingerbread house parties. While my younger brothers were busy constructing dodecahedrons from flat panels of gingerbread and baking individual bricks to be mortared with frosting, I set about creating a Tiger 1E out of gingerbread pieces. I cut the basic shapes out of uncooked dough and baked them hard. The parts were then assembled as you would a gingerbread house.

Unfortunately, much of the sharp cut edges of the dough rounded out in the baking process, and the end result looks more of a cast-hull Sherman than a Tiger. (Insert "oven" joke here). I still wish i had applied some frosting Zimmerit.

SU-85, Part II

Last Christmas, I received a set of two SU-85 tank destroyers in 1:72 scale. I worked on the first of the pair within a week or so of the holiday, but saved the other until I had a better plan. As it works out, patience paid off. Since the first tank, I have gained access to an airbrush, allowing me to try another technique that has always had my interest.

I have seen some very good winter camouflage done using a thinned down white airbrushed over a green undercoat, then weathered with paint chips and mud and rust streaks. The best example is on IPMS, showing the technique on a US Sherman.

So this tank started out base coated with a Krylon camouflage green spray paint i picked up at a local hardware store, serving as both base coat and primer. I then gave it a patchy whitewash using thinned Tamiya paint applied via airbrush. On top of this i tried out a technique I saw on battlefront, using a bit of sponge foam to apply paint chips in green to the edges of the tank.

Improving on my last build, the tracks were coated in a glue/sand mixture and painted to resemble a mixture of mud, filth, and road grime. In addition to the green paint chips, some areas were further weathered with chips down to the bare metal itself, which would have rusted in a prolonged winter campaign.

The hatch is left open on top in the hopes of acquiring a suitable driver figure. I may also add some tankodesantniki riders on the back.

Overall, I am really most pleased with the tracks, but somewhat disappointed with the rest of the tank. I may remove the tracks, strip and repaint the rest of the vehicle.

Panzershrek Team

Just a quick update on my LW German Grenaider  force: Panzershrek teams for the command platoon. Tubes drilled out for dramatic effect.

This single team also shows a bit more detail of how i have been basing my Grenadiers, which is meant to look like pastureland. The mixture of lush undergrowth beneath taller brown grasses is inspired partly by photos of the French countryside, and partially on my grandparents' farm in Northern California.

StuG III G no.3

Another blister kit of the StuG IIIG. This time I've given it some of its side skirts, and those in various conditions. I also experimented with creating my own stowage. Plastic sprue boxes are covered in a piece of toilet tissue doped with white glue. Florist wire stands in as ropes holding the stowage on the rear deck. Another fairly straightforward build and paint up, using feathering in place of an airbrush for the 3 color camo.