Munitionschlepper Wespe

I am fortunate enough to already own two 1/48 scale Wespe SP guns, so when I found I have a (part built) kit of a third I decided to build it as an ammunition carrier.

Build proceeded very much like the real one - miss out the gun and plate over the aperture.

Plenty of spare ammo!

Here is the finished model with a better armed friend.

Torpedo Boat 196

In need of a small Great-War era destroyer for a forthcoming game, I decided to build one in 'cartoon' scale from bits and pieces. 

The hull and most of the superstructure were carved from balsa.  The funnel and torpedo tubes are plastic tube, turret and TT mounts pdf bases.  I'm particularly pleased with the bridge - part of a mounting from a roller blind which 'looked useful' and ended up in the spares box some years ago.

The turrets are resin castings I bought a few years ago - again, they 'looked useful...'  The crew figures are from a Strelets 1/72 set of Crimean War Russian naval gunners.  Finished in overall black, here is it wearing the first of no doubt many flags of convenience!  It's combat debut will be later this month in a game set in 1939.

SCW Asturian miners

I needed a detachment of coal miners from the region of Asturia for a game in which such chaps would dig siege works.  I rummaged in the box of random figures and selected a few from the Airfix German Mountain Troops set.  After shaving off weapons and webbing I lopped off their heads.  Heads were replaced from my stock of spares - three bare heads and one wearing a nondescript floppy hat - and tools added.  The latter were in the form of shovels and pickaxes from the ever useful Airfix Support Group set.  Paintwork suggested the wearing of overalls and I added some 'rocks' to the bases for added atmosphere.

 

Polish Bofors 37mm AT gun

 

To accompany my lashed up Polish infantry battalion - and in anticipation of a game - I dug out this 1/35 kit and set about it.  It was every bit as horribly fiddly as I feared and it will come as no surprise that several tiny parts remained on the sprues.

My patience really ran out when I got to the axles - half a dozen tiny pieces on each side!  I did the sensible thing and replaced them all with a single axle cut from brass rod.

Crew figures were assembled from bits in the spares box.  The MG team are rather lovely 3D prints from Speira figures in Sweden.