The Guns of the South

While my 54mm ACW forces expanded significantly last year with the acquisition of some Deetail figures, I was still short of artillery.  Well painted artillery at any rate.  Thus a couple of weekends ago I was rummaging in a box of figures in search of some of the Armies In Plastic artillery sets I bought in the aftermath of 2013's Gettysburg game.  The AIP guns are heavy siege weapons - 24 and 30 pounders.  They are nice models moulded in a grey/green plastic, so all I did with them was paint the barrels in either black or dark gunmetal.

So on to the crews.  I was unable to resist painting all the kepis in red - just like the old Swoppet ACW gunners!  The others wear slouch hats in either grey or black.

The emplacements are from the AIP trench sets and are as yet unpainted.

Sheffield Wargames Society - new venue

 As from this week, SWS now meets at:
Woodseats Working Men's Club, The Dale, Woodseats, Sheffield, S8 0PS

The new venue has a bar, parking, terrain storage and an enormous hall!  I measured the available playing area at roughly 22 by 73 feet!

Though we we at the previous venue for a long time - nearly 30 years - I think this will be a good move for the club.

 On Wednesday we had 22 players and five games in progress.

Hummers good and bad?

Following on from the dodgy plastic HMMWVs posted recently, we now both raise and lower the tone with more such vehicles.  The rather respectable looking sand coloured HMMWV was found on eBay for about £5 and is a diecast by a company called Victoria.  Aside from taking it out of te box it is untouched.
The other - well you may recell me buying it at the Birmingham Toy Soldier Show last year .  It was rather cheaper at a defence-budget friendly £0.10...  It was treated to the same olive over black paintwork as the other Hummers.

Worryingly I actually prefer the crappy plastic version - what do you think?

Mercedes G-Wagen

I picked up this G on eBay recently as it looked a classier ride for my senior West German officers than the Solido Auto-Union Munga* which had previously been their only alternative to walking.

Finished in a fetching but most un-military shade of reddish-orangey-pink I soon had it dismantled for painting.

Reassembled but with the blingy alloys and side steps left in the original silver.

*The name 'Munga' derives from the German 'Mehrzweck UNiversal Geländewagen mit Allradantrieb' or 'multi-purpose universal cross-country car with all-wheel drive'.  I can't think why they felt the need to abbreviate that.  Auto Union is now better known as Audi.  I wonder if they fiddled the fuel consumption figures for the Munga....

Solido model of a Munga

Fire extinguished. Unimog flatbed truck

You might recall that I picked up some diecast fire engines at Triples last month.  I've now made a start on altering their appearance.  First up we have this Unimog.  The fire engine guff was a plastic clip-on part which was soon unclipped leaving this useful looking flatbed.  One of the many nice things about Solido models is they are held together by screws....

...so are easily dismantled for painting.

Once reassembled the unsympathetic camera flash once again reveals that red is a tricky colour to paint over.  That said, the overall effect is OK.

Personally I think that flatbed is crying out for a 20mm flak gun....

MiG-25 - part 3

The mighty Foxbat is now complete.  I kept the paintwork simple and having sprayed the whole thing shiny silver painted in the cockpit windows, nosecone and tailpipes.  Markings were selected from those supplied with the kit.

Being so shiny makes it look even bigger!

MiG-25 part 2

The build is complete. I've not bothered with the enormous missiles which came with the kit as this particular Foxbat will have a recce role. So there we have it - a big pointy bit of plastic which by the time you read this will be painted silver. 

M-939 trucks

The box of crap which yielded the HUMWVs mentioned yesterday also contained this pair of trucks.  Or as we say here in Blighty, 'lorries.'  The design seems to me to be based on the US M939 series but I'd welcome more expert opinions (yes Don I mean you...).
They have been treated to the same rough paintwork as the Hummers, with the chassis and nasty black wheels left in their virgin state.

And yes - you can see the ground through the cab!  Floors are for wimps.

Cheap?  Yes.  Nasty?  Oh indeed.
But as someone wise once said, (all together now) "you can never have too many lorries."

dodgy plastic Hummers

Following the dodgy plastic Pattons comes this pair of dodgy plastic Hummers.  Of unknown origin, these came in a box of crap a couple of years ago.
Being made of fairly hard plastic they seem to have taken paint rather well - once again I went for US Olive Drab over a black undercoat.  Painting in the lights makes a huge difference and really brings the thing to 'life'.
The nasty toy wheels were removed for painting and then simply clipped back into position.
After all, I don't want them looking too good....

More cheap plastic crap coming soon!

MiG-25 Foxbat part 1

Who doesn't love the Foxbat?  Most of us will recall hearing it described as a new Soviet 'wonder weapon' in the 1970s, when it's supposed Mach 3.2 speed seemed to render NATO's less zippy Phantoms and Mirages relics of the past.  Of course, the truth  - vacuum tubes and all - soon emerged, assisted by the defection of Lt. Viktor Belenko who in 1976 obligingly landed his Foxbat in Japan.  He was even thoughtful enough to bring along the pilot's manual for the type.  Though Belenko's MiG was subsequently returned to the Sovs it had been thoroughly dismantled by the US Air Force.  Presumably to make packing it easier....

Unlike the sensible US personnel who when faced with a  big pile of Foxbat bits simply sent them back to Russia, I plan on assembling mine.  It's an old Hasegawa kit which - tatty box aside - looks to be in good fettle.

The initial build went pretty smoothly, though I'm continually surprised by how huge it is.  Some of the panel gaps are a bit hairy so I can't see my version cracking Mach 3 anytime soon.

See what I mean about those panel gaps?

poorly painted pathetic plastic Pattons

These 1/48-ish scale M-48 Pattons come with some 'Plastic Army Men' toy sets.  The most recent ones I bought cost £2.50 for a bag containing 50 dodgy figures and two of the tanks. So assuming all the figures get binned or given away that makes the pathetic Pattons an attractive £1.25 each!  For that price I can forgive them not being the ultimate models.

This trio were undercoated in black then had a heavy drybrush of Olive Drab.
Eagle eyed readers may recall that a similar hull formed the basis of my celebrated M-247 Sgt Yuk bodge.

Rather more surprisingly - and when it comes to downing enemy aircraft - certainly more effectively, another skulks beneath the balsa armour of my ZSU-23/4 Shilka!

Questionable Keil Kraft Camel kit quickly completed

I mentioned in a recent post that I was working on something to help oppose my swarm of Fokkers.

Though it's clearly from later in the war, I noticed this old kit when I dug out the Revell Eindeckers and decided to throw it together. 

It would be fair to say that the Camel wasn't the most complicated kit I've tackled, though the surprisingly thin plastic posed a few challenges.

 As usual, the camera flash makes the green look rather brighter than it really is.  So not a bad effort at what I believe is my first 1/72 Sopwith Camel. Back in the '70s I was more of an Se5 man...