Israeli Armoured Brigade for Little Cold Wars

I took these rather rushed photos of my LCW Israeli armoured bde as I was assembling it for last summer’s Gnuston Heights game. As always, please let me know if you’d like more details or better photos of anything.

Centurion tanks - mostly Dinky diecasts. M-48s to the left.

The whole ghastly mess. But then it was assembled pretty much from scratch in two months. From left: SP  Artillery btl, SRL btl, Reserve Tank btl (M-48 & M-51), two tank btls (Centurions), Engineers, Mech btl, AA, HQ, recce.

I have a real soft spot for tatty halftracks in Israeli colours. These are Solido diecasts.

M-51 Ishermans under construction (and bodging). These started off as Hobbyboss 1/48 M4A3E8 kits.

And with that, I will sign off for 2018!  Plenty more of this nonsense still to come in 2019.

Basically better Buccaneer - part 2

I’ve now finished the Bucc (see initial build here) and it will see service alongside the recently completed Canberra.
Here it is in ‘flight’ over the South Yorkshire veldt.

Calamitously crappy Commie Canberra complete at Christmas

Remember the ghastly ex-Frog Canberra?  Here it is in flight, so to speak and wearing South African colours. Given its unpromising beginnings it seems to have turned out OK.

Meanwhile, in a maternity hospital somewhere in England...

A friend of a friend is a midwife. This was on the status board when she went to work the other day...

Festive French follies

 Bertrand and I have plans for a game based on part of the 1916 Verdun campaign. To keep the French supplied we have picked up a few of these rather fine Corgi 1/43 scale diecast Renault lorries.  Originally bearing various commercial logos, mine have all been sprayed a similar shade of grey to that on the Berliet in the Verdun museum. I’m sure the barrels on the one at the back are essential military supplies....

Israeli mechanised infantry c.1973

I realised that having posted a report of the Gnuston Heights game (in  five parts, starting here), I still had some photos of the preparation which hadn't been posted.  My battalion of Israeli Mech Infantry was created with some figures of unknown make.  I'm not even sure what (if anything) they were meant to be but - to my dodgy eyes at least - they painted up looking reasonably like Israelis.

At the time I completed them I was having my drive re-paved so I had access to a pile of builder's sand for the photos.  Well you would, wouldn't you?

 The first company with still-wet varnish.

 The trial platoon in the open air.

Speaking of air....

Tankette MkII

Following on from my post on the MkI tankette, behold the much (well, slightly) improved MkII version

As well as providing rather more spacious accommodation for the crew, some of it under rakishly-sloped balsa armour, the MkII carries two machine guns.

 Construction underway at the Peoples' Tankette Factory No.1.

The balsa was given a coat of a random paint to seal it.

  Scary, eh?

Basically better Buccaneer build - part 1

As an antidote to the ghastly Canberra I cracked open this elderly Matchbox Buccaneer, expecting it to be a rather higher quality kit.

I wasn't disappointed - the crisp moulding and fine parts fit was every bit as good as I remember from the late 1970s.  Not that I could ever afford this kit back then!  I never quite understood Matchbox's 'innovation' of moulding their kits in 2-3 colours but paint will cover the ensemble anyway.

Speaking of paint, that's next on the agenda.

Holiday shopping 2

While I was in buying bridges, in the same Dutch model shop I spotted a pile of cheap-ish kits. So of course I dived in for a rummage!  The ancient Heller set above was a good buy as Hotchkiss MGs can be difficult to find in this (1/35) scale. €3.99. 

Another useful set, I bought this set of Japs ‘cos it was cheap. Who knows what they’ll end up as?  Not me.

I’ve always rather liked the idea of this set of Generals and at this price it was irresistible. 

I don’t recall having seen this set before but a better informed (and clearly richer) friend tells me this sprue was included with the LandRover Ambulance set he had in the 1970s.

Calamitously crappy Commie Canberra - part 1

They say you should never judge a book by it's cover.  The same rule should apply to kits and their boxes, but sometimes a crappy box is simply a warning of what is to follow.  So it was with this horrid cheap Eastern-bloc cardboard box.

The contents  - in  garish yellow plastic...

...and the instructions, printed on what felt like recycled loo roll.  I believe this is another reworking of the old FROG kit.

The parts didn't look too bad - until I tried fitting them together.  At this point, considerable quantities of masking tape and blu-tac were deployed to hold the parts - if not in place then at least in loose formation.

This much yellow plastic is quite hard on the old eyes!  And you could fly a Hunter through those panel gaps.  Paint coming next.  Lots of it.

Pelusium 525BC

I found these photos of a Command & Colours game played in late 2017.  The Persians under Cambyses II (right) took on Egyptians led by Psamtik III.