Saturday 22 July 2023

Japanese 70mm Infantry Guns

These tiny guns were widely used by Japanese forces for fire support.  Being too mean to buy an expensive and fragile plastic kit and too impatient to order a 3D print I decided that scratchbuilding was the way to go.  In the end I built three of them and gave one to PHW.  
The crew for this one were adapted from the Tamiya Japanese Infantry set - often to be found startlingly cheap at under £1 a figure!


The second crew are cut-about Aitfix figures, complete with sword-waving officer!


The pre-paint photos give you a better idea of the construction.  Wheels were an issue but I had a (20mm) metal kit of a WW2 German 15cm field howitzer.  The gun wheels are wider then those of the limber but I can live with that. (The third gun had wheels from another such gun).  Barrels are plastic tube, trail legs bambo skewers, everything else random bits of plastic card.

14 comments:

Brad DeSantis said...

Wow Tim, very impressive scratch builds indeed! Beautiful job start to finish!

MGB said...

Very nicely completed, Tim. I did something similar, constructing a Type 92 gun for my 54mm collection, also using converted Airfix figures.
Michael

Martin Rapier said...

Very good Tim. I thought those wheels looked familiar!

Pete. said...

Great bit of kitbashing there Tim.

Cheers,

Pete.

Rob Young said...

Nice looking figures. Japanese guns were always easy to make for wargames purposes. Drilled out Tiger road wheels were quite useful as I recall.

David Crook said...

Hello there Tim,

I see the Black belt in Bodgitsu has come in handy once again! Lovely looking and effective model,

All the best,

DC

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

Big certainly has a certain beauty to it!

Tim Gow said...

Brad De Santis
Thanks - I'm absurdly pleased with them!

Tim Gow said...

MGB
I shall scour your blog for photos!

Tim Gow said...

Martin Rapier
Taking into account the scale difference, 70mm in 1/32 is 157mm in 1/72, so they're basically doing to same work!

Tim Gow said...

Pete
Thanks - mostly bashing and very little kit!

Tim Gow said...

Rob Young
I'll keep that in mind for next time!

Tim Gow said...

David Crook
Thanks!

Tim Gow said...

Geordie
You know it makes sense!