Italeri Panzer crew

 

I need some tank crews for a couple of games I have in mind, so this venerable set was cracked open today.  Venerable?  Definitely!  Although the box is marked ‘1995’, I remember this set from the 1970s.

Despite it’s antiquity the mouldings are pretty crisp.  Not up to Tamiya standards but still very respectable.  I think that their 1970s equivalents was moulded in white plastic.  For a set still readily available for under  £10 there’s quite a lot in it. Six figures, two barrels, a wooden crate, four buckets(!) and three helmets. 

You don’t see box art like this on modern kits!  But in those far-off days before the widespread availability of reasonably price uniform books this would no doubt have been very useful. 

French field telephone

Using the Tamiya 1940 French set and a delve in the spares box, I was able to bodge these chaps with a field telephone c.1916.  I think they have the right ‘look’.  

Multi-part French

 While I was painting the Mokarex Great War French figures I decided I needed a command/communications team.  In my search for suitable figures I dug out this hard plastic set from Tamiya.  Although the figures therein are for the 1940 campaign I decided that aside from a change in colour scheme from horizon blue to khaki the appearance of French troops didn't really change all that much from 1916.

The kits is intended to build as an infantry unit but swapping arms and heads could create more poses.

More on this soon!

Soviet 76mm Infantry Gun - part 3

 At long last I have finished this kit, so here it is varnished and based for your inspection. The crew figures are individually based so that they and the gun can be used in other settings.  

Soviet 76mm infantry gun - part 2

 

Not much progress to report I’m afraid but the kit has at least had a black undercoat and some of the main colours applied