Showing posts with label Navy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Navy. Show all posts

11 January 2022

1/72 Scale US Navy Landing Party - Dixie Cup Hats

Repeating here some photos from an old post that was wiped out when the site was hacked a few years ago.

We needed a Forward Observer Team to use as regimental support for a WWII Pacific USMC Platoon and using the Iron Ivan Disposable Heroes rules you get the option of either a Marine or Navy FO team.

I decided on a Navy team in white dixie cup hats and some “true-blue” navy gear. 


The hats were made with some thin strands of paper and white-glue wrapped around bare heads taken from other figures.

I wanted to use them in scenarios as a kind of Naval landing party, even for some pulp scenarios, having them stranded on an dinosaur and hostile-native infested island, crazy things like that.


The figures are IMEX, a mixture from the two sets of Korean War figures, all with new heads.


Aug-24, 2010

12 May 2020

WW2 British Motor Gunboat, Würzburg Radar & Sailors



A few years ago our small wargaming group gave a demonstration game of the Operation Biting Bruneval Raid at a local comic / cosplay / gaming event.

The scenario was  designed by one of our fellow gamers Iván, who also built the magnificent terrain board and coastline.

You can see a game report on the link below, which will open up in a new window if you click it. It's in Spanish, but with pictures that speak for themselves

https://wargamestenerife.blogspot.com/2015/03/bruneval-commando-raid-1942.html

For the game we already had plenty of 1/72 scale Germans as the defenders, and also lots of British Paras left over from an Arnhem wargame campaign (albeit in the wrong uniform for this raid, but we could live with that) and more than enough scenery.

What we didn't have were some rescue vessels to to provide covering fire as the paras were picked up from the coastline, and something to represent the Würzburg radar.



Würzburg Radar

We knocked up a crude representation of the radar just a few days before the game.




Well, I did say crude  ........

It's basically a perspex ball cut off at the top and mounted onto a structure taken off a toy crane, and then fixed onto the base of an Italeri 90/53 Gun.

A good dousing of grey paint and on the day it did its job and nobody mentioned that it bore only a fleeting resemblance to the real thing.


Should also add that nobody mentioned either that the British paras were wearing red berets and were dressed for Arnhem.



British Motor Gunboat

This was a bit of an invention, made from a modified toy motor launch.



The missile launchers and oversized MG on the the stern were removed and the bridge was taken off and moved forward.

It was also cut down to make it a waterline model and two Bofors were added, one the bow and stern.


Painted grey and with a Royal Navy Ensign flying, it makes a more or less passable MGB.


And here she is, MGB "Conversio" providing covering fire as the Paras made their way down to the beach with a German prisoner and parts taken off the radar. 


The landing craft crashing onto the beach in the foreground is an Airfix LCM with the pilot's house removed and a few other minor conversions. 




Sailors

The vessels couldn't be complete without crew members, and the sailors are mostly conversions with a mix from various sets.


There are a couple of Airfix civilians and a Dapol railway worker with new heads, plus a few Revell Kriegsmarine figures and some Emhar WW1 British


Quite a few of the sailors have heads taken off the old Airfix British WW1 figures in caps as they make good donors and you just need to slightly trim down the visor at the front and they are perfect for representing the flat visorless hat worn by British sailors. 


The idea for using the WW1 British Infantry heads like this isn't my original idea, I got it from a very old Airfix magazine article back in the 1970s.








Just to say that I was inspired to finally get around to posting these picture after viewing an excellent post on sailor conversions and a huge WW2 vessel by Simon from the Service Ration Distribution blog which I recommend you visit. You can access his post on the following link (click and it will open in a new window)

https://servicerationdistributionhobby.blogspot.com/2020/05/ships-finishing-touches-lock-down-catch.html



As always, keep safe and hope that wherever you are the lockdown is easing and that we are all slowly but surely getting over the worst.

26 June 2009

Pegasus 1/72 scale WWII Russian Naval Infantry

A picture of some the the superb new Pegasus 20mm scale WW2 Soviet sailors.

These were painted by a friend and fellow gamer, Carlos de la Concha, and were used in one of our wargaming club's recent Stalingrad type wargames.

30 January 2008

Dimestore 1/72 boat conversions by Doug Iovinelli



I was sent some really nice photos of a conversion done by a friend, Doug Iovinelli, some time ago. I meant to put these on the main website back then, but they got misplaced on my old computer and I only recently dug them out again (sorry about the long delay Doug).

"I bought some toy boats for my 3 year old daughter and one of them was screaming to be converted into a D-Day Europe Station keeping boat. Since I had not really looked into what one looked like in any detail, I used my liberal imagination to convert this toy boat into something that I imagined might be in the water to guide the landing craft to the correct beach and double as a rescue boat for any unlucky boats. It will join my collection of landing craft.

Doug Iovinelli"








30 July 2003

MiniatureZone Gallery Archives (2000 - 2006) - Jorit Wintjes - Seehund Midget Submarine

This article is one of many articles and gallery contributions from fellow amateur smallscale enthusiasts all over the world that appeared on the old MiniatureZone website during the first six years its existence when there were only a handful of websites dedicated to smallscale models and wargaming. 

If you've been around on the internet since back then, we hope you like the nostalgia, and if you´re a newcomer, hope you enjoy looking too.



The Seehund midget submarine is actually a 1/87 piece from the Dutch company Artitech. The kit consists of a beautiful one-piece casting and some smaller resin parts; you get two of these waterline subs in one box (or rather bag). I binned the smaller resin parts, made new periscopes and vacuformed a new perspex cupola.


Comparing the result with various references showed two interesting things: 1) there were many small differences between the subs that were actually built and 2) the kit's conning tower is too large for 1/87. This actually made me quite happy - I converted an Airfix MP into a RN officer, and voila: Kiel, August 1945, collection point for ex-Kriegsmarine hardware.

This was really a fun project. Scratchbuilding the smaller parts took perhaps 15 minutes, the rest was painting and  enjoying the result, which could serve as a nice accessory to a harbour layout for a wargame.






Copyright 2003 Jorit Wintjes