Grey Panzers On the workbench

Pictures of some work-in-progress WW2 German panzers, nearly finished. 

A mixed bag of brands, an Altaya Panzer IV top left, two Trumpeter StuG IVs, an Armourfast StuIG33, PSC Panzer IV top left, two Altaya die-cast Panzer IIIs and a very old repaired and repainted veteran Panzer IV middle right.

All painted with Vallejo Model Color Dark Grey Blue followed by a dark wash and some weathering.  I've run out of Balkenkreuz decals now, so I'll have to try doing them by hand.

"Ersatz" Opel Blitz

There was a time 20+ years ago, when it was impossible to get your hands on a 20mm Opel Blitz and inspired by a post on Will's Wargames Blog I thought I'd share a couple of photos of two British vehicles that made their way into the miniature WW2 German arsenal.

This rehashed old Airfix Austin K6 was a solution, and the vehicle is still in my collection today from back then

Nowadays of course you don't need to go to such a ridiculous end as there are so many kits and ready-made options available.

Another "Ersatz" vehicle was this Opel Blitz ambulance bus below. This was a more recent concoction, using a die-cast Bedford OB Utility bus.  There are kits of the Opel Blitz bus available but at the time I thought that from a distance this could make the grade. 

Happy New Year to all you fellow modellers, gamers and toy collectors out there !

Battle of Berlin – Stretcher Bearers Conversions

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

The stretcher bearers are old Esci WW2 French in greatcoats with headswaps, the “Frau Medic” is a hard plastic lady from Dapol, the two walking guys are Airfix WW1 French, the surrendering figure is a Revell Engineer with a headswap and the old guys in caps carrying the stretcher are WW1 Airfix Germans

Ersatz M10 - Work in Progress

A quick update on some work in progress.

I'd wanted this Dragon kit for some time, and I think Dragon first put this kit out about 10 years back, maybe even longer. 

I was put off by the high price of the kit and was glad when I saw one online at a reasonable price. The box was a little dog-eared but the contents were complete.

And to be honest I'm glad I found this cheap because when I took it out of the box, I noticed the flexible tracks were in a little plastic bag which was full of a kind of sticky oil. 

Very strange I thought.

Then a kind of  "Quatermass and the Pit" event happened as I took them out of the bag - after their years of being preserved in there, they crumbled and cracked into little pieces ! 

So now I've got myself a lovely Ersatz M10 with no tracks.

I've gone the quick route to solving this and susbstituted the whole track and bogie assembly with a one-piece set taken off an old CC-Lee Panther kit I had in the stash that I never got around to building.

Now undercoated on the painting table waiting for a little free time over the weekend to try and finish it off.

So, a lesson learned with regard to this Dragon kit and its old flexible tracks - over the years they leach oil and fall to bits.

In spite of the track problem, I've got a vehicle I've wanted for quite some time.

1/72 Scale German Panzer Crews – Airfix Figure Conversions

Some photos below of an attempt made a few years back at to get a set of “fighting” bailed-out Panzer Crewmen.



Figures are a mixture of Airfix Luftwaffe Ground Crew, USAAF Personnel and Afrika Korps with new arms sliced off figures from other German 20mm sets.

The uniforms don’t stand up to close inspection, but on the table they look the part and hopefully make them identifiable as Panzer Crewmen.

Figure Conversions . WW2 Elderly Berlin Policemen with Shakos

A couple of the scenarios in the Berlin campaign that our wargame group gamed some time ago needed some squads of "elderly policemen", many of whom had to be armed with just handguns.








These are figures from various sets of Germans - Revell, Airfix, Caesar, HaT, and even some of Orion's sets of cops-n-robbers and gave them heads with shakos taken from the HaT Industrie 1/72 scale WWI German Jaegers.

Doug Iovinelli - Pz.Sfl. II in 1/72 scale.

I was sent this article by Doug Iovinelli, a friend and smallscale enthusiast who's recently been experimenting with 1/72 scale 3D printing.

Doug's contribution below :

***************************************************************

I recently bought some 3D printed pieces of unusual subjects from Shapeways.

The first item is the Pz.Sfl. II in 1/72 scale.



The subject is a rare conversion used by the Afrika Korps. (From Wikipedia): Two prototypes were completed in 1941 and they were organized into a platoon for troop trials with Panzerjäger-Abteilung ("Anti-Tank Battalion") 605 of the Afrika Korps. Sent for trials to North Afrika, neither survived the experience.






The subject is interesting and the photographs provide an opportunity to add a lesser known vehicle to our wargames.







Next update, to paint the item and share the detail. It will need to be washed and dried with water as there is a little bit of residual powder from the printing process that will “cake” up the paint if it is not removed.

The link to the designer and the item: https://www.shapeways.com/product/K3TC6NQ6B/

German officer with greatcoat and scissor binoculars

German officer with greatcoat and scissor binoculars mounted on a tripod. An iconic figure from the Revel Panzergrenadier set.

 He’s accompanied here by a Zvezda infantryman and Imex radiomain with a portable backpack mounted radio.




Vehicles are 1/72 MAC Distribution Opel Blitz 3t Radio Car Kfz. 305, Airfix / Heller 1/76 scale Opel Blitz & and old Academy 1/72 Kubelwagen.

Matchbox 7.5cm Pak 40

This Matchbox German Pak-40 75mm anti-tank gun is one of the oldest surviving bits of kit in my collection. I’ve had it for around 30 years, could maybe even be older.



It was painted back in it’s day with Humbrol paint, desert yellow I seem to remember, but since then it’s been drybrushed and given a wash and a little weathering to bring it up to date.



The gun in the picture is crewed by more modern mix of Preiser, Revell and Pegasus figures.

Repaints - grey early war 1/72 & 1/76

These are for an early war campaign that our wargame group has been planning for some time.

All are repaints....

There's a good mix of manufacturers here, vehicles spanning over a decade. 

The Panzer 38(t) at the front is a recent model, a repainted and weathered Altaya 1/72, as is the Panzer II on the left just behind it (Altaya), both donated to the cause by my mate Carlos

The Pz 38(t) on the right is an old 1/72 UM model and the one at the back is a heavy 1/76 scale lead SHQ model, that were given to me by a friend, Iván about 12 years ago and have been lying in "storage" ever since. 

The Pz II on the left at the back is a Matchbox 1/76 kit, given to me by Iván back about the same time, which I gave to Carlos about 5 years ago.... and he gave it back to me a few months ago. And I should also add it's been repainted about 4 times now  

All very interesting stuff, right ? :-)

Happy modelling.

John

Old Panzer wrecks re-hashed

A few old wrecks on the workbench that had been hanging around.

They are are being fixed up and some home-made steel plate schürzen have been added.

The finished model just to the top-left of the re-hash above is a Corgi Die-Cast model I bought in a hobby shop in Brighton in the UK about 10 years ago (the shop was like an Aladdin's Cave, full of hundreds of old second-hand trains, toy cars and figures). It was weathered to make it look rough and war-weary.

Nearly finished now, the foliage has just been plonked on to see what the final effect should be like.

Hopefully these will be finished over the weekend together with  weathering those two die-cast Flakpanzer IV's  above.

Armourfast StuG III

We got together on Wednesday evening with our wargame group "El Brazo de Nelson" for a quick game and we got to use for the first time these two Armourfast 1/72 scale quick-build StuG IIIs that were built and painted by Carlos de la Concha.

Lovely models, unfortunately they were under my command and with my notoriously bad dice throwing skills they couldn't hit a barn door during the whole of the game.

Italeri German Motorcycles and Sidecars

The big car in the background is a Hasegawa Mercedes that I rescued from a pile of old kits in a box and found a nice canvas roof from the spares box that fitted perfectly. After taking this photo, I've realised that the paint on one of the wheels has either chipped off, or I missed that bit when painting :-(

I changed a few heads to give them all helmets and I'll be using them for the 1940 campaign in France - The uniforms are all wrong, but no-one will notice too much (hopefully) painted in Field-Grey uniforms with Panzer Grey bikes and sidecars.

The figure with the binoculars has a helmet grafted on from the accessories that come with the Revell German 105mm Gun & Crew.

Pegasus Germans in Cammo Smocks - by Juan Reyes

These Pegasus figures with Oakleaf cammo smocks were painted by Juan Reyes who just passed them on to me to finish off the bases.