Matchbox M-16 Half-Tracks

I've had these two Matchbox M-16 quad A/A kits sitting in a box for a good few years. Back when I built them the tracks broke and had planned to fix them but never got around to it.

(http://www.1-72-scale.com/2009/05/work-in-progress-matchbox-m16-half-track.html)





That was back in 2009 ...

and they've finally been finished today.



The tracks were replaced with some one-piece fixed track assemblies I got from two old wrecked Airfix Half-Tracks that came in a bag of "pre-owned" kits off ebay.



The original decals have long been lost - or used on some other kit - but I had plenty of stars in the decal spares box.

So , gven the time it's taken to finish these, it's clear I'm a very slow modeler - in spite of that, I'm pleased the way the old Airfix tracks work on these kits.

1/72 US 105mm Field Howitzer Conversion

A few years back I saw an article on Paul's excellent Plastic Warriors Website on using a cut-down Airfix 88mm Flak to make a 105mm US howitzer

http://plasticwarriors.blogspot.com.es/2010/06/m2-m101-105mm-howitzer.html

I needed a couple of these for my WWII US forces and inspired by Paul's original idea, I decided to put a couple of old Airfix 88s I had in the stash to good use.

The barrel of the 88 has been cut down and the shield comes partially from an old Airfix 6 pounder AT gun and the rest was made using some cut-down clear plastic sheeting.

The axle and wheels are from a trailer that comes as an accessory with a die-cast Altaya M16 Half-Track. The trail legs are flat plastic cocktail sticks.

Yep, it's a crude "representation" and it would probably raise a lot of eyebrows at an IPMS meeting, but I think once it's painted and on the table it maybe won't look too out of place.

I'll try and get this painted up and will post a couple of shots soon.

Matchbox British Infantry / British Commandos

Following on from the previous post, some more 1:76 scale British / Commonwealth figures, this time from Matchbox.

These are a mixture of figures from the British Infantry and British Commandos sets with a couple of conversions.

Three different figures based on the same charging pose. The original unaltered figure on the left.

The NCO figure with the beret wielding a Colt-45 pistol is from the British Infantry set. The running figure with the Thompson SMG is from the Commando set with a head-swap.

Two more figures from the British Infantry set- officer on the left wearing a leather jerkin, and on the right a figure that I’ve often used as a tank crewman.

A mix of figures below from the Commandos and Infantry sets.

Love this crazy guy – you can see he’s bawling in thick Glasgow accent “come on you f**kers, I’ll take you all on !”

In the Commando set you also get a German sentry who looks like he’s just been taken out by this guy. I must get around to paining up that sentry and get a picture of the two together….

This poor lad below is from the Anzac Infantry set.

Makes a good casualty marker for games.

And finally a picture of the whole family

The Matchbox sets have been around for a good number of years – and I remember painting figures from these sets with Humbrol enamels back when they first came out when I was a kid – but up until recently they were difficult to come by, but thankfully that changed very recently when Revell re-released the sets.

Airfix 1/32 Scale Spanish Civil War Nationalists

1/32 scale Airfix plastic Japanese infantry.

The conversions by a friend of mine Alberto Beneítez.

Really clever and inspirational conversions Alberto, looking forward to seeing these painted up soon.

Oh, and finally an Airfix British commando who's been transformed into a Spanish Civil War Republican.

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.

Plastic Soldier Company Russians with new heads

I started these conversions more than a year ago, and got distracted
(don't we all ...), but finally they're finished, ...at last.

I changed the heads on these PSC figures for heads from Italeri and
Esci Russians.

Not really all that necessary if you're going to use just the PSC
figures in squads on their own but as I wanted to mix them with my
Esci / Italeri / Revell / Pegasus Russians, their heads were oversized
compared to the other brands.

Nicely sculpted figures in a hard-softish GW type styrene plastic
that's easy to trim, file and glue.

------------------------
Sent from my mobile

#PSC, #Russian Infantry

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.

HaT WWI British Artillery Crew

A quick post of some HaT WW1 British artillery crewmen that have just been finished.

Also added a comparison picture with some Emhar figures and an old Airfix 13pdr Gun from the RHA set.

Altaya Sahariana

This is an Altaya Sahariana currently on the workbench that was given to me by my good pal Carlos.

The Waterloo 1815 Italian drivers he stuck in there look really cool.

This is a first test post I'm uploading by email from my mobile.

So if you are reading this and can see the image ok, then it has worked !


------------------------
Sent from my mobile

Arnhem campaign no.1: Recon rescue - Disposable Heroes Rules

Well, here we go again with the Arnhem campaign with Ironivan Disposable Heroes.

Set on September 27, 1944 when the British reconnaissance squadron, commanded by Major Freddie Cough, began to move towards the Arnhem bridge. His orders were to get ahead of the infantry and take the bridge in a surprise attack, but when they advanced they fell under the fire of an SS Training Battalion. The Major was killed by machine-gun fire and the soldiers who accompanied him were wounded. The British objectives are to rescue the wounded and destroy the enemy machine guns, while the German objective is to maintain their troops in good order and destroy the largest number of British units.

The battlefield :

The wounded para next to his overturned jeep in the centre of the table

British paras in jeeps roar onto the table to rescue their wounded comrade.

German troops open fire from the cover of light woods

We've got him ! Let's get out of here !

German snipers take aim

Meanwhile a British light mortar fires into the woods at the Germans to cover the retreat.

The Brits finally manage to evacuate their wounded comrade, although they have suffered various casualties in the process.