October 2020: Work in Progress

(restored museum exhibit flak cart in Normandy)

During October I have been putting in small blocks of work on the horsedrawn support echelon units for 198 ID … I expect to complete these next month but can’t resist a preview (below)

But there have been distractions

NEW ACCESSIONS

First amongst which would be a new release from Butlers Printed Models … the earlier (AMD 50) version of the Laffly armoured car:

These were much used in the North African colonies under the Vichy regime so will be very popular with collectors with French armies.

The characteristic striations from the printing process are not too bad, the guns are much better than with some of the earlier BPM releases (so too the wheels) and the size looks spot on. Here’s how it compares:

The AMD 50 and AMD 80 were just about the same size, and the model checks out very clse to the optimal 1:100. And (see photos) matches very well with the Old Glory/Command Decision AMD 80 which was previously the only option for this generation of French armoured cars.

As I was ordering from Butlers, I also picked up one of the very neat little Italian Dovunque trucks …

… and some jerry cans.

I think the truck speaks for itself, and the comments about the sharp detail on the wheels etc. apply. The Jerrycans are slightly smaller than the Peter Pig ones, I think (closer to the Skytrex/CD stowage) but I think they will look good (and are £1 for a pack of 10, which is hard to beat).

All good.

Horsedrawn WiP …

I think the limber came from old Battlefront, and the horses from QRF … add a cart and some machineguns …

I don’t think anyone makes anything like this in 15mm/1:100 and it will provide some light AA support for the horsedrawn columns.

I have been putting off this build for a while now, but it went together more easily and smoothly than I would have expected.

It will require a little more tweaking, and having fixed the (FoW) guns in on their pintles, I will make the cradles for them out of post-fixed miliput. That should leave them both looking correct but being robust enough for wargame use.

Einmarsch in das Sudetenland. Truppe auf dem Vormarsch (Gefechtstross). 5.10.1938 Abschnitt Kreuzbuche. Sudetenland

More progress next month.

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198th ID Staff

(15mm Piggies against a Ukraininan landscape by Arkhip Kuindzhi)

Just diverting from the horsedrawn theme to tidy up the staff component for 198 ID.

The commander at the start of Blau was Albert Buck, whom we met in the last episode. Here’s a bit more:

The command figure is a Piggie Russian with reprofiled cap and jacket. He almost seems to be giving a Nazi salute, although this was clearly not the designer’s intention. I also can’t claim this to be portraiture … we are adding a generic General to represent the man who commanded the division. Of course, given what happened, even at Operational Level, it seems appropriate to have a figure for the man himself, and the unarmoured staff car he would have been driven around in …

The car is an adapted resin Franklin Olympic from Peter Pig’d Spanish Civil War range … I have chopped it about a bit to make it look a little more like it belongs to the Wehrmacht on the Russian Front. It is quite generic, but based on the type 320 (with a touch of Hogan’s Heroes, maybe)

I painted it that greasy green colour, rather than Panzer Grey because of those ‘Operation Barbarosa’ colour photos we used to see a lot of in the 1970s, in which a lot of the vehicles looked quite green – whether this was because of the colour filters used, or was early colourization by technicians who didn’t know the real colours, I am unsure. But it looks right to me.

Anyway, good on general Buck … commanding from (at least near) the front, where wargamers put their generals – and getting killed in an ambush by grenades being lobbed at an unarmoured staff car. If you now more about the attack on Buck’s staff car (and, indeed, more about the car), please add somecomments below.

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