Having been enjoying a lot of Chain of Command (CoC) games, I recently invested in figures for a British Paratroop platoon to give me a slightly different force to pitch against my Germans. Then looking for a campaign to use them in I bought Too Fat Lardies' (TFL's) 'Kampfgruppe von Luck'.
In this the opposition is mainly the 21st Panzer Division with an eclectic collection of armoured vehicles modified from old French captured equipment, of which I have only a single UNIC P107 and even that doesn't match the photos of the originals.
As there was no rush (my British Paras are a long way down the painting queue) I did nothing, but as my interest in these makeshift AFVs had been piqued, I was tempted into buying Hans Hoeller's memoirs 'D-Day Tank Hunter'.
I found this memoir to be one of the best I have read and it inspired me to get the necessary vehicles for the 'von Luck' campaign as these vehicles feature in the German arsenal in the TFL campaign guide. The guide acknowledge that players may have to use similar vehicles as stand-ins as they are not produced by many manufacturers.
They were right, not helped by the fact that I game CoC in 20mm which seems a less-favoured scale. Early War Miniatures (EWM) produce most of what is called for in the campaign but don't do a S307(f) ... but they said they would sell me bits from other kits from which it should be possible to scratch-build one. So, I dived in and in addition to the bits for an S307(f), I bought two UNIC P107 U 304(F) troop carriers and an Sdkfz 135/1 150 SPG LS(f) self-propelled gun (SPG).
The first step was to cut down the P107 body to leave just those bits needed for the S307(f) - as shown in the photos below alongside a standard P107 body.
Realising this was going to be a long drawn-out build, I thought I should assemble the other kits in parallel. The first bit tackled was how to create a removable gun crew for the Sdkfz 135/1 SPG. Magnets didn't seem an option with the crew figures provided so I decided I would tray and attach them to a false floor that would sit on top of the fighting compartment's floor.
This seems to work well, but the figures are a little precarious, only having their feet (foot in the case of one figure) super-glued onto a piece of plasticard. I intend to bodge up some used shell cases to scatter around their feet. These will be secured with Araldite (epoxy-resin) and butting up against their feet should make them more secure.
More updates due very shortly, as the photos for this post were taken just over two weeks ago. The post was delayed as I was distracted by getting my car rear-ended and written-off which with the need to find and buy another car has sucked up so much time I forgot to post this.