Great-coated WiP

The latest batch on the work / painting table is a unit's worth of 20mm Hinton Hunt (HH, but most are probably copies) Napoleonic French infantry in greatcoats, all recently emerged from the bleach bath to remove their old paint jobs.

There's enough here for a 24-man unit (battalion) and a 6-figure skirmish unit, and rising above it all (on a cocktail stick up his fundament) is an HH personality figure of Dorsenne.

There's a fair bit of figure bashing happening.  The advancing figures used for the battalion (FN12) are all grenadiers.  This means all the figures in the fusilier companies need their epaulettes, sabre-briquets, and the shoulder-belt it is suspended from, removed.  All the figures are also getting their shakos changed to covered shakos courtesy of some thick coats of white paint.

The biggest job was to create an officer standard bearer from a firing figure, the arms requiring a lot of repositioning.  There's still more work to do on these can be seen below, but this is a WiP.

The rear view shows the backpack's removal (officers wouldn't carry one) and the extension of the sabre briquet into a sword.

This figure still needs the shoulder belt for the 'holster' for the flag pole, an eagle for the standard (to be taken from another figure) and a head swap for one more appropriate for an officer.

The head from eagle bearer will used to replace that on the Newline Design drummer I'm going to use for this unit; this will make him blend in better with the HH figures around him.

The drummer's greatcoat will also get more folds sculpted into it to look more like the HH figures in the rest of the unit.

Then it will be on to painting them, I want to paint the skirmish unit to look like this, for me iconic, illustration ...

... from this book.

For the larger unit (battalion) I shall base them on this illustration except with a grey shako cover to tie them in with the skirmish unit.

21st Panzer Ready to Roll

It was only when writing the last post that I realised I had completed the 20mm vehicles for future Chain of Command (CoC) games that I had featured in earlier Work in Progress (WiP) posts and just put them away in the cabin without posting.

So, time to dig them out and show what the finished articles look like.

The lead vehicle in an old MMS metal kit only included in the picture for comparison with the resin and white metal vehicles from Early War Miniatures (EWM).  The others are described in turn below:

UNIC P107 U 304(F) troop carriers 

These are 'built' straight from the EWM 'kits' with a resin body and white metal wheels, tracked running gear and MG42 mount.  The figures are also those supplied with the vehicle, albeit I only used 6 of the 8 seated infantrymen provided.  The camouflage scheme is taken from a WW2 photograph of this vehicle and gives them (IMO) a lot of character.  

One slight niggle is that the gun shield on the MG42 mount on the P107 was different but I decided to let that pass. 

The driver and commander have been glued into the front seats as shown below alongside the 150mm self-propelled gun.

The seated infantrymen in the back can be removed, as they are all attached by their feet to a false floor as described in a previous post (Becker's Specials - Build Complete-ish).

Sdkfz 135/1 150 SPG LS(f), 150mm self-propelled gun

This was also pretty much built straight from the 'kit', also with a resin body, and white metal gun mounting and recoil spade.  The few minor changes also were also discussed in the earlier post.  

The camouflage scheme for this vehicle was taken from this book which I had treated myself to; it's jam-packed with beautiful artwork.

The gun crew in this vehicle can be removed as they are also fixed to a false floor, the shell cases around their feet, as planned in the earlier post, making the joints more robust.

Pak40 Somua MCG S307(f) Panzerjäger

This vehicle was the real inspiration for the whole batch as it's in the Too Fat Lardies 'Kampfgruppe von Luck' pint-sized campaign and Hans Hoeller's memoirs 'D-Day Tank Hunter'.  Its camouflage scheme was also taken from the book mentioned above but slightly tweaked to match that in the photos of Hans Hoeller's book.  As this was an ambitious kit-bash of the EWM P107 kit I shall indulge myself with a flurry of captioned photos.

Left side

Right side

Front

Rear

Close-up of fighting compartment

Close-up of scratch-built tools

It's not perfect, but I'm still pretty pleased with this effort, and it deserved the up-market crew from AB Figures (actually a Flak crew) who are secured by magnets in the figures and the seats.  The biggest error is the retention of the seating down either side of the fighting compartment.  This was error in reading the plans I used but fixing it would've undone much of the work put in and I doubted the structural integrity of the resin body would survive their removal so I decided to leave it as is.

Becker's Specials - Build Complete-ish

Finally, after lots of failed attempts I've managed to get my scratch-built S307(f) finished and ready for painting together with the other vehicles intended for 21st Panzer in the Too Fat Lardies 'Kampfgruppe von Luck' campaign.

The reference in the title to them being not quite complete, is because the Pak40 on the S307 and the machinegun mounts on the P107 carriers are not yet attached to make the painting easier - see below.

The P107s are straight Early War Miniatures (EWM) 'kits' (resin body and white metal axle/wheels and tracks/running gear).  Once painted I will glue the driver and commander in the front seats and attach the machinegun mounting.  The 'passengers' have been attached to plasticard false floors so they can be removed as required.  Unlike the Sdkfz 135/1 SPG crew these are not just superglued on, but have holes drilled up into their legs and plastic rod inserted.  This rod is then passed through holes in the plasticard floor and rivetted under the 'floor' with a hot blade.

The Sdkfz 135/1 gun crew are now more secure on their false floor with empty shell cases glued around their feet - see below. 

This vehicle is also a straight EWM build with a separate metal gun and recoil spade at the rear.  The only extras were a gun-rest, fashioned from a piece of scrap plastic from my bits box, and some steel wires as latches holding the spade in the raised position (not shown).

The Pak40 S307(f) now only requires the gun mounting to be attached, it's just resting in place in the photos below.

I'm pleased with the build, the gun mounting should be a bit lower, as should the top of the bonnet, but holding it up against a 1/76 scale drawing it's close enough.

I was rather pleased with some of the detailing like the engine hatches and tools all fabricated out plastic bits and pieces (the close-up below shows just how messy I am when using glue).

Other details (see below) include the shot rack below the gun breech, made from plastic rod (ends rivetted with a hot blade to create the cartridge rims[1]) and plasticard.  Also, in the photo below can be seen the magnets for holding the crew in place, and the rack of jerrycans on the back.

The jerrycans were 3D prints I bought especially off eBay from Diesel Dog Models as my bits box turned out to only have Allied jerrycans.  Nice prints as can be seen below, albeit I've spilt quite a bit of glue on them.

Next comes the painting, although I suspect a few more flaws might show up once I get the first coat on.

Notes:

[1.]  There should be 8 rounds in the rack, but six was all I could fit in ...   :o(

Becker's Specials - The Genesis

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 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'.

The main reason for buying these being that he commanded a troop of three Pak40 Somua MCG S307(f) tank destroyers in Normandy.  

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.

As can be seen there's not much left and what there is will be largely covered up by the armour plates (plasticard) to form the S307(f); the radiator grill is just about the only part of the exterior that will remain visible.

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 try 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.