Rapid Fire! Poland 1939 in 20mm - The first Polish infantry battalion

This RF! infantry battalion is based on the two boxes available from the Hat brand, the infantry and the artillery box, the latter providing mortar crew, telephone operator and officers. Hopefully this will be part one of a total of nine parts, as nine were the battalions in a 1939 Polish Infantry division. These battalions were particularly large, 1000 men strong, which makes companies of 14 figures.

 

The uniform was painted with Vallejo Khaki Grey. I followed mostly the colours of the Polish reconstitution groups as they look pretty accurate.

 

 The "salamander" colour for the helmet is a mix of GW green with a little silver and the canvas stowage was painted Vallejo Dark Yellow. 

 

No 81mm mortars exist in the big 96 figures box of Hat Polish infantry. That can be explained as they were relatively rare (only 20 in a entire infantry division) but Hat provides four of the cute 46mm mortar per box. I built a few 81mm mortars in Evergreen plastic card and used the figures of the artillery box as crew. They are enough for the entire division I hope to build.

 

 Here they are painted and ready to defend mother land. 

 

 The sniper was leaned against a big bush for obvious reasons. They were rare and maybe two or three will be enough for the entire division. All other will have their telescopes cut and will serve in the normal infantry companies.

The bycicle platoon have bycicles from the Airfix command post set. 

 The command group have a mix of both Hat Polish boxes. 

Next: more Polish armour and airplanes.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - French Heavy Artillery Battalion for the DLM

One more unit done with the latest builds. The only new things are one of the guns and the command stand. This post can be interesting as the new gun is made from scratch and copies one from StreletsR models I've shown you recently. I tried to order more from Hannants but the Schneider 105mm gun sold out quickly and waiting is not my favourite business.

Here is the copied gun with Hat wheels as the StreletsR that served as matrix. The Somua MCG 5 are Lancer resin models and they were also used to tow the Schneider 105mm 1913 as well as the Unic P107 that masters Colin and Richard indicates (time to bow... 1,2,3 times, done).

The command group is a mix of Hat and StreletsR figures.

Now lets see the new gun. I copied all sizes from the StreletsR model to the left. The material used was Plastic card and thick hard foam.

The gun shield was bent in hot water for its particulat shape.

What really unifies the two guns are the same wheels taken from the Hat WW2 French Artillery set. Of course not all guns can be reproduced as easily as this one but I hope this one can incentivate some of you to try the same approach.

Next: Poland 1939 again.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - The last Lafflys S20 of the DLM (part 2)

The RDP of a DLM meets at Point Trianglaire not far from all other places I keep on mentioning, in fact, always the same yard!

As I told you in the last post these are the last 14 Lafflys for a full Regiment de Dragons Portés (RDP). Everything is Minigeneral or based on the Minigeneral Laffly S20 TL. I used the Green/Sand camouflage on one of the battalions as it was the oldest type. The Green/Brown camouflage was used already after 1939 and the vehicles produced during the war apparently left the factory in these colours.

This Laffly was converted into the PC version. I added an MT trailer to give both radio and telephone capabilities to the unit to which is attached. This trailer was converted from the Hasegawa GMC trailer.

Another PC conversion with older colours.

Rear view of the same vehicle.  

The converted AT 25mm Hotchkiss portees had some foliage on the gun's shield as it can be seen in wartime pictures. In my case it was also a way to desguise the wrong shape of the shield I scratch built.

The figures are Hat from the French artillery box. As these figures are Dragons Portés don't forget to add a blue collar outlined white.

The standard version of the Laffly S20 had a FM29 LMG added and a converted firer with torso from Hat and legs from Esci Italian Alpini as the ones I showed you a few posts ago.

Lastly I converted a Lancer Resin Somua MCG 4 as a Recovery vehicle. As this one is expected to tow damaged vehicles it has the blue/yellow triangle so typical of French towing vehicles.

The crane was scratch built in plastic and drilled into the resin. The towing cable is metal from an old neckless my mother gave to me to this purpose convinced that its not silver or gold. I hope it wasn't.

Next: probably a big assault on 1939 Polish forces, but still not sure or some 1940 French artillery.