An infantry battalion just debused for its Renault N6C2 and forms with the horse tows of the 81mm mortars and 25mm AT guns of the DI. The gathering is in a field close to the village of Raymond Kopa (as you know it can be whatever name you want whether you like football or not) unfortunately already hit by the German artillery.
The DI/DIM its about to be completed only missing one infantry battalion and 5x 25mm AT guns. In this post you can see:
-one infantry battalion (the 8th)
- one more bus
- nine scratch built horse-drawn 81mm mortar
- six 25mm AT gun horse tows from Mário Laranja 3d resin printer
- the last Char B1 bis missing to complete the DCR.
The full infantry battalion. The figures are a mix of Pegasus and WW1 Revell figures with shortened bayonets. The die-cast bus is my third. I remember buying the first two from China years ago at a reasonable price. This one came from France through Ebay at 20 euros P&P included which is reasonable compared with other offers at the same place. The baby blue on the windows is just to go along the others painted previously as a darker blue is more effective.
Many figures had GreenStuff arms in order to create new poses.
Both the 60mm and 81mm mortars had converted crew, mostly from the Pegasus firing positions.
The 81mm mortar shell about to be introduced in the barrel didn't came out as expected, looking more with a rugby ball. Sometimes you only realize it after painting...
The pointing figure came out better. The arm got itself straight as it was modelled around a pin introduced at elbow height.
The command section has the usual scratch built radio on the back of the running figure to go along the officer who is also (unfortunately) quite active.
After a careful inspection of the GBM magazines I found that the French radios were dark grey which will force a repaint of all others.
Not much information can be found on the 81mm mortar voiturette but this one shows its main characteristics with ammunition boxes on top, mortar barrel on the left side, folded tripod on the back and plate on the right side.
Based on this information and some GBM diagrams nine of these voiturettes were scratchbuilt, one for each battalion. Our masters Richard and Colin show in its diagrams of the French infantry battalion another model (covered), the voiturette d'infanterie modéle 1937, to carry the 81mm mortar, but in fact that horse-drawn cart was used for medical and command issues.
I used two different Revell figures, the grenade thrower and the cornet, this last one with GreenStuff right arm in order to pull the horse's reins.
The voiturettes were built with pieces of Blueboard (carved at the top to simulate ammo boxes), plastic pieces for the three parts of the mortar and stretched sprue for the poles connecting the cart to the horses, The horses are conversions from old Atlantic Egyptian cavalry.
Now these ones are something much better as they were 3d designed and resin printed by my friend Mário Laranja. The S-shaped connection form between the cart body and the horse is particularly difficult to scratch build so I asked Mário to design it. As usual it became something amazing, horse included! Each one got a Hat driver. The missing three 25mm AT tows are the already built Renault UE chenillettes.
Once again I used for basing cheap heavy duty thick card filled with (the cheapest you can find) super glue. The bottom of the base had some X-Acto cuts and acrylic paint. The final result is a very resistant surface with no warping over the years.
The nice design and printing of this 3d resin print can be seen here in all its glory.
Finally, one last Char B1 bis from MiniGeneral in 41e BCC colours was added for a total of 14 for the DCR.
Next: Probably more Ariete vehicles.
