The Skoda 6ST6-L (they could have given these things an easier name) were used to pull the vz.35 105mm guns but you can find them carrying infantry in period photos. You can solve this issue by ordering Wespe models from Romania which are excellent but these three would have been close to 100 euros PP included. After a blog conversation with Neil Patterson I went to convert three Opel Blitz from the stash and the result is reasonable. Maybe the fourth one necessary will be Wespe as I´m curious about the true size of this truck in 20mm size.
Masters ordered us to have two companies of cyclists for the Lipovec scenarios and these had to be somehow converted as there are no Slovak cyclists anywhere for sale. Even Masters converted some Raventhorpe Germans for that effect. These will have the basis of the Hat German cyclists and were duplicated in resin.
This is the drawing of the Skoda truck. The main changes in relation to the Opel Blitz are the cooling entries on the engine part, the six wheels for a tandem rear axle, the boxes on the chassis and the tilt size and shape.
Here you can see the main transformations still before the increase of the tilt. The similarities between the two trucks are evident.
The windshields were covered with plastic card as Airfix doesn´t provide clear plastic parts.
The undercarriage became a bit messy (or Ronaldo if you prefer) as I used hot glue to level the wheels).
A layer of Milliput was applied a few millimeters below the tilt to make it bigger than the Airfix one. The cargo bed on the Skoda is also smaller than the one on the Opel Blitz so everything goes well in terms of general dimensions.
The cyclists are Hat Germans with ESCI Japanese heads.
The cyclists were duplicated with BlueStuff and Araldite two component resin.
Most of heads became a blob of indistinguishable shape and were replaced with heads from the British paratroopers Airfix set. Milliput was used to correct arms and hands as many were not printed in resin. Finally a piece of plastic was drilled on the rifle socket as these ones were taken out in order to duplicate the parts more easily.
In the end you can have a merry bunch of Slovak cyclists were no two are alike.
Next: More Slovaks as this is a challenging group.
Those truck are just superb modeling and the cyclists are very clever also - well done mate top class modeling all round - most impressive
ReplyDeleteThanks Richard. I´m around a number of tricky VZ 30 artillery guns.
DeleteLooking good Joao! More excellent and innovative modelling.
ReplyDeleteNeil
Thanks Neil. It was made with your help.
Delete