Rapid Fire! NW Europe 44/45 - 101st US Airborne - 1st battalion done

The 1/501st PIR (the Geronimo Regiment) just received their new M1943 uniforms and parade proudly to show them. This battalion is, hopefully and in the far future, one of the nine battalions of the 101st US Airborne Division, the famous Screaming Eagles, to be built. I chose the green colour of the M1943 because it fits both Market Garden and Bastogne. I used Vallejo Russian Uniform for the color of the paratroopers uniform , following a nice YouTube video from the series "How I paint things". The figures are SHQ, Revell and Esci. 

I painted the Screaming Eagle in all left arms using a small background of black, and one stripe of white and another of gold. 

The US flag was painted in the white armband on the right side. Not easy and almost as difficult as the hammer and sickle of Soviet soldiers (which generally corresponds to a dot in this scale). 

My only conversion for this unit was this guy firing the Bazooka. It started as a regular Esci infantryman up until when EverGreen was added to the trousers, backpack, camouflage netting and first aid kit in the helmet. The other figure is SHQ.

The two other Bazooka teams are SHQ.

The 81mm stand is a mixture of Revell and SHQ figures.

The two command stands mix SHQ and Revell. The Revell CO here is the famous Lt.Col. Harry Kinnard the man who heard Gen. Mcauliffe say "Nuts" to the German surrendering demand at Bastogne and who apparently was responsible for the word to become part of history. 

All three brands, SHQ, Revell and Esci, living together in perfect harmony. 

Next: the M-24 Chaffees in the Ardennes. 

Rapid Fire! Market Garden in 20mm - Oddities and such (part 7) - The Airfix Pontoon Bridge turns into a Bailey Bridge

 

Recently on a talk on one of the RF! Facebook pages I noticed that the Airfix bridge used as a decoration for some of my marvellous conversions of the Sdkfz 251/21 Drillings attracted more attention than the converted Drillings themselves (well done João, for you not to think too highly of yourself)! On the conversation the issue of the Bailey Bridge surfaced and Don McHugh posted the very nice Empress Bailey Bridge as the best option for the one over the Son river. In fact its a beauty but at 50 euros I decided to convert the old Airfix pontoon bridge. 

And this is what I got. A few major changes on the Airfix model are necessary to make the conversion:

1- You need to strip one of the decks from its panels and glue them two milimeters from the others on the final deck;

2- Glue small squares of EverGreen to the X central parts of the frames

3- Make 13 drills on each side for small poles and rope on the foot paths;

4- Build 10 bracing frames to unite the frames.

5- (The trickiest one) build four ends for the inclined frames and make them square (black parts on the above picture).

After painting, it looks like a Bailey Bridge. The deck is the worst part as it should be wood and looks clearly metal even if painted in wood colours. 

The metal deck can be recognized here clearly but I hope to have plenty of Shermans (or Panthers) crossing it so that flaw will not be seen.

Next: Maybe moderns.  

Fire&Fury ACW rules set - Gettysburg in 20mm, Devil's Den (part 42)

The Devil´s Den is an iconic place of the battle of Gettysburg made of some big and labirinthic boulders . It´s on the southern end of the battlefield facing the equally famous Little Round Top. It was the scene of some brutal fighting on the second day and, by the end of the day, was in the hands of the Confederates but covered with dead and wounded like other famous places nearby such as the Wheat Field, the Triangle or the Valley of Death. 

Initially I thought about gluing some river stones  to make my Devil´s Den. In the end the weight let the idea aside. Besides the rocks of the Devil's Den have plenty of scars and some have a specific shape difficult to find in a small stone.

In the end I opted by hard Stryrofoam (blueboard) and carved the stones individually. The main trick is to attack the blueboard with the blunt part of the Xacto in order top make scars mainly on the sides and a few big ones on top of the boulders. Painting is my usual black undercoat, and without drying completely, applying sucessive coats of medium grey and light gray. 

 

I left three boulders with enough place for a F&F base to stand in each of them. 

Also enough room was left for some markers. 

Aerial view. The piece is around 35cmX15cm in its maximum measurements.

The northern side showing two entrances. 

The famous "Duck Head" pointing at the Union positions a feature that makes Devil's Den easily recognizable. 

Next: The Bailey Bridge at the Son River. 

Rapid Fire! Market Garden in 20mm - Oddities and such (part 6) - The Panthers of the 107 PzBgde.

Crosses, its all about crosses. This post only exist because the PzBatt. 2107 Panthers had the Balkenkreuz painted in their turrets making them distinguishable from other units. 

Up to now there were 26 Panthers in my collection, all with markings of the units participating in the Mortain counter-offensive. With these 7, I now have 33 Panthers and close to the 50 necessary for the Bulge (around 250 Panthers were used in this offensive making it most probably the biggest gathering of Panthers of WW2). Well, one needs aims in life to continue and I just made up this new  one!   

The above scene is inspired in the awsome Steve Noon's painting "Cutting Hell's Highway", the action of PzBgde 107 on the 22nd of September.

The model Panthers were originally from Matchbox (5), Airfix (1) and Esci (1). Only the Airfix was already built and painted but it became a surplus from the Mortain series and was left aside for being the ugliest of them all. Both the Matchbox and the Airfix models got plenty of new parts not only because they are quite incomplete but also they needed to be upgraded to the Ausf.G versions of the 107 PzBgde. 

The main changes necessary for the Ausf.G were: 

- antennae;

- the Matchbox mantlets had the later chin guard removed.

- new front mudguards and a rim to hold the new pieces of schürzen;

- plenty of hull pieces like boxes, tools and surplus track parts;

- a headlight for the right side mudguard for the Airfix and Matchbox models taken from surplus Hasegawa's.

- a new exaust for the Ausf.G version.

Of course in order to hide the many blanks a lot of two component foliage was added.

No Zimmerit on these ones as I never could master that thing and the conversions I see in this scale are pretty ugly atempts, sorry to say. Besides, and as a consolation, September 44 was the last month Zimmerit was aplied to tanks when the Germans finally realised no magnetic charges were produced by the western  Allies or the Soviets. Like this this lot can head to Antwerp in December properly dressed for Christmas.

For the Ausf.G exaust I used Evergreen tubing in which the old Ausf.D tubes were inserted. 

The new Matchbox Panthers Ausf.G.

The 107 PzBgde also painted its numbers on the back of the turret.

Regarding the sole Airfix Panther a bit more work was necessary to make this one more believable. The model is notoriously lower than the Matchbox one which looks much better. The entire set track was ripped off and glued some 3mm lower increasing the height of the model. Regarding the turret, its again a bit lower than the Matchbox's but it was kept like that.  

The Airfix Panther got a bit taller and closer to its unit mates. 

The Airfix model finished. As the original model doesn't have the rear boxes I just covered the area with foliage due to laziness.

Finally the tank of the 2107 Panzer battalion commander, Major Von Plüskow. The Esci is by far the best Panther model of the three brands, slightly bigger than others (1/72nd scale and 1/76th for the others) and much more detailed. 

Again the main change is the exaust but you also need to cover the driver's vision slit, a feature discarded on the Ausf.G model. Plastic broom antennae were added to the rear and that includes the star antenna. To build these ones I use a small blob of GreenStuff on top of the antenna in which six smaller pieces are inserted. In the end a drop of SuperGlue makes the thing quite sturdy.

Here is Major Hans Albrecht Von Plüskow in his last hours of life as he will be KIA the next day, 23rd September, while attacking the Allied positions at Veghel.

After reading a bit about Plüskow I couldn't find much about his headdress but I like to believe he wore the Shirmmütze without the wire stiffener, as most of the officers of the Panzerwaffe did in the last 3 years of the war. For that look I burned the top part of the PSC M43 field cap of the figure in the previous picture and squashed it a little in order to look like the officer´s Shirmmütze. 

Next: I think I´ll have a rest before work but I´m not sure if something will tempt me. 

Rapid Fire! Market Garden in 20mm - Oddities and such (part 5) - The Sdkfz 251/21 Drillings of the 107 PzBgde.

More than 80km distance from Arnhem, on the 19th September some Sdkfz 251/21 Drillings of the 107 PzBgde managed to cross the pontoon bridge at Son over the Wilhelmina canal. This bridge was built by the British engineers after the destruction of the original one by the Germans on the initial stages of the Market Garden.   

All models are Hasegawa with converted 'castle' and triple-mount MG151 autocannon. 

Instead of concentrating the Drillings in the 4th company of the PzGrenBatt. 2107 like in the RF supplement I gave different company numbers as they were distributed along the three PzGren. companies. The numbers appear to have been big white and black (red?) painted on the sides and back of the HTs. 

In a picture all FOW followers will like you can see crew taken from different PSC sets. 

The pontoon bridge is Airfix. 

Returning to symbols, the one of the 107 PzBgde was painted yellow sand in a green field. I think there isn't certainty about this but its the opinion of some investigators. 

After the conversions the Hasegawa models looked like this. The castle was made of Evergreen as well as other smaller details; the triple-mount was carved from two layers of Multiexel expanded PVC and the 15mm autocannon are pin parts. 

The easily breakable parts were replaced with eternal plastic broom sticks.  The foliage is made of my trusty two component paste. 

Before priming my conversions always look like having been bought in the local Chinese shop but after aplying the primer power they look like Alby models! 

A big thank you to Alan Mcourbey, Don McHugh and Richard Baber for the information provided. 

Next: the Panthers of 107 PzBgde. 

Rapid Fire! 20mm Sdkfz 263 for several theaters

This is a German vehicle I still didn´t have. The Sdkfz 263 is one of those ugly beauties WW2 produced in relatively small numbers (240) and used in all fronts in the Nachrichten detachments and also in Army and Korps headquarters. 

The models are PSC and as usual with this marvellous brand many parts were left on the sprues from other variants provided in the box. 

Well, a few years ago I converted one from the Airfix Sdkfz 234 but looking at it now makes me feel ashamed. This was the atempt: 

Ok, don't laugh, it was made two years ago when I was just 50 years old. 

This one is Generalmajor Erwin Rommel's Sdkfz 263 when commanding the 7th Panzer Division in the French campaign of May/June 1940. Rommel is a PSC figure provided in the Pz38t and variants box. It started as an artillerist and I just added the bottom part of the overcoat and a pair of binoculars. Rommel used many different overcoats during the war and the overcoat is not his most distinctive piece of clothing during the French campaign as it was hot during most of the campaign. This was the closest I got to a figure that could look like Rommel in 1940 and 1/72nd scale: 

Here Rommel with Hoth at the village of Éplessier in the Somme using one of his overcoats. 

The model is a beauty of simplicity and builds very quickly.

The two others went to the DAK, one to each of the Panzer divisons. As usual with this Korps plenty of stuff was used as extras: the pith helmets came from the Atlantic DAK, stowage was made of two component paste and the jerrycans are my own making from soft styrene sheet.

The Nazi flag was a constant in this type of vehicles but the truth is that its presence offends some people who sometimes call my attention to the fact. As they are absolutely right I placed them wrapped  around a pole as they were occasionaly seen. 

The crew for these two came from Esci and Revell (left model) and PSC (right model).

Here Rommel looks at the future and sees itself as Generalleutnant of the DAK...

Next: Maybe modern Russians, Ozereika Romanians or something else but beach will get in the middle and sand and glue dont mix very well.