British M3 Lee

I had this kit for some 50-55 years already, at least. Originally it was intended to be destroyed by the DAK somewhere in Tunisia in 1943 in US colours, but the latest Rapid Fire! book by Richard Marsh forced it to the El Alamein battlefield alongside its cousins the M3 Grants.

As it is the single Lee I had to be built, it deserved some care and attention with extra detail like metal strings and a converted crew member, besides the usual boxes and rolled stuff.

Rapid Fire! Eigth army artillery

Just out of the painting table:
25pdr; 6pdr and Bofors 40mm originally for the 7th Armoured division in Normandy but diverted to North Africa in the middle of the journey.

 Airfix and Esci.

Morris 15CWT (Frontline Wargaming).

Airfix.

Airfix.

DAK latest artillery

These are fresh. As I wanted some Pak 50mm and had too many similar 75mm  (at least on a certain distance) a net covered shield (main difference)  makes the part.

Zvezda 105mm howitzer with Revell crew.

Zvezda 20mm AA and Pak 36 (first piece for Ramcke´s brigade).

ACW- Fire and Fury- 1/72nd McDougall brigade behind breastworks in Gettysburg

 This is the first brigade of the last Union corps (XII)  I still miss for the Union in Gettysburg. As I run out of figures i´m going back to WWII...Who doesn´t?

As this brigade spent most of its action in Gettysburg behind breastworks in Culp´s hill I modelled them as they should have looked in those days.

Another reason for this was that I was almost left of figures after another long marathon on some months painting ACW and the only figures I had were kneeling confederates, which turned bluecoats after all.

Rapid Fire! Tarawa 1943 in 20mm

I took some detailed photos of my Betio/Tarawa wargames table prior to the american 20 November 1943 landings, with the japanese dug in waiting for it... One of these days everything will have to be stored to prepare one more wargame (destined not to be wargamed, as usual).

This layout is scaled down to Rapid Fire! figure and weapons organisation.

  The northwest defences with  140mm naval (open revetment)  and a 70mm AA. The logs palisade is amde from barbecue sticks. 

Opposite south. An 8 inch gun with its searchlight. The basis of this gun is the Airfix German coastal set. 

The crew of the 8 inch are old Atlantic figures transformed into artillerymen.

 The 127mm twin  naval guns. These were made from very old Atlantic parts mixed with different types of plastic until  a reasonable similarity was achieved. 

Two Zeroes in the airfield. The models are Airfix and die-cast Altaya. The revetments are made, again, from barbecue sticks.

Several types of bunkers and dugouts  protecting the south beach.

The latrines. Afraid of deseases ( there were 5000 japanese and Korean in the island) the japanese built this kind of latrines in the seashore. When the Marines landed they had bullets waiting and some strange things floating... small mines they thought?

The protections for field guns. You can see the separation between the tiles on the right. The whole island is divided in three large parts for ease of storage.

75mm model 88 in open revetment (Irregular Miniatures based but heavily transformed). The japanese soldiers are painted in a greenish tone as they are not regular infantry but SNLF (sort of, but not the same, as Marines).

140mm naval gun in the east tip of Betio, made from EverGreen plastics. 

The command bunker made from Blue Board with an Ha-go type 95 nearby. While in the outside in the beginning of the battle,  the japanese island CO was killed by US  naval guns. So the defense of the island was left without proper command. Even so the japanese inflicted thousands of casualties on the Marines. Just imagine if  Admiral Shibasaki had survived...

The east end of the airfield. Another Ha-Go  hidden in the coconut trees and some shell craters (Frontline Wargaming) near a 13mm MG (sandbagged position).

 The Airfix house for the pacific. It had to appear. East end of airfield.

The 3rd  Ha-go hidden amongst the trees.

The east part of Betio with the Co post and another 127mm naval gun emplacement.

A range finder (left) and a truck (Fronline Wargaming) near a depot in east Betio.

The anti-tank ditch in east Betio.

The sunken Nimanoa that made part of the landscape on those days. A conversion from a plastic toy boat.

The main pier facing at the lagoon.

The secondary pier with a Frontline Wargaming bunker nearby.

 
A third pier in the east.

Closed...

Open. All the closed bunkers have lift up roofs.

 
Another depot in West Betio.

 Betio from the east.

And that´s it. Most of the material showed is scratchbuilt in the most diverse materials - Evergreen; polistyrene tyles; wood, etc. The water is a tailored carpet. The trees were bought in two large bags in a pastry shop.

The pieces of terrain are all detached, as I intend to use some of them in other layouts, nevertheless they were built specifically for this scenario.

It took me some 2 or 3 months to build all this stuff. You need good information for accuracy and all the details were taken into account down to the last MG emplacement, its shape and size. In some books (Osprey campaign for instance) but also in the internet you will find loads of very good information, as the americans pay a lot of attention to Tarawa and the Pacific campaign having dedicated sites on the subject.  I dont regret a second all this work as our hobby is a great way to learn and detail the past in an unique way.

One of these days I will show you the Marines and their LVT´, LCI´s, LCVP´s and LCVBCFDSRPGFSTVBFDGRTS´s...and their Destroyers (yes, in 1/72nd scale)...

DAK 1/72nd scale Diana 76,2mm self-propelled gun

These are the russian gunned Dianas used by the Afrika Korps. They have Hasegawa chassis, with the gun and protection made out of Evergreen plastic sheet and tubing. The figures are Revell and Hasegawa some of them  heavily scratchbuilt.

Only 9 reached the DAK, but in spite of thin armour their 76,2 mm guns were formidable.

I don´t know if the gun trails were placed inside the vehicle, so I cramped the interior as much as I could so that either way the trails aren´t visible.

DAK Sdkfz 7 20mm quad Rapid Fire! style I hope

This is the 2nd Sdkfz 7/1 for the DAK. This one was made  following Richard Marsh Rapid Fire! kind of conversions he shows in his last and splendid Monty`s battles.

The chassis is an Hasegawa one given by my friend Jorge Faria (worldwide famous modeller and wargamer from Porto, a little bit like me in Coimbra); the Quad 20mm is an old Esci I had somewhere, and the figures are Esci and Hasegawa bodies  with heads from Valiant.

The trailer is scratch built.

ACW- Fire and Fury- 1/72nd scale O´Neal and Ramseur bgdes in Gettysburg

Here are the two last brigades for the NVA. I painted the official grey uniform, with some black stripes and cuffs for North Carolina soldiers (Ramseur bgde). The other brigade (O´Neal´s/Alabama) was painted grey also, but with no black stripes.

It´s done : 37 brigades for Lee´s army. Still missing 12 artillery batteries and limbers for the corps reserve artillery.

ACW- Fire and Fury- 1/72nd command stands and crisis artillery

Now for some last command stands.

Lee and staff, inspired on a painting by Mort Kunstler.

Lee is a Strelets R figure on an Italeri horse.

General Ewell, one of the most blamed for the Gettysburg results. With justice?
Ewell (center figure)  is made out of a torso from Revell, legs from an Italeri horseman and a horse also from Italeri.

And finally Union General Sedgwick, VI corps commander (Strelets R).

Here are the last "crisis artillery" stands I managed to do. I remembered to look at some soldier boxes my friend  Jorge Faria (from Brigada Tripeira) gave me and I found some napoleonic artillery from Esci and Airfix among hundreds of other figures for other ages.

That allowed me to do 5 more groups (gun+limber), two to finish VI corps artillery, and three to do all XII corps artillery.