Rapid Fire! Spanish Civil War in 1/72nd scale - Republican Infantry (EPR).

Those BUM miniatures are really hard to find, no? There are no other plastic SCW infantry, right? Right. But if you give a good look at the most common plastic sets available you will see that some quite passable infantry is not hard to convert.

I saw on the web some modellers using the Hat WWI Austrians and Serbian boxes as the basis for Republican Spanish. It's a great idea but I didn't have any of them around so I used mainly converted figures.

The action takes place in the village of Casas Amarillas (obviously...) and you can see an EPR (Ejército Popular Republicano) battalion with 4 companies, 3 of them rifle and one HMG.

They are are mix of metal Irregular Miniatures with WWI and WWII Esci and Revell plastics, as I did with the Moors.

The Republican infantry used the Spanish Trubia, Czech and Adrian helmets besides the Isabelino cap and other headdress namely the Pasamontañas cap (very close to the Austrian WWI cap). For the Trubia I've used the heads of German Revell WWI figures, the  Esci Japanese for the Czech helmets  and for Adrian helmets from both Airfix and Esci heads.

On the mortar you can see (L) an IM figure, the mortar firer of the Esci WWII Russian set (with a Trubia helmet and opened coat to look like the guerrera) and an Esci US WWII mortar crew with GreenStuff Isabellino cap.
The Hotchkiss group has (L) the observer with the body of the Revell WWI German figure with an Airfix Adrian helmet; an IM firer and another Esci US HMG crew, again with Isabelino cap. The Hotchkiss came from the Esci Japanese with scratch built tripod.

The light mortar (with plate added) is an Esci Japanese with Revell German WWI head and PPD sub-machine gun on its back carved from a PPSH 41. The command set is a Russian officer and the Australian radio man, both Revell. To the right another IM figure.

The LMG's sets are made of a mixture of Japanese, French and Russian, all Esci both hard and soft plastic.

From left to right you have a Russian Esci and two IM figures. The fourth figure is made out of Russian legs and a Japanese torso all Esci. The two last figures are a Revell US marine with a Czech helmet and a Esci WWII French with Trubia Helmet. I used the Revell US marine uniform because is quite similar to the mono used by many Republican troops.

More of the same. The fourth figure is an US Matchbox venerable body with Trubia Helmet. The last of them is again another Frankenstein with Revell Marine legs and Esci Japanese torso.

Metal and plastic happily living together is the same stand.

Some of the figures got an EverGreen blanket roll which desguises some faults on the uniforms.

On the modelling table I have planes, artillery, tanks, cavalry and infantry some half done other half painted. More stuff to do than time available... Where did you hear this story?

Rapid Fire! Spanish Civil War in 1/72nd scale - Moorish Tabors from Larache.

This action happens close to the village of Quatro Casas - as you can conclude from the above picture - and it portrays the two dreaded Moorish Tabors (half battalions of 2 companies of infantry and one of cavalry each) of Melilla, east Morocco.

The Moors were coming from North Africa and belonged to Franco's African Army who became  famous for the first history's airlift (with Hitler and Mussolini's help), its fighting prowesses and also its cruelty.

The figures gave me lots of pleasure to build as I could do what I like the most: converting, that is building armies without becoming broke! (of course I would prefer to be rich, order everything metal and send scratch building and converting for a big walk around the park!).

In the mortar stands I used two metal Irregular Miniatures figures, here with fez, and one plastic. These last ones got a little tricky as the torso and mortar comes from the Esci WWII US mortar figure and the legs are from Revell WWI Germans. The head is the original Esci with a GreenStuff turban.

Cheap Chinese copies of Airfix Japanese and US Marine were turned into Moors again with GreenStuff in the turban and bed roll. The blanket roll was quite used in the SCW and helps desguise imperfections and particularities of the uniforms.

German WWI Esci MG 08 crew with head from Esci Muzlims. The HMG firer is from the Esci US WWII box complete with gun; the helmet is carved to become a fez; the blanket roll hides many different parts of the US uniform and equipment. Pay attention to the HMG crew who should always be Spanish so no turbans. Here I only placed a Spanish as the firer, all other are Moors.

All non-metal figures are these kind of conversions. The basis is mostly Revell WWI German bodies with heads from the Esci Muzlim set.

Loctite Special Plastics gives a good bond to soft plastic parts and was used in all figures needing a new head.

The command stands have figures from the Atlantic WWII Russian set, again converted, Revell and IM metals. The Flags are simple prints from the internet.

The cavalry are based on the Zvezda Turkish cavalry. Some carving, two blanket rolls (on the horse and horseman) and a rifle/SMG made the rest. The Ottoman tuban also had some cutting in order to make it smaller.

Rapid Fire! Spanish Civil War in 1/72nd scale - Early Republican aircraft

Now for some aircraft of the SCW. The village of Dos Casas is again the setting and the local inhabitants must be thrilled about all this crazy activity in their, until now, quiet place. 

All these models are plastic and some have resin parts. Fortunately the fiddly resin parts are mostly for the interiors and were discarded by painting the windshields. No decals on any of them as I prefer to paint the symbols. Paint always sit on the place we want, well, more or less. 

This is the Lockheed Orion from Special Hobby. Only some 3 were used by the Republicans, one of them Mg armed. The plastic is a bit rude and it has some resin parts to compensate. What doesn't compensate is the price which is too high for the quality of the plastic. But it was easily available at my local hobby shop and when you have the fever it really doesn't matter? Right...? (please say yes...).

The Letov S.231 (KP model) was a bit more common with some 17 flying for the Republicans.

The Nieuport 52 (Azur model) was license built in Spain. Some 56 were active when the Spanish Civil War broke out. 

The Fokker F.VII (Valom Model) was a rare bird also. I regret having built and painted it in this postman look as there was a much nicer version with a Mg in central fuselage which made it more menacing.