Tuesday, 23 June 2020

Rapid Fire! Desert war 1940-43 in 20mm - Numbers for the British 8th Army



A British Task Force prepares the defence of the oasis of Ras-al-Boris. This time the force defending Ras-al-Boris is prepared against any kind of injury, virus or desease suffered by the British and some proper medical measures were taken as you can see by the Ambulance Jeep.


The M-7 Priest SPG Regiment got its 4th vehicle. Again an Altaya repainted model. 


The 25pdr and Morris tow is the 6th and last for the towed 25pdr Regiment. Altaya repainted and soft plastic crew. Only the seated crewman is a hard plastic figure from PSC.


This is the 3rd 6prd Portee so a full Motor battalion is complete but still far from the necessary eight for an Anti-tank Regiment. Again repainted Altaya with a soft plastic crew from Esci, Airfix and Matchbox.


This part will be longer while I will try to show how you can take advantage of the leftovers of the PSC box of M3A1 Light Tanks built for Ozereika.

I found on the web an award winning 1/35th scale M3 painted in this kind of blue and just copied it. 



All symbols were hand painted (that can easily be seen 😕).


At the moment a complete M3 Honey battalion of 10 models is done. 


As told in the previous a total of six models can be made from the PSC box, three of them directly from the sprues an another three with a few extra parts.The 30.cal Browning is made of 8 small parts stuck and drilled together. 


The driver's plate is easy to make. Not so much for the gun and I was lucky to have kept 3 mantlets from Hasegawa's M3 models. The gun itself is metal tubing with a cover of drilled plastic in its thicker part. 


The bottom part of the chassis is Styrofoam with a few plastic parts added. You can use superglue on the Styrofoam to glue whatever you want if you apply a generous coat of PVA glue before. 



But the funniest part of these builds was this small Matchbox Jeep converted to an ambulance. Two stretchers from Airfix were added as well as a scratch built intravenous infusion system. 

Next: whether the motorcycles of the QVR for the 1940 BEF, some soviet gliders and planes or the Naval infantry for Ozereika. 

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10 comments:

  1. Delta Coy23 June 2020 at 23:56

    G'Day Joao, great additions to your collection. The Tac signs are fine and a lot better than I could have painted in that scale. Cheers greg

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  2. João Pedro Peixoto24 June 2020 at 00:54

    Thanks Delta coy. Paint is always at hand, sometimes transfers are not :)

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  3. JohnM24 June 2020 at 05:22

    Great work as always João. Nice work on those Altaya diecasts and the crews. I must give those PSC Stuarts a try too. I always thought those Brits on stretchers looked a bit too calm as if they were just taking a nap - a ride on that jeep should wake them up :-)

    Cheers, John

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    Replies
    1. João Pedro Peixoto24 June 2020 at 06:16

      Thanks John. Build the Psc Stuart and you will not regret it. Regarding the jeep yes the trip still didn't start :)

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  4. Paul Liddle24 June 2020 at 08:28

    Great work on the Honeys, it is always nice to make something out of spare parts.
    Regards,
    Paul.

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  5. João Pedro Peixoto24 June 2020 at 10:58

    Thanks Paul cheers.

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  6. Scotsgrey26 June 2020 at 06:22

    Great work on the handpainted tac symbols

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  7. João Pedro Peixoto26 June 2020 at 07:35

    Thanks Scotsgrey. Cheers

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  8. Chris Kemp28 June 2020 at 14:54

    Dear João,

    I'm a big fan of painted flashes, and yours are much neater than mine. Neat work!
    I was surprised to find that the 11th Honourable Artillery Company RHA, painted their divisional flash on the "wrong" side - the right front mudguard. At first I thought that the pictures that I used had been reversed, as often happens, but the Priest's pulpit confirmed that it was the correct side. It annoyed me because I had to repaint the flashes, (but I'm not suggesting that you do the same). They had so much junk hanging off their priests that you could always throw a cam net or sandbag over it if you wanted to. Otherwise, no one will notice. I'm still trying to find out which units used 6pdr portees at alamein, so any information is welcome.

    Regards, Chris.

    https://notquitemechanised.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/11th-honourable-artillery-company-rha/

    The picture is on this page: https://notquitemechanised.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/1st-armoured-division-at-alamein/

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  9. João Pedro Peixoto30 June 2020 at 01:50

    Thanks Chris. I noticed that characteristic of many British AFV on having the unit and division flashes on the wrong side. I just chose the 11HAC for its interesting camouflage and omitted the divisional symbol so I can use them in any unit up to Italy. I followed this rule for all British units in order to have generic units excepting the 7thAD who have too nice symbols to be left aside. For the Germans I made all vehicles for the 21PD, 15PD and 90Le with its symbols as they are also much less confusing. In the RF book on El Alamein the 6pdr portee shows up in the late 1942 motor battalions and Anti tank regiments. I used an hasty artillery "77" for them that just looks nice and was taken from somewhere in the net even if the main idea is to place one in each Motor companies.

    ReplyDelete