Rapid Fire! 20mm - The British Airborne Division Hamilcar and Tetrarchs

Both an Hamilcar glider and a company of Tetrarchs were still missing in my British Airborne division. I looked for an Hamilcar and found three producers: a 3d printed version; the one from Planet Models in resin and a Vacuum formed kit from Contrail with metal parts also. The problem was the price as they range from 90 to 140 euros not counting P&P and the usual excruciating time of wait and customs procedures and pay if coming from the UK. There is also the Britannia model now by Grubby tanks and that one is much cheaper at around 20/25 euros. The problem with Britannia (besides nowadays time and customs) is  that this one would have to go along with my Horsas from Italeri making the Hamilcar much smaller as Britannia gliders are reduced versions of the real things. So I decided making my own as I only intend to have one. The Tetrarchs were easier as they are resin 3d prints coming from Italy but this same file can be printed in other places. 

The Tetrarchs came from Assymetrical Wargaming (Italy) a place were you can also get the excellent Simon Soldiers 20mm figures in continental Europe together with many other fine brands. They only needed a few stowage, antennas and a figure for the command tank. 

 The Command tank got a sliding hatch and an Airfix figure with headphones made from heated sprue. 

The tank colors and symbols were challenging as I knew nothing about it. After reading many internet articles it can be concluded that green+black was the most probable choice as it was used in mid 44 by most of British vehicles. For the symbols I opted in true recce style for the 41 in a blue over green square instead of the red 85.  

The Hamilcar was great fun to carve from a large block of BlueBoard but it  became too tall, maybe by 1cm which is noticeable in this scale. My problem is that I scratchbuild my stuff without much of a proper planning. This way generally works for houses and other structures but its not that good for machinery. I looked for the size of the Hamilcar (only around 1 meter longer than the Horsa, also a big glider) and went for it straight away trusting in pictures for the other measurements. 

The wings are one of the most difficult parts to make as they are going in an oblique way into the fuselage and stick to the cockpit support. So some extra sheets of card with resin were placed to try to give that effect. 

The way the Hamilcar landed  allowed for the wheels to be at belly level. 

The big front door became open as these big planes would be stranded in the battlefield in this form for a long period of time before being retrieved. 

Again too tall...

The overall appearance is reasonable but a German buff can say its a Me 321... 

The extra pieces of card with resin on the wings got sanded in order to break those strange structures. 

The painting was straight forward with large parts of black which helps hiding the flaws and with a style as close as possible to my Horsas. 

All markings were hand painted and go along with a rustic build :) 

There you go: a cheap and entertaining way for you to have an Hamilcar glider to carry Tetrarchs for D-Day, Bren carriers and 17 pdrs for Arnhem and M22 Locusts for Operation Varsity. 

Next: More British Airborne bits as June is approaching.