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. 

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

 

The Airfix US paratroopers were outclassed by the Esci and Revell already many years ago. That is really a pity as they are excellent sculpts and very realistic. The problem with this set is having a bit too small figures compared to the other two rivals. 

Like that they are joining the artillery as they are very easy conversions. Most of the figures got something like a 75mm shell and some Milliput hands after cutting out Garands and Thompsons. 

The guns are Waterloo1815. 

To the left there is a 3d resin print. This Waterloo1815 is quite generous with three guns and 12 excellent artillerymen but they will end up in another project. 

Next. Greek infantry at Crete or more Slovaks

Rapid Fire in 20mm! Filling gaps in WW2 - part 4

One more episode of this series that already became your favorite for sure. This time a few details and numbers for the allies, both British and Soviet. Also a few more German dead markers for my next game that will have plenty of infantry.

Super Mário offered me this Gaz AAA. It has the rear part with a big miss print so something else had to be done. 

In Shann´s Seelow Heights book the command version of the Gaz AAA shows up from several perspectives. Command vehicles are the typical vehicles for this series that is concentrating on small details, sometimes unnecessary ones. 

The only change is the big box at the rear made from plastic card and Milliput. 

The usual stowage and boxes were also added, specially on the roof top which also helped to disguise some flaws. 

In the end you get a reasonable Soviet command vehicle which would´t be difficult as the base resin print is a beauty. 

While looking to the stash I remembered mating the chassis of an early surplus MiniGeneral PLA print Polish 7tp with a Minairons leftover  T-26 turret in order to get one more complete T-26 for Barbarossa. The holes of the twin turrets were filed with hot glue and one of them was drilled for the turret to swirl around.

A few boxes and stowage were added and the model was built. 

This is an easy conversion as the Vickers 6 ton tank is the base for both the 7tp and the T-26 tanks

Another conversion of the week was this pair of M7 priests in British service. They have the wading system used on D-day and will be used in Don McHugh's latest RF scenario, Breakthrough to Lion-sur-Mer. The models are Matchbox and Fujimi but many parts were interchanged. The white superstructure was made from plastic card and the crew are the original figures with Valiant British heads. 

Both are 1/76th scale and even if slightly different ( the Fujimi model is the B1 version) the added superstructure helps to unify them. 

Can't say this picture is an original, right, Don? 

Two more fighters were added to the Barbarossa VVS, namely these die-cast Mig-3 from Luppa. I still didn´t have any of this important model which was one of the more numerous in the 1941 summer. 

Finally, a few more German casualty markers were added. The figure are hard plastic Hasegawa with added arms in GreenStuff. 

The poses themselves are initially Mg-42 and Mauser firers but as many have the face down they became reasonable casualty markers. 

The blood stains are pretty convincing as they come from a GW reference called 'Blood for the Blood God'... what else can you ask?...

Next: Carentan in 20mm. One of the best pieces of modelling I've seen in my life made by Super Mário and offered to me a few days ago.

Rapid Fire! NW Europe 44/45 - 101st US Airborne - 2nd battalion done and some more air support and transport to go along

To go along the release of the new RF Market Garden supplement here comes  the 2nd battalion of the Screaming Eagles and some aircraft to celebrate. 

The second Battalion of the 501st PIR, 101st Airborne division is more of the same with Revell, Esci and SHQ and one lonely Airfix. 

For the command, mortars and bazooka stands I used a few more normal GI with new trousers pockets and changed helmets with the help of GW GreenStuff.

The three Browning stands had bipod changed MGs, something I made wrong in the previous battalion as pointed out by Alan McCoubrey. I used parts of the tripod to make the correct version of the 30 cal. A small Evergreen triangle was added as the MG wooden butt and glued to the firer's shoulder.

The 30 cal. stands are not easy to stay correctly inside the 4cm round bases so the boots and weapons that stayed out were brushed with a thick layer of gloss varnish for extra resistance before aplying the black primer coat. 

The figures are Esci but the guns are Revell as the original ones ended up somewhere in tanks or jeeps.

The bazooka teams used changed Esci GIs again. The loader is the Revell figure firing the M1 carbine and now is a bazooka loader with a Hasegawa rocket. 

The 81mm mortar stand is made of a SHQ figure and two Esci transformed GIs. The 60mm stand is the same and the tube itself is the old Airfix Stokes mortar cut in half with a new support (a left over of the 30 cal. Greta Thunberg will be happy with all this recycling).  

The command stands have one more officer recruited from the infantry (left, from the Revell infantry box with GreenStuff added details), a SHQ figure with a Thompson, and in the right stand the venerable and smaller radioman from Airfix paras in 1/76th scale. Well, no one is forced to be Revell-tall !

A company of US paratroopers from this new battalion based on Esci, Revell and SHQ figures. No not yet the "Easy company" of Spielberg's fame, for that you will have to wait for the 506th Regiment still many posts away.

This Revell DC-3 Dakota was painted years ago but only now is getting famous. I have another from Airfix, maybe some 40 years old, that will soon make company to this one. 

All markings were painted by hand as I wanted one for D-Day. Sugar Babe itself became a bit chunkier but I´m sure she will find pretenders in those guys who like "things bigger than the size of hand". 

The reason for the Airfix model is still not built has to do with not knowing which damn Green colour I used on the Revell model. To make things worse all I remember is using a mix of colours!

Number 2 of the Luppa collection already came out and its this nice Mustang P-51B, the correct version for ground attack in 1944. Unfortunately the bombers of this collection are 1/144 or 1/200 scale as I suspected.  So only a few more fighters will be acquired as at 10 euros the deal is not that good. 

Lastly, for a bit of nostalgia, I found these almost 40 years old photographs of my first solo wargame: defending Bastogne you can see some blue-grey clad (?) US paratroopers with a very old M-36 Jackson from Fujimi (what???). The card houses are long gone but the plastic ones are still alive. 

The first wave of probing attackers are Matchbox Pumas and Esci 250s with ghost infantry from an unknown origin. Coming along are those strange models from Atlantic: an oversized Kettenkraftrad towing a weird AA bathtub with wheels... I was thinking in those days everything was pretty accurate if made in a factory. No more pictures of this game unfortunatly as probably I got too excited for that.

Next: More Dieppe. 

Rapid Fire! Normandy 1944 in 20mm - Wurframmen SP time

The Wurframmen of the 2nd PD and PzAbt 205 prepare to unleash a Rocket volley that will - finally, and at the 99th atempt- send the allies back to England from vere zei should never have come!

After showing you my prowesses in the German language lets get back to models!  

I already  have finished some six Esci Nebelwerfers and a few conversions of static Nebelwerfers for Omaha but these ones offer the possibility of having them on tracks. I had these two Skytrex Renault UE Wurframmen for many years and it was about time to be done with them. The Germans converted some 40 of them, 20 each of these two types, and the allies faced them in Normandy. 

Both types, rear and side Wurframmen, got a big Altaya base for aircraft as I wanted to portray them with crew around. These came from the Esci Nebelwerfer and so are particularly fit for the job. The uniforms are Heer while the wheeled Nebelwerfers crews I showed you in the Mortain series are in the SS garments of the 17th PzGrenDiv. 

The last one is the famous Stuka Zu Fuss in an all Esci stand, both vehicled and crew. coming from different boxes.  The Sdkfz 251 Stuka Zu Fuss in Normandy is a relatively recent finding and it was aparently used at least by the Pionner battalion 38 of the 2nd PD as a picture of a destroyed and abandoned one in Falaise shows. 

Sometimes I wonder how efective the German 43-45 vehicle camouflage was. I don't know if its the effect of my kind of ground painting but the German vehicles really blend, at least seen from above, one of the main aims of camouflage. 

Next: some WW2 aircraft, 12th SS transport or something else like a return to moderns.