Rapid Fire! Western Desert 1940-43 in 20mm - Ariete Division complete

A strong Italian force leaves Ras-al-MarioDraghi oasis after filling their jerry cans. One more nostalgic post with the Ariete division having its last missing vehicles added. 

All models in this picture are MiniGeneral 3d prints in PLA. I continued to use my now trusty method of two coats of varnish spray before priming in order to disguise most of the printing lines.  

These ones here are not Ariete but from the 12º Autoraggruppamento. The two models to the left are the Lancia 3RO with 100/17 guns and to the right you see a captured Morris with a 65/17 gun. Both models could be used in the AT role, particularly the 100/17 guns which could fire EP and EPS rounds.  Maybe in the future I´ll add another Morris and also one Ford with 20mm Breda AA (when I find one) that also fought with this unit. 

The crew is StreletsR with the usual drivers from converted Esci. 

                    

The 3RO 100/17 models are IBG and are fantastic kits. Unfortunately, from the wargamer point of view, they are another nightmare to build with hundreds of small pieces and PE parts as they are scaled down 1/35th kits. In the end the result is very good but, come on, taking a week to build two models? I should have been suspicious when the kits arrived in boxes where you could place a WW2 bomber!

The last model for the Bersaglieri AA battalion was made using the MiniGeneral model coupled with Waterloo and StreletsR figures. 

Some jerrycans and a Breda 6,5mm were added and later on the crew and some stowage. I´m doing like this because of the two coats of varnish applied on the PLA prints before priming as the varnish may erase details on figures, etc. 

The Saharianna 42 to the right is the last model for my Arditi truck company; the middle model is a L6  ammunition carrier and the one to the right is the Carro Commando M40 for the Semovente batteries. All are MiniGeneral.

This Saharianna got a scratch built Solothurn 20mm AT gun. 

The original model has all hatches closed which is a pity. New hatches were made, Retrokit (?) figures and Breda 6,5mm added as well as a scratch built goniometer. 

Minigeneral Fiat 626 to be used ... everywhere. 

A few more AS37 from MiniGeneral for the Bersaglieri regiment. 

 

This last StreletsR Schneider/Ansaldo 105mm guns completes the Ariete artillery. 

Next: maybe Germans for Barbarossa and beyond.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - Scammell SV1 for the British

Two Scammel SV1 are called to the disastrous battlefield of Huppy not far from the Village of Cantona, a funny little place in Northern France were a small community of English people from Leeds and Manchester still lives. 

The Scammel SV1 was one of the main recovery vehicles used by the British in France 1940, together with the FWD R6T (AEC 860). A little bit more than 40 SV1 were built and many were lost in France. There are a few pictures of the SV1 in Europe in German hands but no Scammel SV2 which indicates that this last one was not sent to France (several were captured by the DAK in North Afrika though). That caused me a problem as I have the 1st Armoured Division close to an end and the 1st Army Tank Brigade finished and still no recovery vehicles for the RAOC. I dont know any model of the R6T and the 20mm size models of the Recovery Scammel that I know of are SV2s (Milicast and IBG). As I had two spare Airfix Scammel tank transporters I decided to make my usual conversions to get the BEF/1st Armoured Division Scammel SV1. 

After looking for the scarce information on the web about this vehicle I was pleased to have a number of nice photos of the Scammel SV1 sent by other modellers and wargamers. 

The crane is different from the one in the later SV2 and everything above the 2nd and 3rd set of wheels had to be made from scratch as well as some new details at the front.

 When I arrived at this point I was quite happy with the result: The Airfix model is not the easiest build but in a few hours I managed to put together the two vehicles leaving behind the ramps of the original models. This is the problem of "a few hours" because disaster unfolded at this stage: My Elves (as Thompson ArmyBiscuits calls them) warned me that the rear part of the cabin of the Scammel Tank Transporter doesn't exist in the SV versions. F***** I thought (its not "Fuck", its "Foda-se", which is the same in Portuguese)!  I needed a recovery vehicle to recover these two!

So no images of the process of converting a conversion (as they would be easily censored) but just the final product. The way to detach the third part of the cabin involved a soldering iron and lots of X-Acto cuts, broken parts and re-gluing. In the end the ugly scars were covered with stowage and they became reasonably accurate models . 

The painting was my usual two tones of green and lots of doubts as the number 2 in the arm of service is just a supposition as well as the 10 for the bridge classification. 

So now each one of them will go to the RAOC detachment of both 2nd and 3rd armoured brigades of the 1st Armoured Division. If I follow History they will have plenty of work to do!

A few parts of the interior are probably not correct. This is a tall vehicle and not easy to photograph in its cargo part. Besides most of the existing photos are the ones in German hands already with some parts changed. 

A big Thank You to Sally Gardner, Ken Hanning and Richard Baber for all the precious information. 

Next: still WW2 for sure. 

Rapid Fire! Poland 1939 in 20mm - An all FtF and WaW encounter.

Somewhere in western Poland, in a clearly stormy (Daniel's) day, an advanced German HQ is surprised by a Polish motorised force. Well in fact these are just my latest models from First to Fight and World at War due to a recent visit to Lisbon. I was mostly after the new Polish cavalry but there weren't any so these had to do.

These two Krupp Protze will force me to start the 10th Polish Motorised Brigade with their 1916 German helmets.

These 4CP's will tow the Polish medium artillery, specially the 100mm and 105mm guns.

One more 7TP was added this time with a Skytrex metal figure.

Taking advantage of the primer cloud one more Heller PZL 23 was built and painted. As usual it has hand painted markings.

This was how it looked the German HQ a little time before the Poles arrived. Damn! We can't even invade a neighbouring country without being interrupted!!

All these vehicles carry the 1940 markings and are thus better for the French campaign. I also din't use any brown camouflage to take these models up to the Russian campaign. Besides the Brown camouflage was standard but there were numerous exceptions.  This Sdkfz 251/6 suits the vehicle used by Guderian in France. The figure inside is Zvezda and originally was shooting against airplanes, but here... is just checking the radio structure.

Another Befehls Pz 38t added with a PSC figure.

This Sdkfz 231 will fit nicely the Recce units for Blitzkrieg again with a PSC figure. I replaced the 20mm gun with a sturdier from Minairons Spanish Pz I.

Lastly something of a mistake. WaW (IBG in fact) covers so well the beginning of the war that they even do models that were used solely for training like this Stug III 0-serie model. PSC figures again.

Next: the 51e BCC with the mighty Char 2c ready to crrrrrush ze invader! Oh la la.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - Panzer reinforcements sneaking across the border.

Rapidly coming out of the woods of Jour Sans Soleil a German thrust of 15 new models is about to pick the French reservists by surprise. The German High command was worried as in this blog only French and British models were showing up in the last few months and thus it decided on a surprise attack.  

 Models are Zvezda (75mmIG, 20mm AA and Sidecars), BPM (PzIII E), IBG (PzII A)  and Armourfast (Pz IV C).

Armourfast makes these nice PzIV C's. I only added hull Mg, antenna, holding stucture for the spare wheels, picks and shovels (unseen on the other side), stowage and crewman. The detail is getting better at Armourfast but still some important details are missing.

On the contrary of Armourfast the BPM PzIII's bring all details already printed in the models. The detail is not as fine as the plastic models but they are also getting better and better. Additions are the usual crew (old Esci from their King Tiger), stowage and antenna.

The IBG new Pz II A are very accurate and as easy to build as Armourfast even if with more parts to glue. Additions as above with crewman from PSC. These models will join the shelf of the 6th Panzer Division as this early model of the Pz II was still being used alongside the Pz 35(t) in this big unit of the French campaign of 1940.

The 75mm IG of Zvezda had a third crewman from Airfix with new head from PSC as the original head had a canvas cover for later campaigns.

Another of the same extra crew can be seen on this 20mm AA gun stand from Zvezda.

The BMW R-12's from Zvezda are little treasures of plastic engineering. I only took out some of the Mg's and made new arms of Milliput for its crew.

A bird's view of each of the new models.  

Next: Portugal- Iran at 19.00!!! After the Euro Cup, the World Cup will be for Portugal for sure as we are playing the best football ever!

Just kidding...

Rapid Fire! Blitzkrieg in 20mm - IBG Panzer III A

 

 

Early Panzers in plastic are rare. But aparently IBG will solve the issue with a collection of German tanks (and a nice magazine to go along) for Blitzkrieg. This is number one and IBG is clearly copying FtF fellow countrymen on having a fast built kit, very detailed and with a small magazine packed with information  Only after buying these three I read that only 10 PzIIIA were produced which makes one of them redundant for RF! Better more than less...

 

 

The model is very good, easy to build and with delicate parts on the FtF style and nothing to do with PSC. The only remark I would point out on this one is the size of the 37mm gun which looks a bit too small. No crew member as in FtF tanks ( the new Polish Krupp Protze has two...) so a tank commander from PSC was added.  

 

 

Next: More France 1940.