Linhas de Wellington de Valeria Sarmiento

I went to see the opening of the movie - Linhas de Wellington - in Gil Vicente Theater, here in Coimbra on the 8th of October.

When buying the ticket I bumped, not litterally unfortunately, with Soraia Chaves and I even made her a very favourable and unnecessary remark that she replied with a nice smileeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaahh...

This is the aproximate outfit she was wearing when looking at me !!! (XXXX emoticons with tongue out!!!).





Well...not exactly but believe me she was also in black...

After waking up, the film has some flaws in modelling and wargaming terms :

- There is a big crane right on the beginning of the film on top of Serra do Buçaco. Even with smoke it can be seen...

- There are French cannon destroyed all over that scene. The French cannon were in reality far behind the piles of dead resulting of the two french assaults (Sula and Santo António do Cântaro), but it is an imposing scene.

- The Portuguese infantry is wearing the stovepipe shako instead of the barretina, or at least this last one should have been the majority.

- The British infantry uses grey instead of white trousers.

- The French flags are the Tricolore, instead of the 1804 model.

- The French infantry are mostly grenadiers, as usual  in the movies. It seems epaulettes are pretty common in costume shops.

- The massacred french cavalry were Cuirassiers who made no part of Massena´s

army.

- Maréchal Massena is a young guy in his 30/40ies when Massena was already

53 by then. Besides in 1807 he had lost an eye in a hunting accident.

On the other hand the environment of those troubled days is very well pictured and filming, acting and dialogues are first class, but don´t expect to see an absolutely accurate war/historical movie.

 The fortifications of the Linhas de Torres are pretty well done, at least to my knowledge, and possibly there was a good contribution from the experts of municipality of Torres Vedras itself, as it was the city who ordered the movie in the first place for the 200th anniversary of the event.

And now forget the modelling and wargaming stuff and go see Soraia Chaves and some of her friends who also get naked!!!

28mm AOE Waterloo 1815 IV 2nd Swiss Regiment

The 2nd Swiss was not present at Waterloo as it was with Vandamme III Corps. Nevertheless I´m one more modeller to fall in the arms (better, sleeves...) of those red coats.

Painting blue coats gets tiring and this regiments is a nice possibility for something different.

Figures are plastic Perry Miniatures.

The only battalion of the regiment in column preceded by the usual voltigeurs.

In the Tête the Colonne there is the sole non-Perry miniature: a Hat pionner from their Light Infantry command box.

With just a small piece of plasticard glued to the pioneer base, the figure gets taller and goes along well with the Perry´s.

The column turns into line.

 This voltigeur has Victrix arms for the sake of variability.

 Same for this one.

By the way , I introduced recently a small change in the basing of figures: after applying the normal diluted PVA glue to the stand and dipping it into the scatter material box, I let a drop of cheap chinese Super Glue fall on the green scatter material.

 Some strange fumes comes out of the contact of the diluted PVA and the Cyanoacrylate but the scatter material gets pretty stiff in a matter of seconds.

 Try it and you can have grass as stiff as your figures... if this is good for anything.

 Many of the figures have the Pokalem instead of the shako as this makes  the unit more red in colour.

The Officer is the sole blue jacket to be seen in this unit.

28mm AOE 1815 Waterloo-Jeanin Division

Latest 28mmm French division for Waterloo. Built before the beach and sprayed after this was the smallest division in Napoleon´s Armée du Nord.

Usual stuff for these ones: top (Plastic Perry Miniatures)- the small Tromelin brigade ( in fact just the 107eme de ligne); bottom (Hat) - Bony brigade, here represented by the 5eme legére with 1808 uniforms.

The trick is  never to represent the older flag as only tricolores were fielded in 1815, with the exception of the Swiss regiment. In this way you can represent some 1808 uniforms in the 1815 campaign without feeling too guilty and using the first boxes of frenchVictrix and Hat ...

 Once more I think Hat goes well with the larger Perry range, specially if you mix heads.

Markers : Voltigeur and Charging officer. Hat bodies with Perry heads.

A metal "General Jeanin" from the Victrix range. This is a lower ranking officer transformed into a general with the aid of GreenStuff applied in the waist and hat.

VI army commander Comte Lobau and aide from the Metal Perry range.

 

The full division and corps commander. There are no skirmishes in the AOE rules but i´m doing some for each brigade as may appear a Regimental AOE for napoleonic rules as happened with ACW Fire and Fury rule set. But specially they are funny to make.

28mm AOE 1815 Waterloo - Bachelu Division

Latest painting that completes the 22nd July post. This Bachelu division was built and painted along  some extras like the Génie de La Garde Imperiále and the Gén. Reille stand, II Armée CO.

I present you Général Gilbert Bachelu (uau , he speaks french...!) , a very nice metal figure by the Perry brothers.

Here our Général is personally deploying his own division, under the watchful eye of his superior Gen. Charles Reille. The first brigade to be seen is Campi´s (General Campi is a metal Perry mounted figure within the commmand stand) and the second is Husson´s.

Reille and ADC are also metal Perry.

 The Génie de La Garde Imperiále, plastic conversions of Hat bodies and Perry Carabiniers heads, as mentioned in previous post.

Back view of the Génie.

Back view of Bachelu division.

 The lot: Bachelu division, Reille and Génie. Only one brigade missing to complete Reille II Corps.

Rapid Fire! Destroyed Arnhem buildings

I think all of us who build AFV´s plastic kits have somewhere a place were we keep those piles of scenario pieces that come along with the 1/76th fine Matchbox kits.

 In the last few years things got worse as my good friend JF of "Brigada Tripeira" and "O Brigadeiro" websites ( if it wasn´t for the crisis he would already be a general ) gave me several dozens of those.

One day after seeing the film "Theirs is the Glory" (1948), and the last part of "A bridge too far" (1970) I just knew what to do with those hundreds of brickwalls, pieces of roads and roof parts. Arnhem was devastated during the battle and the 1st film was shot in place, amidst the ruins of that beautiful city.

 At least some parts of the Char B1 Bis bases are here among those chimneys (sorry, which is the kit they come from?...). As each part of a wall or chimneys generally only has one face, you need two at least to each.

 This makes the building quite heavy and also expensive in Matchbox scenario parts.

The basing of the house is plywood with lots of glued small stones and sand, all primed black before painting.

 Some plastic sand bags were used to fill gaps on the walls.

 Some HO train  scale rails were also used to simulate fallen structural roof parts.

Those odd parts like earth embankments that come with the Sherman Firefly were used as the central part for piles of ruins and rubbish.

Many more variants can be done to build entire destroyed places. So, don´t throw away the Matchbox/Revell surplus parts. Or, if you don´t really want them, send them to me as JF did.

28mm AOE Waterloo 1815 IV Perry/Hat/Victrix French conversions

Mixing and matching the three* main napoleonic 28mm plastic brands is  almost a hobby inside the hobby for me. The possibilities are endless. In the above pic the two Victrix front bodies have Perry parts. To be honest I just forgot some figures at my parents basement, so I had to improvise for the night as petrol is more and more expensive.

In the rear rank a Perry fusilier had his musket carved off and replaced by a drum that he carries at his back.

The figure waving is a Perry skirmisher with the left arm bent by the heat of a lighter and the right one replaced by a Victrix arm.

 Same trick to the other bending Perry skirmisher again with Victrix arms. The epaulettes are still missing and will be done in ... Evergreen! Good guess ! Congratulations!

 More to do here: Hat French Voltigeurs with their heads carved off and replaced by Perry Carabiniers ones and Greenstuff trousers (Really?). Hat got things a little mixed up here as Voltigeurs, which were in reality small guys, are bigger than their Fusiliers (see the fusilier drummer for comparison). But I knew one day I would find a place for them. Now they turned into  Génie de La Garde Imperiale. There was only one company of these with Napoleon at Waterloo, two stands are an exaggeration but they look nice this way.They are all standing as they remained pretty quiet all battle.

* Don´t want to be unfair to Warlord. Their figures are fantastic but they still have only a handful of excellent plastic boxes. But as one piece marching figures, they tend to be less convertible, which is by no means a fault, on the contrary. Their next French Infantry 1808-12 is awesome, as are the previous Prussian Landwehr and Russian infantry. See it at their website!

28mm AOE Waterloo 1815 IV Reserve French Cavalry Corps (Milhaud)

After Kellerman`s, all the french reserve cavalry is finished with the addiction of Milhaud corps (13th and 14th cavalry divisions). The figures are plastic Perry Miniatures.

Top left, Creux brigade; top right Travers brigade. Bottom left, Dubois brigade; bottom right, Vial brigade.

These guys showed tremendous courage charging again and again the british squares. But, the lack of infantry and little artillery support, made useless their relentless efforts.

1/72nd Iraqi Airforce Gulf War 1991

This collection was mainly built during the 90ies when Desert Storm was still echoing. But this conflict -as the Falklands, as Lebanon 82- is part of my memories and that urges me to constantly add new stuff. Many camouflages and paint schemes are conjectural, others based on photos and some on published artistic sideviews. All aircraft have pegs to be able to "fly" as wargame pieces.

 

 The above plane is Mig-21 Fishbed from Fujimi, probably the best Mig-21 kit at least on those days.

The acompanying Mig-21 of the Fujimi´s are (right) Academy Mig-21 with the humpback made out of  GreenStuff to make it a more recent Mig-21 model and (left) a Matchbox one.

Mig-23 ML from Hasegawa.

This Mig-23 has shaff dispersers on its tail made out of Evergreen with small drilled holes.

Another Mig-23 from Hasegawa with the white radome (MS variant), signalling a less powerful radar.

The Mig-23 pack.

 The Mig-27 (or Mig-23 BN) ground attack aircraft from Academy armed with bombs.

Another one armed with missiles.

The Mig-27 pack.

The third one has a Mirage F-1 refuelling device, an Iraqi way to make air-refuelling possible  from the Il-76 (I need one of those...).

The last of the Mig-27. This one is separated from the others due to its style of painting (or lack of it...).

Airfix Mig-29 Fulcrum. The Iraqi Fulcrums had several air aces in their ranks, including colonel Jameel Sayhood who shot down aircraft both in the Iran-Iraq war and Gulf war. He was downed during the war against F-15 Eagles but parachuted himself and it is not known if he survived.

Not sure, but clockwise: 12.00- diecast ; 01.00-Airfix, 06.00-Esci and 11.00 Italeri.

Su-24 Fencer by Italeri.

Su-24 load.

Su-22 Fitter. This camouflage, darker than usual, was inspired on some photos of Fitters that look for sanctuary in Iran during Desert Shield, when Saddam Hussein looked for his eastern neighbour- (former hatred foe) as a last chance for finding friends. These airplanes never returned to Iraq.

Su-25 Frogfoot, Academy.

Su-25 Frogfeet (?) pack, with different weapon loads.

Su-7 (Smer or KP, not sure). For me the nicest camouflage on any Iraqi aircraft.

Su-7/20 pack.

The most beautiful aircraft on the Iraqi arsenal, for me at least, the Mig-25 foxbat was one of the few Iraqi airplanes who was able to shoot american aircraft during Desert Shield/Storm. The other ones were Mig-23 and Mig-29 who accounted for 5 allied kills and 4 damaged aircraft (including kills of F-18 Hornet, F-111, Tornado and B-52). Initially the allies denied loosing any aircraft to Iraqi fighters but recently admitted these losses... The Iraqi had a total of 23 losses in air combat.

Mig-25 pack, kits from Hasegawa. One Mig-25 PDS killed the fist american aircraft of the war, a F/A-18 Hornet. The remains of the pilot, USN Capt "Scott" Spetcher, were found in 2009 in the desert after  his burial by beduin tribesmen in 1991, immediately after crashing to his death.

If Iraqi airforce had received the Mig-31, maybe they looked like this one...

Mirage F-1 from Esci.

 The Exocet missile carried by the Mirage F-1. This colour scheme is not probably the one available for the Iraqi but the only one I had info at the time of painting.

Mil-Mi 24 Hind  by Airfix.

 

Same as above (Esci), with diferent colour scheme.

Pack of Hinds.

MBB BO 105, Airfix kit with scratchbuilt TOW missiles.

 Oldies: Il-28 Beagle by Airfix.

Hawker Hunter by Airfix.

Mig-19 Farmer by KP.

Mig-21( or Shenyang F-7) by Academy.

Mig-23 by Airfix, parked to serve as a possible wargame scenario piece.

Tu-22 Blinder by Esci: the largest of the Iraqi warplanes. It measures 50 cm and dwarfs the Fujimi Mig-21 by its side. Its camouflage, if done today, would be green and grey as portrayed in the Middle East Database website.

In order to enhance the pannel gravings I use a simple sharpened charcoal pencil.