Rapid Fire! 20mm Tunisia 1943 - More German AFV's

Well, the poll for the brand and scale of the latest Pineapple Miniatures is over as all offers are already sent for many parts of the world, as you can see in those numerous post comments.

Coming back to normal life, a few more German AFV'S for Tunisia.

The Pz III N that accompanied the Tiger I. Repainted Altaya model. 

Sdkfz 233 from Altaya.

The crew is Esci and Atlantic.

38 (t) with 7,5 cm from Esci.

The two crew men that comes with the kit are some 30 years old but still fit very well alongside the more recent ones.

Stug III F/8 from Esci with Hasegawa crewman. Only one model is necessary as only three were given to 10th PD.

Look, a new Pineapple breed is born ...

 

The one who guesses 

1. brands (there are three)

2. scale ...

...gets one PAINTED for  free!!!

If you look closely there are some hints to help you...

   And here they are at the Buçaco  Museum itself. From this perspective you have more hints to help you find the solutions. 

  And you better rush as the miniatures to offer are only a few hundred. Now to the many who asked (as you can see in Comments): someone who answers correctly will have to come here at this basement to collect his miniature.

Rapid Fire! 20mm Tunisia 1943 - Tiger tanks

The biggest problem about modelling Tunisian German Tigers are their colours and camouflage.

Both Concord, Steel Masters and Squadron Signal books have their own theories and colour plates. From olive green to yellow desert everything is possible but nothing certain.

Some colour photos from old Life magazines showed that at least some Tigers were painted in a dull green/brown. I will avoid the Ral reference but the references to Ral 7008/8020 and 8000 are only more confusing.

Then some light was placed on the subject when one of the few remaining Tiger tanks in the world - the Bovington  Tiger - suffered extensive works that made it operational. 

After lots of money and time being spent by their dedicated personnel we can see a very careful study of colours and camouflage in the Bovington Tiger and, probably, the best up to the moment.  

These tanks are Altaya (back row and crew less) and Hasegawa ( front row). These last two were given to me by Jorge Faria.

The command tank number 100 is hypothetical as there is no reference to it.

The unit just needed a command tank.

Crew is PSC and Hasegawa.

Another figure from PSC, surplus from their PZ III.

Tigers in Tunisia had the Feifel air cleaner assembly which was discarded in later version of the Tiger I.

The markings of the Tigers in Tunisia included the turret numbers, larger and red (some say green/brown tank colour) and white for the 501st Battalion and smaller and red for the ones of 504th Battalion. When the 501st was included in the inner organisation of the 10th PD their turret markings started by 7 and 8, references of their new companies.

I used GW paints, Steel Legion Drab for the base and Catachan Green for the camouflage. Not totally pleased with it but at least they don't get mixed easily with other desert material.

28mm AOE Waterloo 1815 - Simmer division

This is the last infantry division missing from the total of nine used by the French at Waterloo.

Simmer (19th) infantry division was used against the Prussians on the right flank.

Most of the figures are Perry Miniatures.

Simmer figure is a metal Irregular Miniatures with plastic arm and head from Perry.

The command stands have a metal Irregular Miniatures officer and a drummer and flag bearer from Hat.

The charging markers officer (Irregular) have Victrix coats glued to their backs. The coats  were taken from the Imperial Grenadiers box. Irregular Miniatures portrayed a light infantry officer as you can see by the cuffs but I didn´t change it as there was some indivuduality in officer´s uniform and probable transfers from unit to unit.

The still missing units of my Waterloo French army are the  2 Imperial cavalry divisions; 4 Chasseurs à Cheval cavalry brigades and most of the artillery.

AOE 28mm 92nd Highlanders, Waterloo 1815

Last unit to be added to my Waterloo allied army. All miniatures are Victrix Miniatures.

The skirmishers are not for AOE rules as this set of rules is brigade level. Nonetheless they may suit any regimental level set of rules or a future homemade one.

Lucky enough the flags for the  92nd Foot are inside the Victrix Highlanders centre company box.

I only used this box for the whole unit as the arms of flank companies came from the  box of British regulars, which contain plenty of them. 

Bussaco Military Museum

On the 27th September 1810, the biggest battle ever on Portuguese soil occurred between the French army of  Napoleon's "enfant chéri de la victoire", Marechal  Massena, and the Anglo-Portuguese army of Wellington.

This place is 20 km from Coimbra, the famous recently world heritage city.

Near the battlefield there is a nice museum with a very interesting collection  and the only place worldwide were you can buy the fantastic Pineapple Miniatures.

You can see the long cue waiting to have at least one model of the range...many choose to sleep in tents in the outside waiting for the museum to open so eager they are to be the owner of a Pineapple Miniature.

This is entrance of the museum with the Capela do Encarnadouro welcoming visitors. This chapel served as an hospital during the battle.

A human size model of the famous regimento 19 de Cascais ( for its Sula charge) is manning the gates.

6 pdr guns. These ones are used every year on the annual celebrations of the battle on a yard 100 m from this place.

Loyal Lusitanian Legion. This famous unit was placed at the southern end of the line near the Mondego river.

Caçador model with the late barretina.

Milícias uniform. This one is from Algarve.

6 pdr inside the museum main hall. Previously this gun was crewed  by  6 artillerymen and placed in the center of the main hall in a much better arranjement. Look how it  was 2 years ago:

 There are also some nice new videos of the battle and the napoleonic campaings in Portugal that can be seen inside the museum.

The museum has a nice collection of napoleonic weapons and findings. 

A Sisto of a Portuguese military band.

A small diorama of the Sula combat. This one is very old and was one of my big inspirations for modelling when a teenager (5, 6 years ago...).

This museum is one of the few places where you can find the Portuguese battle flags. In spite of being replicas these ones are true to the original.

A very nice diorama of the entire battle made by Keith Moore with over one thousand metal 25mm models.

And of course the main nowadays attraction of the museum:

.... Pineapple miniatures, yaaaaahuuuu!!!!

There are also some pleasant garden inside the compound with access to the archeological station.

When you can drop a visit to this nice museum! And even if you can´t drop a visit anyhow!!

Pineapple Miniatures, 1/32nd scale 6pdr cannon and flags, Bussaco 1810

Latest from Pineapple:  6pdr portuguese cannon.

And a few more...

Portuguese infantry flag (bandeira esquartelada):

and company....

If you want some of these rush quickly to the Military Museum of Bussaco, before they are sold out. And remember only there you can find these exquisite models. Other parts of the world are completely "depineappled".

Rapid Fire! 20mm scale British 7th Armoured Division in Normandy - 4thCounty of London Yomanry

This post completes 22nd armoured brigade and refers to the 4th CLY, the famous unit almost destroyed single handed by the even more famous Michael Wittman and his Tiger.

Here they come along that narrow lane...

The M-3 Stuart are Frontline Wargaming with plastic MG and sand bags.

The Fireflies are Armourfast with Valiant commanders with styrene headphones.

Some of the Cromwell have the PSC Sherman commander, the best around in my opinion.

C company joins the other...

Once again Hessian Tape  is made out of putty. Stowage comes from all possible places, including putty, surplus parts and  different positioned parts.

Rear view of the unit. The houses are cheap resin castings repainted to look northern France. 

The Cromwell CS 95mm have their gun made of Evergreen tubing and plastic surplus parts. I used for measurements the Centaur (Revell) I´ve made for supporting Lord Lovat´s Commandos on D-Day.

 The Cromwell CS and the CO Cromwell  didn't fit the initial photo. These two brings the total of the unit to 13 vehicles.

This unit also received several Valiant British infantry backpacks spread throughout all vehicles, both in the turret and in the hull.

Huiii... Look who is coming for a visit directly from Hasegawa, Japan...

Another friends gift

 30 new kits from JMM. He not only gave me these already built 1/72nd models but also several unboxed kits and a very nice Militaria supplement on D-day landing crafts, all this received by post. BIBÓ PORTO, CARAGO!!!!

 

This is what I call a friend: others who don't give me their models are just selfish people and guys who want everything for themselves. Most of them are lawyers and such and are already used to these sort of bad social behaviour.