Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - Last tows for the 75mm guns of the DI

These are the two last limbers for 75mm guns of a French DI. They are scratchbuilt in plastic card and the horses are copies of  Britannia models. 

The only factory models are the crew of these limbers and in fact these leftovers are the reason for  choosing to scratchbuild these two pieces.

 

The wheels are leftovers of the 75mm guns that got solid wheels. The limber box itself received rear doors, towing hook and side handlers all made of plastic card. 

I used the Irregular Miniatures models as the matrix of both the two Airfix limbers and these ones. 

A final detail are the cables made of thin cord uniting the horses to the limber. 

The Britannia horses were copied with InstantMold and filled with two paste filler. 

Next: whether the Dana artillery systems for Georgians 2008 or French cavalry or a few more Panzers  both for the 1940 campaign. 

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - More French Artillery for the DI and DLM

Two more battalions for the French artillery. To the left the wheeled 75mm are for the Infantry division and to the right solid wheeled guns are for the Mechanized infantry. All guns and crew are Hat Industries.

The guns come from the US WWI artillery set and the crew from the newer French WWII artillery crew.

Hat is taking ages to produce the WWII limber so I used two limbers from the Airfix WWI British artillery set. The seat part was lenghtened, rear doors for the ammunition were added and a new axis was built from plastic card. Also some thin rope was used as harness. For joining all parts hot glue and super glue were used

The size of these sets is the same I used for the Irregular Miniatures ones from a few posts ago for the sake of uniformity.

In two stands I used one Matchbox French conversion from the figures which go along the Char B1bis and Renault FT-17. The figure is 1/76th scale and a taller base was used so all figures are the same size.

In the box  of the Hat French artillery there are some four nice solid wheels for the 75mm gun. The other four you see in the pictures were casted from the original ones up to a total of eight.

The figures are very nice and active and Hat thought about everything. There are extra solid wheels for the guns  and even seated and horse riders for the limbers. The seated figures are also good for any French vehicle and portee infantry.

Next: More limbers and tractors for the 1940 French artillery.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - 16th Mechanized Chasseur Battalion (16éme BCP)

The 16éme BCP approaches Jolie Village on its way to Stonne in may 1940...

The 16éme BCP (Batalion de Chasseurs Portés) was the infantry unit of the 3rd DCR and had some particularities of its own. Apparently the motorcycle squadron didn't have motorcycles and the men were transported as the other two squadrons. Also the Lorraine 38L VBCP was not present in all three companies with some of the Chasseurs being transported in trucks (some say Citroen 23 other Lorraine 28). But as I had four Lorraine 38L I equipped all companies with them including the support company. As I still have no Latil M7 I used a Chenillette to tow the 25mm AT gun.

 The CO stand has a ER 17 Radio scratchbuilt in EverGreen plasticard. The 60mm mortar was made from a shortenned 81mm US mortar from Revell. The figures are from the new HAT set of French WWII artillery and the bugler is scratchbuilt. The Laffly V15 is Skytrex.

The  25mm and UE Chenillette tow are Lancer Miniatures and the figures are again HAT.

The rest of the support company has a HAT mortar stand (the mortar itself is again Revell US) and Revell French for the Hotchkiss MMG's. Here there is another problem: the 16eme BCP doesn't show up with their two MMG's (there should be eight in the real OOB) in the new RF! supplement for May 1940. But I placed them in this battalion not only because it must have existed in this unit but also because there were two LMG's per squad of 12 Chasseurs while the regular infantry only had one. So like this the unit gets more fire power as it should.

The Lorraine 38L VBCP is Lancer Miniatures.

Two of the four Lorraine 38L are in fact the 37 version that I was using for the support of the tank battalions. In RF! new book Richard and Colin ignored them and thus they were converted with styrofoam and plasticard into the carrier version.

One of the three Chasseur companies. All figures are based on the Airfix Chinese replicas of the WWI French set. I added GreenStuff goggles in all of them  carefully modelled on the helmets. The trousers and shirt are dark blue and capote is khaki according to this battalion´s regulation.

A few more conversions are the rifle grenade made fom a piece of Evergreen at the end of a rifle and the LMG Chatellerault 24/29 which is a chinese copy of the Bren LMG glued to a normal rifle firer.

Not necessarily  from the BCP I also painted the one-piece Somua MCG-5 from Lancer Miniatures. It can be used to tow artillery or used as a recovery vehicle for any unit.

Next: More French artillery for 1940.

Rapid Fire! - British bits for early desert

Just a reminder that there is summer and heat in the world also. I had these primed for a long time and finally, a bit out of context, I decided to paint them. The A9 are the surplus from three boxes of PSC that were intended fully for the BEF. Then I realised that not all were necessary even for the whole 1st Armoured Division. So they received some Counter Camouflage Scheme and began their trip to Lybia to join the 7th Armoured.  The same for the lonely M3 Honey from Matchbox.

A few bedrolls and antennae are the only additions to these models.

Next: a return to France 1940.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - More German Panzers and the usual conversions

6th Panzer conquers the Auberge Normande and pushes the 75mm French battery from last post away from the table. Well this is my way of doing wargames, one level below solo wargaming...

The models are PSC based for the PzIIIE and BPM for the Pz35T.

The BPM's are very  sturdy and efective models were even the Mg's are firmly attached to the model. This one became a command version with wire rear antenna. The figure is PSC.

The PSC PZIIIG became a E version. A lot of carving and adding had to be made in order specially to change the 50mm into the 37mm gun.

Here you can see the changes: the gun and mantlet was thinned down in a number of places; two Mg's were added to the right side of the mantlet and the periscope was added. In this picture the hull Mg is still there as well as the rim around the mantlet and gun. All these parts were carved out for the command version.

I have another group of six PSC PzIIIG to suffer the same fate and becoming E versions.

The rear antenna was made in plastic for the vertical tubing and wire for the horizontal part.

Next: a raid into the desert.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - 75mm gun towed Battalion

In 1940 the French Infantry divisions still relied in the famous - infamous for the Germans -  'soissante-quinze' (uau, he even speaks French, ladies are saying). The gun was still pulled by horses and the wheels LP were the ones of WWI. As Hat is taking an eternity to release its WWI/II artillery limber I used the Irregular Miniatures version.

The models are very nice. Irregular Miniatures uses always the same poses for the many other Useful Crew range but the distinction between the countries is well made. The French crew members are in shirt order and with their capote in Russian style, something not very common but Ok.

I took the oportunity to build the Alby Latil TAR for the 155mm GPF that you can see here

http://jpwargamingplace.blogspot.pt/2013/11/rapid-fire-20mm-french-army-1940-pt-5.html

and here

http://jpwargamingplace.blogspot.pt/2013/10/

These Alby kits are expensive and take a lot of time to arrive.  On the other hand they are some of the best around. Even their resin smells so good that you will want to chew it!!

Next: More French  or German stuff for 1940.

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.   

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - A few more bits.

Just a few more AFV's I just finished for the French 1940. The UE carrier and trailer are Lancer Miniatures and simplicity in itself, The Hotchkiss 38 from S-Models are very easy to assemble even if they have some photo-etched parts and finally the W-15T-CC from Ace, a true nightmare to build with dozens of avoidable small parts in order to have in the end a relatively simple vehicle.

I made this H-38 a command vehicle with Skytrex figure and scratchbuilt antenna.

The other H-38 had the shorter 37mm gun and a differently painted turret as it happened so often with Franch tanks due to different manufacture and repair places.

The W-15T-CC has a crew with a driver from Skytrex and gunners from converted Matchbox French infantry that comes with the Char B1bis.

Ace could be more Wargamer-friendly and make simpler models... I think most of the brands still didn't understand that their biggest buyers are in fact wargamers.

The UE carrier has some extras on its trailer but the rest is as it came.

Next: Probably the new PzIII A from IBG.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - A few more French and British motors, with some nudity.

Well, I hope to have caught your attention with the title. More on that a bit more ahead.

Not far from Bleuville, in fact in the same basement, a group of allied vehicles gathers in support of the next counter offensive... 

 The group is a mix bunch of Altaya and some die-cast  trucks I found in a toy shop.

The trucks are generic but look a bit close to the vast panoply of different Renault, Citroën, Ford and Latil trucks (close to half a million) that equipped the French army in 1940.

Wait... on the left truck... is there a naked women...!?!?

Exactly! The French had such a different array of camouflages that even some nudes were cleverly conceiled on them. Of course the markings belong to the artillery! Maybe this vehicle will become a good objective marker... 

 What? Me? A  pervert? What about this picture of the real thing? 

As you can see I`m just historically accurate. 

This picture is taken from the French book 'L'automobile sous l' uniforme' probably the best reference for soft skin vehicles of the French army in 1940 and with a reasonable quantity of information and pictures also about tanks.

I felt more comfortable about these models after reading this book as they are fair approaches to the many models available for the French many even requisitioned from the civilians. But not only the French got this treat.  The variety of BEF trucks was also so big (many Bedford models O, OY, MC and Morris) that these are surely close to some of them.  I'll use them for the artillery, train or even for some infantry if I can't find enough Bedfords 15 cwt trucks.

 

This was the original form of the trucks.

The main change was the replacement of the small wheels by some bigger and more 'military' chinese leftovers. Two of these were glued together to make one wheel. Then I glued some plastic canvas covers I had around and luckly they fit nicely.

Lastly the Altaya models. Only the left Char B1 bis is a repaint from the German version. The other Char B1bis was a 4 Euro buying from last weekend local 2nd hand market. It had no mantlet, antennae and central rail and all these parts had to be scratch built.  It received a light coat of black ink and some sand drybrushing as well as the Panhard on the right and they are ready to defend France.   

Next: More French 1940 stuff.

Rapid Fire! 6th Guards tank Brigade in 20mm - (Part 4) Missing Churchills for the Coldstream Guards

33 Churchills and 9 Achilles later I can consider this brigade completed. There are still missing 6 M3/M5Stuarts, two for each of the battalions but I have one dozen spread out on my two 1944 British armoured divisions and maybe I skip these ones as they can be used also in this brigade. Fortunately nowadays are great days for wargamers and two boxes of PSC will eventually solve the problem.

These last missing Churchills are the MkIV from PSC. They are sturdy and detailed models with the usual options. I added a few extras as camouflage net and Hessian tape as well as bedrolls and other stowage items.

I just couldn't resist the symbols of the 6th guards and I painted them only on the back of each tank as the front part is covered with extra protection tracks.   

 

Here you can see better my trick for both camouflage net and Hessian tape: The camouflage net is Noch birch leaves placed on a blob of wood glue and the Hessian tape are small rectangles of paper placed under the camouflage net.

Next: back to France 1940.