Rapid Fire! Desert War 1940-43 in 20mm - Early British armoured force

At an oasis near Ras-al-Brexit, in the middle of the Levant, an early British tank force with support group, prepares for the night after a hellish hot day (you will see it better if you increase the size of the picture). They are forming a laager to protect themselves from marauding Vichy French, Italians or eventual Germans who may arrive in the region at any time. And quite on time as a huge green tank approaches filled with menacing guns. To whom does it belong? Friend or foe? Is it the Carro Armato P26/40 that the spies of MI5 are talking about? Or maybe the German Neubaufahrzeug? Keep on reading to find out! 

All models are Minigeneral 3d prints. 

My third Guy ACV went for Early British and was painted in the Counter camouflage scheme. A few stowage parts were added as well as two torsos of Matchbox officers.

Two Vickers Mediums joined the forces. I painted them with the scheme used at Tobrouk in 1942, at least according to the Wardrawings website.

The last two Morris CS9 travelled to the desert and received the colours and camouflage of the famous 11th Lancers of the even more famous 7th Armoured Division. The crew is Airfix and PSC.

For the Counter camouflage I used a base of Vallejo Desert Yellow, Sage colour from Docraft and Vallejo German WW2 uniform. 

These Light Tanks Mk IIA received the colours of the one present at the Bovington Tank Museum. I added turret hand grips for the commanders as these little tanks could flip them easily

I use several of these figures for my British tankers. They are the Airfix driver you can find in the DUKW, Matador truck or Willys Jeep. By carefully placing some headphones made of heated styrene you get a nice tank commander. 

The last few Morris CS8 and Universal Carriers necessary to finish the transports of my 1st Motor Battalion in all flashy Counter Camouflage. 

The occupants are 1st edition Airfix for the driver and Revell for the back seater. This last figure is originally seated in a large piece of stowage eating its meal but here is in a much more military attitude holding his Boys AT rifle. 

                            

Finally the mystery is unveiled: the approaching monster is the sole Independent A1E1 tank ever made. It escaped Bovington Museum, crossed the Channel, carved a path of destruction in the occupying German forces in France, swam all across the Mediterranean sea (where it may have sunk a German U-boat, but this information is unconfirmed) until joining its comrades-in-arms in the hot sands of the Levant. 

The only addition to this gift from Pedro Pato, besides figure and stowage, is the ladder that came from the Airfix Commando box.

I somehow managed to find a way to reduce the lines of the 3d prints. You can use your oldest acrylic paint, the one that is almost drying is the better, mix 50% of PVA glue, mix the paste (red paste in the picture) and let it dry to loose most of the water. Then apply over the areas with more printing lines.

When the lot was primed the results are visible. Still not perfect but most of the problem is solved. 

Next: British Infantry for the Desert 1940-43 or Hannibal's army,

DBM - Battle of Cannae 216 BC in 20mm. The Manipular Roman Legions made up to now

The Battle of Cannae in the year 216 BC is one of the biggest events of ancient times and the most terrible defeat of the Roman army ever. In the end of the 2nd  of August in the plain of Cannae, not far from nowadays Bari, only the Triarii were alive and virtually all other were dead - around 80.000 men! The genius of a certain Carthaginian called Hannibal worked once more and again with a much smaller army. 

I´m still far from the end as I need a total of 16 legions and all I have up to now are these 6 you can see. So a bit more than 1/3 of the way done with only the weak Roman cavalry complete. This mean 500 figures already painted but still close to 800 to be painted. Many will be the newer Zvezda which are true beauties.

The Roman legion of the period is the pre-Marian one still with four lines you can see here: Velites ahead, followed by two lines both of Hastati and Princeps and finally one line of Triarii. 

Most of the figures are Hat from all their sets, but you can also find some NewLine Designs, Odemars and Italeri and even some Esci manipulus and officers from Empire days which suits this period too. 

Now the full Roman cavalry for the battle: one of the reasons why they lost as the Gaul and Numidian cavalry were much more and will brush them aside with ease. In this picture you can see the Allied cavalry, an Hat unit with a few Italeri mixed in. 

The Roman Citizen cavalry itself. All Hat miniatures again.

Now a quick review of the six Legions done up to now. The last row of this Legion has Triarii from Italeri with broom sticks spears replacing the original Pila.

Again a foot Esci imperial officer (on foot) enters this Legion as he still carries the bronze cuirass.

Here you can still see a number of different standards. Only the Eagle will survive with the later Marian reforms. 

The basing of this Legion was made with Basetex. Half of the command group is NewLine Designs.

                            

Again the command group has a few NewLine designs namely an officer and the Tubicem. 

I chose to paint each Legion with one pattern of both tunic and shield. Still there are many debates on the issue but at least  this method speeds painting.

Approaching their terrible fate...

Next: probably British for Early Desert 1940.

Rapid Fire! Blitzkrieg in 20mm - German Reconnaissance aircraft

First of all I apologise once again for the swastikas at the tails of these models which obviously are here only for historical accuracy.  These three are old kits I had inside the boxes for years. The common thing they have is that all are German reconnaissance planes suitable for early war. 

The Fieseler Storch is the old Airfix kit in a Heller box. The thing that surprised me was the size of the thing much bigger that what I was thinking.

The Heinkel He 70 is the ICM model. I bought it for the Condor Legion of SCW bad fame but  this aircraft was still present in the Polish campaign and so it went east. 

As with most of the stuff I build I replaced the flimsy MG17 and the antenna with metal parts for extra strenght. 

This Heinkel He 46 was waiting to be built for some 30 years or so and was also intended for the SCW. Its a vacform kit from the Spanish brand Vacukit. Last vacuum model I built I think was a Gotha WWI German bomber maybe some 20 years ago so lots of nostalgia in this one too. 

No crew in vacform kits so these ones are Airfix with another homemade MG17. The swastikas are also very old Verlinden 1/35th transfers. I used the smaller ones as they fit nicely the 1/72nd models.

Next: frankly I don't know.

Rapid Fire! Normandy 1944 - SPG 8cm mortars on AMR35(f)

The 8cm mortars of the converted AMR35(f) are ready to unleash a true Trommelfeuer (saying it in German probably convinces you that  I really know about the subject) on the advancing allies. As it happens many times I got carried away by the cuteness of these little things and build too many, specially when using a ratio of 1 to 5 in unit organisation. These AFV's were field conversions and less than a handful were ever made.

The models are MiniGeneral 3d prints with the usual additions of figures, stowage and antenna.

The tube of the mortar was replaced by a metal one. The figures are from the Airfix set of German Mountain troops. 

One of the models was converted to this rare OP version. 

An enclosed superstructure was built in plastic card and small pieces of RoofMate. The original few pictures of this vehicle available to me don't even show the kind of enclosement it had. I based the OP version on existing models in other scales after searching in the web and in some nice pictures in the Encyclopedia of German Tanks by Chamberlain, Doyle and Jentz.

The figure is Esci with a new arm. You also need a small cuppola and this one came from a Roco Minitanks rolling wheel I had around.

Next: Recce German aircraft for the Blitzkrieg.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - More German reinforcements from Minigeneral 3d prints

With the French menace ahead a column of German AFV splits in several directions bypassing the village of Thierry-Henry.

All models are MiniGeneral 3d prints.

New on MiniGeneral catalogue are these Kfz 13 Adler and Kfz14 command and reconnaissance vehicles.

The Mg13 is cleverly built in a unique and separate piece comprising MG, shield support and seat.

The Kfz14 has its antennae included in the car body and the extraction of the surplus plastic is a delicate operation. 

The Pzjager I is another nice vehicle depicting very well the first model with smaller shield. The usual additions are the extra tracks at the front and the central headlight.

Another Pz38t and a PzIIc took advantage of the primer cloud to join this group.

Finally a group of Pzbüchse 39 anti-tank rifles were added. I made them from the lying down Mg34 of Esci. I  cut the Mg and only used its tip. Then small pieces of EverGreen were added and  that includes the bipod, the wood socket, the handler and two lateral ammunition boxes. These three are enough for the infantry regiment you can see here:

http://jpwargamingplace.blogspot.com/2016/11/rapid-fire-blitzkrieg-in-20mm-german.html

Next: more Rapid Fire! stuff still to be chosen.

Impetus Rules - Mohacs 1526, part 7 - All arms Hungarian reinforcements in 20mm

Another batch of Hungarians finished. The Hungarian CP stands are now 11 and I'm done with heavy cavalry. Archers and Crossbows are also done with 2 and 4 stands each. At the moment there are 20 Impetus stands for this army but still I need another 20 for more Armati stands and to start the Clipeati (with those big tasty pavises), Hussars, Hungarian CL, Landsknecht and some heavier artillery.

The CP are RedBox and Miniart. The only addition was a plastic card shield of Hungarian design. 

I placed as much Hungarian heraldry as I could find but still this group looks like many European heavy cavalry of Early Renaissance. 

I made two Ribaudequins from EverGreen plastics and old wheels from the tail of the Airfix Mark I WWI tank.

The crewmen are converted RedBox figures. 

The Hungarian army had some 85 pieces of artillery ( against 300 Ottoman) at Mohacs so I still need to find a few more artilley pieces of an heavier type. 

 

The spears at the top of the artifact are made of stretched sprue. 

The archers are RedBox from the Men-At-Arms and Retinue box. The flag is a colour photocopy of my own hand painted designs.

These are the Armati from the same box with a flag given to me by Stephen Sheard.

Next: with the arrival of a batch of new Minigeneral models its time to go back to France 1940.