Finished: Cruel Seas British Armed Trawler

Hi folks,

I've continued work on clearing the contents of the painting shelf. The most recently completed model, from my Cruel Seas British fleet box, has sat there since December last year and has taken me a while to get going with it. 

Completion was further delayed due to work on transcribing some paper DnD maps into an electronic format. This week I put a bit more effort in to get it 'done'. 

This is a converted fishing trawler, taken into Royal Navy service and used in a variety of roles, including ASW patrols and mine clearing. 

I've added some crew from the Cruel Seas British crew set. I also upgraded the weapons to something more like those seen on period ships. A fore mounted 3" artillery gun, and a twin Oerlikon in the rear. It also has depth charges. The standard loadout for these ships in Cruel Seas would be 2 x 3-pdr guns, along with a range of machine guns and an HMG turret (which has no representation on the model).

I've painted mine in a rather neater Royal Navy scheme than those commonly seen in other collections, mainly because my limited research didn't show these to be the rusted tubs everyone seems to think they were. Most pictures show them to be well kept and in clean grey, which is what I've done. Not sure the Royal Navy would tolerate any vessel being a rust bucket - any more than the army would have rusty tanks... 

Finished: Cruel Seas 1/300 Fairmile D-class MGB/MTB

Hi folks,

Work has continued on clearing off some of the paint shelf lurkers. I'd gotten the vast amount of work done on these in the springtime, but hadn't actually gotten round to finishing them off.

These are Warlord Games models, in resin, with some of the metal weapon and crew upgrade bits. Myself and Dave have played the Cruel Seas game a few times at the club, and I picked up a British fleet a while back due to lack of any other options at a wargames show. 

I followed the Warlord Games painting guide for these, which has left the deck colour a little darker than perhaps it should be, but they look smart enough. 

6-pdr auto on the front and rear, twin 20mm mid and two .50 HMG turrets. Along with the 4 torp tubes!

Twin 20mm Oerlikon on the front, twin 20mm in the mid and 6-pdr auto on the rear, with some .50 HMG turrets. 

These have a mix of weapons, which I tried to make reflect the varying armament of these vessels around the time of the D-day landings. There was a lot of small scale naval action taking place off the beaches at night, with allied units trying to stop German attackers getting through to the merchant shipping off the beaches. 

I've still an armed trawler, Vosper MTB's and a Beaufighter to paint. I may tackle the trawler sooner rather than later, as I'm planning a rather utilitarian naval grey paint scheme. Fun little items to have done, I could be tempted to pick up some other bits (maybe a Flower class Corvette, after seeing Greyhound!)