Finishing off Allied vehicles

These models have been sat in my cupboard for years, so I made a start on finishing them off a few months ago (just checked and it was March!!!), and picked them up again back in October. Anyway, they now complete...apart from painting the crews for the carriers.

My British Mediterranean forces now have some armour in the form of 2 x Vickers Mk.VI and 2 x A13 Cruisers, plus 3 x carriers for moving infantry around the battlefield.

I attempted a Caunter pattern on the carriers, which looks accurate based on some photos I found of British troops in Greece, but perhaps less accurate on the A13s; I couldn't find any suitable reference photos for them, so made it up a bit.

Finishing off British forces in the Mediterranean

Some of the stuff featured in this post has been on my painting table (actually, in the cupboard) part finished for a few years. I did a little bit of work on them a few months ago, but have decided to crack on and get them finished. I've had a weekend of finishing things off, partly inspired by the new range of Greek miniatures that Great Escape Games are about to launch. I've already got a platoon of Greek Mountain Infantry, plus plenty of support weapons including a pair of CV-35 tankettes, but inevitably I'll end up with some of the new range when they become available.

I finished off basing all my Greeks, plus some Gebirgsjager and some British infantry yesterday.

The stuff from the cupboard includes 3 x Bren carriers, which are actually finished except for painting the crews, a pair of A13 Cruisers and a pair of Vickers Light Tanks MkVI. The idea is to use them for scenarios set in North Africa, Sicily, Greece and perhaps even Italy.

I tried out the Caunter camo scheme on the carriers first of all because they had fewer lumps and bumps that needed masking prior to spraying with the airbrush.

I then made a start on applying Caunter to the A13s, but then put them down again a few months ago after getting this far.

The paints are Vallejo Model Air and come from a set called British Caunter Colors. The base colour is 71.288 Portland Stone, the lighter green is 71.401 Silver Grey and the dark green is 71.012 Dark Green.

I masked off another section and applied another thick stripe of Silver Grey today. One trick that I have learnt when applying the masking tape (well, two tips) is to stick the masking tape to your trousers a few times to take a lot of the stickiness out of it, otherwise it sticks to the paint too well, which brings me onto tip #2. When removing the tape, pull it as gently as you can and go as slowly as you can, otherwise it will pull off flakes of the base coat.

This thicker light green stripe is going to have another dark green stripe painted inside it, but I need to leave this one to dry for several days, otherwise risk pulling parts of it with the next application of masking tape.

The other tanks that I will make a start on finishing(!) are a pair of Vickers Mk.VIb's. I had got as far as painting on the base colour, which I think is Vallejo Model Color Iraqi Sand. I'm not 100% sure what I am going to do with them yet, but definitely not Caunter because of the difficulty of masking all the various panels.

All of the models featured in this post are made by Blitzkrieg Miniatures.

M3 Stuart Recce Tank

As the latest lockdown has dragged on for months, I have been finding it difficult to work up much enthusiasm for anything, including gaming.  When I say "gaming", I mean the hobby in general, because over the last 12 months of the pandemic, I think that I have managed to squeeze in 3, possibly 4, actual games; the rest of my hobby time has been spent painting, terrain-making, reading, blogging etc.

Anyway, over the last several weeks I have managed to finish off an M3 Stuart tank, which I intend to use in a reconnaissance role in NW Europe-based scenarios in Iron Cross. What inspired me to dig this old Blitzkrieg Miniatures resin model out of the unpainted pile, where it has languished for years, was a book I have recently finished.  "Tank Commander: From the Fall of France to the Defeat of Germany: The Memoirs of Bill Close" was an excellent book, which I can thoroughly recommend. It follows a tank commander, Bill Close, from the start of the war all the way through to the end of hostilities 6 years later. It is quite an incredible story, not least because he was involved in so many theatres of war and managed to survive them all. Anyway, in the book he regularly refers to the recce troop, which used Stuarts to scout out enemy positions. So, at a time where little is inspiring me, I felt compelled to paint this model so that I could push it out in front of the main troop of Shermans.

A couple of things that I have been trying out this year are using an airbrush and using oil paints to weather and "distress" the paintwork. I don't know whether my photography does it justice, but the paint job has turned out pretty well, even if I do say so myself! lol

The base colour was Vallejo Model Air 71.330 Khaki Green No.3. I then highlighted some of the panels and upper-facing surfaces with a 70:30 mix of Khaki Green and 71.075 Sand Ivory.  I applied a very small amount of chipping and scratches with a manual brush. A light dry brush on the straight line edges brought out some of the detail.

One thing that I have noticed when reading a lot of memoirs and other accounts of tank units is that the tanks themselves did not seem to last very long before being destroyed, so it seems strange to me to paint too much superficial damage onto them, especially rust effects, because the vehicles seemed not to survive long enough to become rusty.  Perhaps some German vehicles on the Eastern Front, perhaps, but the pace of advance and almost daily combat in NW Europe seem to make it implausible that they survived long enough to become as well weathered as some of us seem to paint them.

Once I had finished painting all the acrylics, I sprayed the whole model in matt varnish and applied the decals. Next step was to use an oil-based dark wash from MIG Productions to place shadow into all the crevices and around rivets etc. Another oil-based step I have been experimenting with is to use highly diluted oil paints (white, yellow, brown and green in this case) to give the flat armoured plates a mottled appearance. I was initially put off this technique because it seemed hard to do, but after a couple of experiments, I found it really easy and I think the results look good. It replaces the need to "over-chip" the model and creates IMHO the impression of a vehicle that has been on the battlefield in the thick of it.

Here's a photo of a Japanese Ha-Go tank, which I took on a visit to Bovington Tank Museum a couple of years ago, which I think illustrates the mottling effect (in between the camo scheme).

I feel slightly ashamed that I cannot confidently identify this vehicle (a Panzer Mk.I command tank?), but the mottling effect in both the grey and brown colours is evident.

Anyway, back to my Stuart...

I used some "realistic light lenses" from AK Interactive too. Decals were obtained from Company B.

Maybe I'll be able to get some gaming in over this summer as lockdown measures are starting to ease a little?

Universal Carriers and Caunter Camouflage

To build out the support units for my Greek army for Iron Cross, I've added some British anti-tank units mounted in universal carriers. I have painted three resin carriers from Die Waffenkammer; I'm not a great fan of resin because I have had many bad experiences of paint flaking off no matter how well I have prepared the surface before applying the paint.

One of the reasons that I chose the Die Waffenkammer models was that they came with four crew members per carrier plus lots of stowage. I'm in the process of painting the miniatures at the moment. I'll add a little bit more weathering too to dull down the newly applied decals.

There are some great photos on the web of carriers in Greece painted in the "Caunter" scheme, so I ordered the 'British Caunter Colors' paint set from Vallejo and duly applied it. Having read around the Internet on the subject of caunter, it seems to be catnip for web trolls, but having used the colours supplied by Vallejo, and read both sides of the argument, I feel like I have achieved a historically accurate result and think they look pretty good. I even think that I have used the correct shapes! ;-)

Painting caunter is hard though! I had originally planned to use an airbrush on the carriers, but it requires so much fiddly masking that I ended up painting the straight lines by eye and a steady hand.

I've started to paint a couple of A13 Cruisers for the desert in caunter too...a bit more work to get them to a finished state though. Masking the A13s was easier, so I've been using the airbrush to spray the straight lines.

AAR: Small game of Iron Cross - Italy 1944

My son and I have played a small game of Iron Cross today. It was a pleasure to get some toys out on the table and attempt to teach my 11-year old some tactics and the rules of the game. Iron Cross has really simple mechanics and not very many rules, which makes it easy to pick up quickly, but what it does allow for is permanent involvement from both players...something that is really important when playing against the video game generation!

The game we played was very loosely set in Italy on the basis that the terrain I have been working on over the last few months is all intended for the Mediterranean; the limiting factor making it "loosely based on reality" was that I haven't got full opposing armies for the region yet. 

Like most gamers, I'm not short of figures, but I haven't yet completed forces for this region yet. I have got opposing company-sized forces for North Africa (DAK versus 4th Infantry Division (India)); late war Germans (both Heer and SS) versus British for northern Europe; Romanians versus Hungarians (or Germans) for late war eastern Europe; plus several other single forces for various theatres. Therefore, the forces we fielded were some almost-appropriately dressed DAK versus some British in tropical uniforms. We had an HQ and three units of infantry each.  As the German player, I also had two Panthers and a Marder II; Tom had 5 Shermans. The points were inequal, but in his favour.

I won the opening roll to seize the initiative and deployed some infantry and one of the Panthers near to the road which ran across the centre of the table.

In turn 1, Tom pushed two of his Shermans, an infantry unit and his HQ aggressively up the main road. The Panther and leading Sherman traded shots, but both failed to hit during the first turn.

As soon as the leading Sherman started taking some more accurate fire from the now-stationary Panther, he wisely decided to veer off the main road and take cover the behind the trees and building which obscured the Panther's line of sight.

I think that photo below was from the third turn where Tom started advancing around my left flank with two more Shermans (quantity certainly has a quality all of its own!), and some infantry trailing behind in support.

Meanwhile, using the cover of the villa adjacent to the main road, I deployed my Marder II and started trading shots with the advancing Shermans, which slowed them down a little.

The view from the British right flank with (now) three Shermans advancing...

With the initiative again, Tom spent a few command tokens and targeted the opposing Panther.

Unfortunately, the Sherman scored a direct hit and destroyed the big cat! I thought that I was pretty safe with the Panther's front armour facing towards the enemy...clearly not.  Rolling two 10's was plenty to wipe my tank out.

Meanwhile, on the German right flank, I manoeuvred my second Panther around a small copse and fired whilst on the move at the isolated Sherman, scoring a direct hit and brewing it up. After being the first to lose some armour, I felt slightly better about taking out one of his tanks, which evened up the odds just a little. That's one of the problems with heavily armoured tanks with big guns - when you do lose one, it hurts a lot more than losing a more lightly armed, cheaper vehicle. 

Whilst I was quietly celebrating, Tom continued to advance in force against my left flank.

The Marder earned its pay for a couple of turns, placing repeated shots (even some penetrating hits) onto two of the Shermans, but with each hit it failed to completely destroy them. Tom then had to rally his troops and burn through several command tokens on Company Morale Tests.

The Marder could only stem the tide against a superior number of tanks for so long though and was eventually destroyed. 

It did hold up his advancing Shermans for about three turns though, which allowed me to re-position my remaining Panther into a more advantageous position in the centre of the battlefield for protecting my left flank. However, a previously badly-mauled Sherman, which had been hidden behind the building, taking cover and repairing its damaged turret (make up your own narrative here, if you like!), re-emerged from behind the building at the far end of the road and fired a broadside into the Panther, which punched straight through, killing the crew.

After losing all their armour, the Germans retreated, leaving the British to take and hold the Aprilia-Campoleone road. The photo below is from the German left/British right flank. A great game, even though I lost to my son again.