15mm German armored cars for '44-'45

Battlefront released the box set of plastic Sdkfz 234 in December. I could resist picking them up.  One thing led to another...like a box of Plastic Soldier Company Sdkfz 250's and 251's and some Zvezda Opel Blitz trucks.

Here are the PSC Sdkfz 250 hulls. Two 250/9, two 250/1 and a 250/7.

The 250/1 with an Old Glory 251/9 and the PSC 251/1 in the rear.

The Old Glory 251/9 is close to twenty years old. It's showing it's age to the PSC model. The Old Glory model runs a little smaller that it's modern cousin. 

The Zvezda Opel Blitz is pitched as a 'snap tite' kit. But a good glue helps.

The recon battalion force. Three companies with a radio truck. Good screen for the panzer battalion.

Eyes all over the Sky - a review

John Streckfuss' book "Eyes all over the Sky: Aerial Reconnasaince in the Fist World War" (Casemate Publishers) turns a spotlight onto the importance of aerial observation to the war effort and how this key activity came to be overshadowed and forgotten by it's owning institutions and historians.

It's certainly a well researched and documented work. Of the books 239 pages almost 30% of the work is taken up by the citations. While this quantity shows a level of rigor worthy of academia, the level of writing is quite accessible to the casual reader.

Streckfuss lays out the case that the majority of aerial activities during the war were observation actions - be it spotting for guns, mapping the battlefield or searching for the enemy. The quantities of fighters was less and the role of the fighter was supplemental to that of the observation aircraft - that is the fighters role was either to deny space to enemy observation aircraft or to escort friendly observation aircraft to ensure they accomplished their mission.

The book provides a good high level discussion of the origins and growth of observation activities both over land and at sea and speaks to the challenge of creating a 'data source' that struggled to feed the voracious demands of the operational staffs on both sides.

Much of the narrative is constructed to support the  author's hypothesis that observation activities became overshadowed and forgotten for multiple reasons. There is good coverage of post-war political jockeying in the United States for the creation of a separate Air Force along with the positions advanced by the post-war warrior theorists that the real value of aircraft lay in the fighting power and not in their observational ability.

Streckfuss' lays out an interesting case for reclaiming an emphasis on observation, one made even more timely when reflected through the prism of the observation revolution that UAV and digital systems have made possible in the past twenty years. 

The author has been researching WWI aviation history for nearly fifty years. He is a founder of the League of World War I Aviation Historians and a long-standing editor of its leading journal Over the Front, as well as President of the League for eleven years. He has edited and contributed to several books on aviation history and holds a PhD from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Anglo-Sikh War - the end of the beginning...

...but not the beginning of the end.

I've started painting the back log of Anglo-Sikh war figures that have been gathering dust the past few years. Many of the figures are Studio Miniatures while the rest are a mix of Foundry and Old Glory.

The plan is to paint enough figures to allow me to game the Battle of Sobraon from the Second Anglo-Sikh War. To do this, I need a bunch of additional linear bases of Sikh infantry and some additional artillery.

But for starters, I'm working on the infantry. Pulled out the old Osprey book on the Sikh army and started in on the turbans and facing.

These two stands are intended to be yellow turbans with yellow facings. 

This stand shall be blue turbans with yellow facings. I'm thinking the blue turban is almost too dark. Perhaps I should use the color of the trousers on the figure in the lower right? 

ACW Naval - Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

Earlier in 2016 I finished building and painting my back log of 1:600 scale American Civil War naval models. What an accomplishment! I was able to move forward and wrap up the 1;144 WWI airplane project and begin focusing on the 25mm Sikh War project.

And then, that quote from the Godfather III pops up.

While at Fall In 2016 in November, I found two 1:600 Ellet Ram models in the flea market. Okay, great - I could use more rams.

A Thoroughbred Miniatures ram, but with different stacks than the stock kit. Still a good gaming model. 

And a stock Ellet ram, with a good primer coat laid down. 

And then a few weeks ago, a friend gifted me with his unpainted, mint in box collection of 1:600 Thoroughbred Figures kits.

Huzzah! A third Ellet Ram! 

Another one!

You always need more tugs and barges! 

Another Sassacus class double ender! 

Again? Guess we'll have to reinforce the Carolina coastal squadron. 

Back to the Mississippi! 

And just like that, I've got a backlog of ACW models to work through again. It's a good thing there were 28 ships in the Sassacus class, because at this rate, I may end up with all of the them!

Getting a broken Panzer IV model back on the gaming table

I may have mentioned that at FAll IN 2016, I purchased a batch Panzer IV H from a guy in Wally's basement. The were assembled, basecoated and given a heavy coat of weathering, which covered the basics of what I wanted. Given closer inspection, these appear to be Plastic Soldier Company Panzer IV kits.  I say this because one of the tanks is clearly a Panzer IV F1 with the 75L24 gun.

The remainder appear to have been done up as Panzer IV H with the 75L48 gun and schurzen skirts.
Unfortunately, one of the models was missing a gun barrel. A bit of a bummer as it's otherwise a nice tank model and was the only one with the tank commander modeled as exposed in the cupola.

The Panzer IV missing the barrel. The original owner never painted the tank commander.

Alongside one of it's Pazer IV H compatriots. One odd note - the cupola hatch is correct for the G and earlier, but not the "H".

But having knocked out a number of the Battlefront kits I wondered if I could find a spare part. Scrounging the used sprue trees, I found a couple of guns intended for Stug III G models. Now the Stug III G mounted the 75L48 - same as the Panzer IV H, so good news! 

Two spare barrels, but one is for a 105 howitzer! 

Selecting the 75mm barrel and removing it from the sprue, I used a Zona saw to cut the barrel of at the manlet. But looking at the resulting barrel after being cut off the mantlet, it was shorter than the barrels on the Panzer IV H models.  Sigh.

Anyway, pressing ahead, I used ABS cement to attach the barrel to the turret. A little care is needed to have the muzzle brake aligned correctly.

Here you can see the new barrel glued to the turrent of the table. Looks a bit shorter, yes? 

In this overhead view, we can say - yes, yes it does look shorter.

So I've got a tank with a barrel a little shorter than the 75L48. Looking at the data archives we find a happy coincidence, the Panzer IV G model (also known as the Pzkw IV F2) mounted the 75L43 gun - just a little shorter than the L48. This could work! Late in the G model production run, the Shurzen began to be fitted - that fits too!

Good news everyone! The model actually works out nicely as a late model Pzkw IV G refit with Shurzen. This will make a nice somewhat unique model for the battle group.

Goes to show you, there are no problems, only solutions waiting to be discovered!

Panzer Vor!

On this beautiful fall day, I fired up the airbrush and proceeded to paint up a mess of late war German AFV. Most of these are meant for use with Gale Force Nine's new game TANKS, but I'm also getting the urge to play Command Decision again.

Here's the force lined up after painting. A Panther,  Pzkw IV and two Sug III G. 

This is the stock Battlefront Panther and I gotta say - it's a nice kit! 

Late model "G" on the left with the early model on the right.  Still need to attach the side skirts (Shurzen)

A trio of Pzkw IV H models. Think I went a little overboard with the brown.. These are models I picked up at Fall In! already assembled and base coated in Armor Yellow.  I added the green and brown. I need more practice with the airbrush! 

These are two Battlefront Pzkw IV H sold in the awesome two pack.

There was a panzer IV F2 included in my purchase. Feeling a little out of place for late war.

Practicing painting on the schurzen.  That third one in just went SPLAT! 

A bit more prototypical! 

Of course, now I'm dusting off all the stuff that's been sitting in boxes for the last ten years (or more!) . This includes today's project - a trio of Old Glory M36 Jackson tank destroyers.

There's not too many pieces, which is good. 

One of the models was already assembled.

The other two required...some assembly.

Okay, After assembling a bunch of the Battlefront plastic models, I just want to say - lead miniatures suck!  After working with the plastic models and seeing the detail done with the plastics, assembing these lead models was a real drag. Getting out the CA glue, getting the CA glue on my fingers. Gluing my fingers together.  Trying to glue the barrel in a tiny hole that doesn't seem like a good fit.

Yeah, yeah, I know - these were state of the art ten years ago. But that was then and this is now. It's a golden age for 15mm WWII gaming. That's all I'm saying.

Achtung, Panzer!

Picked up a copy of TANKS by Gale Force 9. Fun little game. Very stripped down WWII game with total focus on tank combat.

Yes, it's a game, but this is clearly designed as an introductory WWII armor miniatures game. The game provides two Shermans and one Panther as plastic model kits (the same 15mm kits produced by Battlefront). The models are clean, well cast and easy to assemble. All pluses that will hook the budding model builder. Heck, I've been building models for decades and I enjoyed putting the models together.

As a game, it's well written and easy to pick up. At the same time, there's a good degree of strategy and planning required. It's initiative system is reminiscent of Star Wars or X-Wing. High initiative units move last and shoot first. You get data cards for a variety of tanks for the major powers - the United Kingdom, Germany, the Soviet Union and United States of America.  No Italian, French or Japanese tanks at this time.

There are modifiers in the form of crew and equipment cards.

Game play is straight forward. The game may start to bog down with more than a couple of platoons of tanks on each side. Terrain and cover are both represented with simple easy to grasp rules.

Overall this is great for casual play by grognards and veteran gamers and as noted above a great intro game for gamers new to tabletop gamers.