Next plan...

Hi folks,

So not much in the way of painting done recently. I've been prepping models for my next couple of projects, going with both 'old' and 'new' ideas.

For the 'old' idea, I've built and prepped 9 Battlefront Humber VI Armoured Cars and 6 Humber Light Recon Cars. This has included sorting hatches, drilling out holes for radio aerials, adding stowage, etc. The only thing still to do before painting is drilling out and magnetising the turrets.

These models will make up the three combat platoons of my 2nd Derbyshire Yeomanry squadron. This unit was the recon regiment of the 51st Highland Division. 'Famously', they were equipped with Daimler I Armoured Cars - but as it turns out, this happened from September 1944. So for the Operation Totalize period (August 44) they still had the Humbers. I sold the painted and unpainted Daimlers I had on to Martin, where they will become (I believe) Belgians A/C's which fought with the Paras.

For this force, I will also have some 6 pdr A/T guns, Mortars and Halftrack mounted MG Pioneer teams to add, but I am going to focus on the A/C's for now.

The other 'old' thing I'm working on are three more Sherman 'Crab' Flail Tanks. These will be added to the two other 22nd Dragoons Crabs I painted back in 2014, bringing the full troop up to the historic five Crabs. I like to see these on the table in the bigger games we play, so I wanted to expand the numbers a little to provide more options. As I did with the original two models, I added a 'green stuff' attempt at a canvas covered gun mantlet, as well as thinner costume jewellery chain for the flail drum (the stuff that comes with the model is just too thick. The thinner chain I used is still out of scale, but looks a lot better I think. My top tip if you plan on doing this is buy double the amount of costume jewellery you think you will need, as it never goes as far as you hope!).

The 'new' project is the DD tanks, both swimming and deployed. Two of the swimming DD's came painted, but I will be repainting to match the three I painted previously. The deployed DD's will be from one of the Canadian regiments that landed on Juno beach.

I'm not setting any sort of time scale expectation for these models. Hopefully once they get a base spray coat, the DD's should be fairly quick to do, though I am a bit stumped for basing on the deployed DD's. I want to keep to the same style as the rest of my army, but at the same time accept these things will be on a beach at some point.

The Armoured Cars I will try to do in batches of five, and I'll probably do the three Crabs at once. Although when it comes to highlights and such, the previously finished models will also get some work to try and bring them to the same standard.

So that's it for me. Tomorrow see's a 28mm ACW game played on a 6' by 17' table at the club in Billingham - our first time with this size of a layout, and playing with Martins growing 28mm ACW collection. Pictures should follow!