Monday 22 July 2019

Finished!: 15mm Sherman Crab Flail tanks

Hi folks,

My various bases and magnets arrived following my State of the Collection video's, which has allowed me to finish off the Sherman Crab's I had been working on:


I had previously 2 of these tanks painted, along with the command vehicle. I actually painted these quite a while ago (2014), so there was a bit of a difference in painting style over my recent vehicles. I decided, while painting the three new additions, to re-work the old models. This included re-visiting my basing.

I was really taken by Dave's slightly smaller bases, so picked up some narrower 2mm thick mdf bases from Warbases. These included holes cut in them for 5mm x 2mm magnets, which will save me adding magnetic sheeting to the underside of the bases. These also more securely attach the bases to the sheeting in the boxes. These tanks are on 90mm by 40mm bases, while the command tank is on a 60mm by 40mm base (as opposed to 63mm by 50mm Battlefront large bases I previously used). The extra 13mm's shaved off the sides just looks a bit neater. This also means the vehicles are a little easier to store.





Markings are for the 22nd Dragoons, although I think the turret numbers were a bit of a guess. I can't find anything substantial regarding the use of the numbers.

Dust effects have been applied over the front hull and tracks. Old vehicles were updated and brought to a similar standard, all the bases were updated. The canvas gun mantlet was added by me. Chain are from cheap costume jewellery. Fishing line aerials.



So five flails done, which will help with our large scenario games. The command tank I'm also not sure about, I think the structure of the squadron was several troops of 5 flails, with an HQ of three Shermans for each squadron.

Big thanks go to DaveD, who contributed to the upgraded troop!

State of the collection pics

Hi folks,

I've finally resolved the photo issue I had, so thought I would post the still pictures taken between video's.

Apologies for the patchy lighting, it was later afternoon in the garage. Possibly the last set of model pictures taken there!

German armour:







German artillery and AA







German infantry and AT:




British armour:


















British artillery and AA:








British infantry + recce:




Saturday 20 July 2019

State of the Collection - 2019 - Videos

Hi folks,

Last weekend I had an opportunity to go through my WW2 collection and undertake a bit of a audit over where I am at. I last did this back in 2017, having not gotten round to a similar exercise last year.

I find this is useful for a variety of reasons. It reminds me where I am at with the various aspects of the project, helps me focus on what I want to work on next, and is a useful record for insurance purposes!

While the main aim was to take some video footage, I did take some pictures, but I am having some issues uploading them currently (as I stupidly uploaded the video's again...). So for today, here are the video links, which a picture blog to follow!

First up, German armour:


German Artillery and AA:


German Infantry and Anti Tank:



Allied Armour:


Allied Artillery and AA:


Allied Infantry:


Landing craft:


Model storage: