Finished: PSC 15mm Stuart VIs

Hi folks,

After a few weeks of building models and slowly building up my painting again, I managed to complete not just a unit, but a project tab on my spreadsheet. Huzzah. 

These tanks represent three Stuart VI light tanks from the HQ Squadron of 24th Polish Lancers, 10th Armoured Cavalry Brigade, 1st Polish Armoured Division. 

Along with the recently completed Sherman ARV, this project is 100% complete. 

The Shermans from this project (who form 'A' Squadron) had been reclaimed, rebuilt and repainted way back in December 2016. Most of the Shermans were old 'Open Fire' plastic models I'd picked up already (poorly) assembled. These models are still the worst plastic kits I've even built. 

Earlier this year they were rebased and I changed the colour of the aerial recognition panels to something more historically accurate. I also hit them again with ultra matt varnish. Looking at the tanks tonight, I may also revisit the Fireflies and rearm them with the thinner and better looking barrels from the modern BF kit. 

However, I had been lacking recce Stuarts and an ARV for this unit to complete the old FoW v3 squadron list. Tonight's completed tanks rectifies that failing. 

Apologies for the over-exposure on these pictures, still struggling with lighting for photos. 

I added an orange Aerial Recognition panel to the commanders Stuart, in keeping with the Shermans of the unit. These panels were added to the unit to stand out from my other British and Canadian Sherman squadrons, and because in August 1944 the Poles were bombed several times by both US and British heavy bombers as part of the Totalize and Tractable operations, so I felt the Poles might be a bit twitchy about allied aircraft. 

These Stuarts are plastic PSC models, assembled to represent mid to late production Stuart VIs. Again, this choice was just to make them a little different from the other unit of Polish Stuart VIs in the collection. It does mean they have more tools than they should have, but consider those extra stowage to help the crew dig in faster at night.  

Two crew figures were added to the command vehicles turret (in keeping with my theme of having recce vehicles 'unbuttoned'), along with two aerials. The other tanks have a single command figure and a single aerial. These tanks are based as per my current basing scheme, on an MDF base sized as a FoW 'medium' base, which has been magnetised. 

Stowage has been added from a variety of sources, including Battlefront, Debris of War and PSC. Decals are from Doms Decals (purchased many years ago). 

The final project sheet:

The army list for this unit came from the old v3 Polish booklet, which can still be found here and contains lots of useful info on the division. I believe that other than the Sherman ARV, this unit could be built using v4 rules from D-Day British, although you would need to drop the HQ troop Firefly to make it work by the book (and field four 75mm Shermans). The Poles used this structure due to manpower shortages. 

Excuse the Canadian Stuarts (bottom left) and a Naafi truck sharing the tray. Sextons are stored elsewhere.  

You could also apply the 'Black Devils' command card, increasing the points by +2 per unit, but giving all units 'Fearless 3+' motivation. You could also apply the 'Sexton' command card to a unit of Priests from this book (in formation support) and add an OP Sherman. Point wise in v4 this list would be 105 points.

However, my intention was to build A Squadron, 24th Polish Lancers, with some attachments from HQ Squadron and 1st Polish Motorized Artillery Regiment, rather than worry about points of on table effectiveness! 

I've no more Polish armoured units planned, but still have Polish mechanised and motorised infantry companies planned. I may revisit the need for the motorised unit given I have a full battalion of British infantry in FoW at this point. 

Possibly some German halftracks next. Possibly.     

 

Finished: 15mm Skytrex Sherman ARV

Hi folks,

This is another lead mountain lurker that made it's way to the front of the queue as I tried to finish off my Polish 24th Lancers squadron. I've still the Stuarts to do, but they will be up next I think. 

I picked this up from Skytrex a while back (years ago) and it's a decent enough model. Reasonably detailed and not fiddly to put together. As I was painting other Shermans at the time, I got it knocked out fairly quickly. Pretty redundant in game terms now, but a cool model and part of the historic OOB. 

Finished!: 15mm Crusader AA, 15mm Quad Tractors, 15mm LCA Passengers (pt1)

Hi folks,

As I've continued with my AHPC entries, I thought I should get caught up here with what I've finished recently.

First up, a couple of Battlefront 15mm Crusader AA tanks for my Polish 24th Lancers:

These are the second pair of these I have painted, with my 144RAC squadron having a couple as well. As with my Lancers, I've made use of the yellow recognition panels on these chaps.

Next up, some 15mm Battlefront Morris Commercial C8 FAT (Field Artillery Tractor) - commonly known as 'Quads'. These are marked up as part of 128 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery. This unit was one of the three 25 Pdr equipped artillery regiments of 51st Highland Division. The guns for these were done a while ago, so this is just me shaving the lead mountain and finishing off part of the unit.

And then lastly, half of the Canadian passenger figures for my LCA's. These were entered in the Saturday 'Fellowship' competition round, but as 'normal' figures I was painting anyway, I don't expect them to score highly.

I've the rest of these chaps for my other 3 LCA's to finish this week (onto the highlighting stage currently) and at the moment one vehicle to enter for next Tuesday, which will put me 20 or so points short of my target, with under two weeks to go! At this stage, I doubt I will get all the vehicles I had prepped done by the end of the challenge, but shouldn't have many left over.

State of the collection 2017 - Part 1 - British/Polish/Canadian Armour

Hi folks,

So, having lived in this house for 9 or 10 months now, I finally got organised and had the old furniture which was filling the garage taken away. As a result, I now have a decent amount of space in the garage... more than enough to get my table up and get some pictures taken!

Normally I try to do a 'state of the collection' review around June time. But I'm sure you can forgive me for breaking from tradition and getting all the toys out!

Now, the issue this time was that even with the extensions put out on the table, I don't think the table is big enough to hold everything at once! I've plans to get some 2' by 5' boards for it, but in the mean time I decided to split my allied collection down into infantry, armour and artillery. This post will cover my armour!

The video I made (complete with a silent patch where the numpty that I am covered the mike with my thumb - giving more weight to the need to buy a decent tripod) can be found here:

But I know some of you won't want to listen to me whitter on (or not, while I cover the mike), so I thought some still images might be welcome.

C Squadron, 144RAC, 33rd Armoured Brigade with additional units from HQ Squadron (and some Churchill Crocs from 141RAC, 31st Tank Brigade)

Engineering and Croc support from 79th Armoured Division and 31st Tank Brigade

A Squadron, 24th Polish Lancers, 1st Polish Armoured Division. 

Supporting battery from 6th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, 2nd Canadian Corps. 

Spares! 

Thanks! Stay tuned for more!

AHPC7: 1st Painting Challenge Entry

Hi folks,

So this year, as I mentioned previously, I decided to enter the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. I've gotten off to a slow start, what with moving the week of the Challenge starting. I didn't really pick up a brush again until the start of the New Year. My first aim was to get an entry into the 1st 'challenge' Bonus round. As this was 'Armour' I was able to fit it in with my 'Gunuary' focus. You can find my entry here.

My first entry was therefore four Sexton Mk. II Self Propelled Guns. These vehicles belong to 2 Pulk Artylerii Motorowej (2nd Polish Motorised Artillery Regiment) of the 1st Polish Armoured Division. They are to join my 24th Polish Lancers (and other planned Polish lists, including the Cromwells). 

The Sexton was a development brought about by the inability to fit a 25 Pdr gun into a M7 Priest. Using the Priests 105mm gun was causing supply problems, as the British and Commonwealth forces did not use this type of ammunition in any other weapon system - whereas the 25 Pdr was used in all of the 'Field' Artillery Regiments. 

With the M7 Priest unable to be converted, work was undertaken in Canada by the Canadian Army Engineering Design Branch, to create a vehicle similar to the M7. This was done by converting the hull of the Ram tank (which had been developed but was not used in a active combat role itself). This design proved to be successful, with two versions being produced - the Mk1 (based on a Ram hull) and the Mk II (based on a Canadian built Sherman hull - the Grizzly). A total of 2,150 of these vehicles were produced for the British and other Commonwealth armies. The name Sexton was chosen to continue the religious theme of the Priests these vehicles were based on (and previous SPG's such as the Deacon). The Sexton continued in operational use until 1956!

As usual, these vehicles have the relevant unit markings on them - with the exception of the gun battery specific markings (normally blue boxes with one quarter red, the quarter changing depending on the guns number within the battery, along with a letter and number combo). Bridge Classification on these SPGs are 27, and the AoS decal is a red over blue box with a white 76. On the front right is the Polish 1st Armoured 'winged hussar' symbol, while on the rear is the AoS box, the winged hussar symbol and the white oblong with 'PL' in black lettering. All decals came from Doms Decals. I also applied a small allied circle to the lover front hull, as there was no decent flat surface to put them on to be visible from above. 

On the sides of the hull are a medium sized white star, along with the WD numbers (starting with the letter S for a self propelled gun). 

The crew were painted separately and glued into place once the vehicle was completed. The FoW website actually has images with 4 crew in the vehicle, one of which is sitting on the gunners chair. However the article mentions that there were added by the painter and are not part of the kit - which is a shame!

Stowage was added as normal, being a mix of Battlefront, Peter Pig and Skytrex. 

I've already completed the OP tank for this unit, so just the (soon to be made obsolete in V4) command and staff teams to do. 

I also have some small fixes to do - adding some darker static grass to the rear of the base to show the tracks passage, and adding some spent shell casings as well. These will come later once I'm on track with the rest of Gunuary and the AHPC. 

Next up, the limbered 17 Pdrs and then the 5.5" guns - which are more or less done but need crew painting.

Finished! 24th Polish Lancers

Hi folks,

This last week or so I've been rushing to finish off my Polish M4A4 Shermans. As I mentioned on my last post, this was due to the Analogue Painting Challenge starting on the 20th and my upcoming house move on the 17th.

I'm please to say I managed to finish off these tanks, and got a few hurried pics before they were packed away. I've still a few little snagging things to fix, but I'm happy enough with them.

My final tally for this batch was 10 Sherman V's (M4A4's) and 1 Sherman II (M4A1).

Looking back, I can see I started this Polish project back in August. This means in 5 months I managed to get the whole lot done. That doesn't sound impressive, but for me it's fairly good going - especially considering the amount of work they took to even get to the painting stage and the fact the whole of November was given over to my Novelty November Challenge. And included in that time was a wedding and honeymoon!

These models were all purchased built, and were the original Open Fire plastic Shermans. Those people who have built these kits will know that they are, to use a word from my home land, "Pish". They are a real nuisance to build properly, even for someone who is used to them. Whoever put mine together the first time didn't do too great a job - which is understandable given how rubbish the kits are. Varying thickness of plastic, off square edges, parts that just don't fit together properly.

I had resolved to make use of what I had, as what I had I had picked up for a decent price.

I literally took these models apart with a scalpel. Removed all the haphazard stowage, cleaned them up and put them back together again.

In addition to the 19 hulls above, I also finished off my 144 RAC collection. A total of 26 Shermans!

Of course, I still have the AA tanks, ARV and Stuarts to finish...

These tanks represent the vehicles of No. 1 Squadron, 24 Pulk Ulanow Im. Hemana Zolkiewkeigo - commonly referred to at the 24th Polish Lancers or 24th Polish Uhlans. This squadron was part of 4 making up the regiment, which itself was part of 10th Armoured Cavalry Brigade, 1st Polish Armoured Division (10 Brygada Kawalerii Pancernej, 1 Pulk Pancerny). This unit was a pre war Polish Regiment that fought with distinction during the battle for Poland. The remnants of the unit managed to escape to France, where they again formed to fight the Germans. After the fall of France the unit reformed in the UK as part of the Free Polish Forces. Polish forces fighting in Europe made up the 4th largest army, with Poland being the only Free forces to contribute more than 1 Corps worth of troops. This particular regiment fought it's first battle in 1944 as part of Operation Totalise, forming the '2nd wave' attack on the afternoon of 8th August.

The Polish lists in Flames of War are rather scattered and don't get the recognition they deserve for their contribution to the allied war effort. My own list is based on this booklet. As such, the main fighting component is:

HQ troop with 1IC, 2IC, 1 x 75mm Sherman V, 1 x Sherman Firefly

1st Troop: 3 x 75mm Sherman V's, 1 x Firefly
2nd Troop: as 1st troop
3rd Troop: as 1st troop

This means the list should have 16 Shermans, rather than the usual 18 for a British list (I painted two spare!).

I have used an early war reference for Polish cavalry pennants to add small radio aerial pennants to my command tanks.

The 1IC, seen above, has a command figure in the turret and two flags. One is the Polish national flag while the other is the pennant of the 24th Polish Lancers. These are not historically accurate I think - although I know that Polish vehicles did use/display pennants. But 'rule of cool' applies and I liked the idea.

The 2IC tank has a closed hatch, and only one pennant. This pennant is the pennant for the 1st Squadron.

My other troop, which will be my 3rd troop, has the 4th troop flag on the command vehicle (the 3rd troop flag was largely white, so I went for the darker one).

All 11 tanks - Sandbags were used to cover damage to the hulls from the previous poor build.

Apologies for the lighting and pics, they were taken in a hurry before I packed up. I'll try to get pictures of the whole unit together as part of my new year blog post. However, I will be without regular internet access for a few weeks, so expect things to be a bit quiet!

Thanks as usual to the MMM Paint and Chat crew, and also the Paint and Chat guys in the Analogue Painting Challenge group for putting up with my table full of Shermans for oh so long!

All go! Analogue Painting Challenge, snakes, moving and moar Shermans.

Hi folks,

I realised that I didn't do my normal update last weekend, but as I had a recent splurge of posts quite close together, I thought I'd hold off till I had something to report.

Having finished my November Challenge, I took the rest of the month to just relax and prepare for the rush that will be December. But why the rush? Well, I decided this year to take part in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

I don't think I'll be hitting any records, but my aim is to paint 500 'points' of figures over the 3 months, and in that period I will be having 'Gunuary' in January. 500 points will be a bit of a push, given the scoring system:

15mm foot figure = 2 points
15mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 4 points
15mm vehicle = 6 points

So 83.3333333 15mm vehicles will get me to target. Which equates to just under one completed model a day... I'll also probably be doing some of my 6mm:

6mm foot figure = 0.5 point 
6mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 1 point 
6mm vehicle = 2 points

And possibly some 3mm... which there is no scoring system for! So 500 points will be a decent number, if I can reach it. I think Gunuary will help as I have guns, vehicles and crew figures all in my sights for my Flames of War armies. 

The challenge starts on the 20th of December, so I'm taking part in the MMM 'Winter Campaign' with a pledge to finish off my Polish Shermans before the 20th. That timetable has had to move slightly, as I'm moving house on the 17th of this month (6 days time!!!). This is a bit of a surprise change in circumstances but a fortunate event occurred and we have access to a rented house at short notice without all the usual cost. Thankfully the new accommodation has a spare room which will be a bit of a painting den for me, with a sofa bed for occasional guests. It also has a detached garage, which will allow me to get a gaming table set up!

While Amy is just please to get 'my crap' out of the living room! I have no idea how the move will effect my painting, but rest assured the excuse will be banked should I fail to make my 500 point target!

unlike most of the 'serious' entrants, I have done no prep work at all.

So far the Polish Shermans are progressing, with all 11 of the final batch painted, shaded, highlighted and with decals on (as of tonight):

In other news, whilst out and about last night I came across an actual Alien - although probably a pet one rather than an invasive one. 

This fellow was at the side of a lane in very wet and quite cold Norton (in the North East of England). As a Striped Corn Snake, this is pretty far from 'his' natural habitat of North America! While very cold, 'he' was alive. After a bit of dilly dallying I managed to get in touch with the RSPCA, who sent out one of their people to collect him and get him to a vet (I use the male pronouns but have no idea as to the sex of this snake...). While waiting I got him in a towel and into a box with a bottle of warm water until the cavalry arrived. Quite a strange turn of events for a run to the shops on a Friday night!


I also managed, the week before last, to get to the club (the Old Guard Wargames Club - meeting just outside Northallerton) and play a game of 'To the Strongest'. A good (if somewhat biased... not reflecting the true planned (not at all seat of the pants) and glorious nature of my our victory) review of the battle can be found here, on Roy's Blog. I've some pics of my own, showing my Greeks  triumphant advance against the attacking Persians!

In all honesty it was a very close game, with my somewhat reckless attack (when I was supposed to be defending) seeing us (myself and Stuart) one destroyed unit away from defeat - and Roy with a slightly healthier force. In our last turn we managed to destroy one unit and then capture Roy's camp (in a 'not at all tricksy Greek sneak attack' way) meaning we won the day (with one single one of our 'medals' remaining - having taken 5 off Roy in that turn). 

I enjoyed the rules, and the card rather than dice mechanic. I'd happily play again!

So, until next time!

Finished: 2nd Polish 24th Lancers Troop

Hi Folks,

Having finished the 3mm stuff the other week, I cracked back on with the 15mm Shermans I had been working on prior to the wedding.

I had decided to split the remaining tanks into troops in order to help make progress with them, dividing up the excess tanks between each batch. As a result, this batch of Shermans consists of 6 tanks - from left to right in the above picture:

2 Pułk Artylerii Motorowej:

Sherman V OP tank (OP tank for my future Polish Armoured Artillery)

24th Polish Lancers:

75mm Sherman V
Sherman Firefly
2 x 75mm Sherman V's

Random:

'Spare' M4A1 Sherman - no specific unit decals, but I figures I should paint the model up just in case.

So, starting with the Polish Lancers - these are the next 4 tanks in the Squadron. I took some artistic license with these, in that the pennant on the command tank is the pennant of the 2nd Squadron. However, as the Regiment only has 4 Squadrons (rather than the multiples the early war flags were designed for) I decided to use the pennants to mark different tank troops instead.

Another difference is the sandbagged tank. I tried to keep the Polish Shermans fairly similar in their stowage layout. The sandbags came about due to the 'rescue' nature of these tanks, coming from 2nd hand Open Fire Shermans. Some of these were badly put together or damaged, and the sandbags help cover up the damage or other issues.

Then I have the Sherman V 'OP' tank, for one of the 1st Polish Armoured Divisions artillery regiments - 2 Pułk Artylerii Motorowej. This tank, to represent the lack of a proper tank gun, has an older style gun mantlet. I also used an artillery officer with binoculars that I had 'spare' (following an accident which saw him stepped on and separated from his base). No stowage or anything fancy with this tank, although I gave it 3 radio aerials in order to help it stand out.

Pictured alongside the OP tank is a spare M4A1 Sherman (Sherman II) I had, which I painted up just in case. No specific unit markings on this tank, so it will either find a use or find another home at some point. I've another to do as well, which will be the same.

Having finished these guys, I've moved on to my Miniature Modelling Mayhem 'Novelty November' challenge. This will consist of a few more 'novelty' vehicles... a sneak peak follows!

Just some issues to resolve regarding centre of gravity... but a base on the tank might help with this as well.

Feel free to check out my Facebook page for more regular updates. I'm planning to draw the entries to my little giveaway later this week, so you still have time to enter. Check it out here.