15mm Stowage Comparison - Peter Pig, Battlefront, Skytrex

Hi folks,

I thought I should take the time to actually do a little comparison of the various 15mm stowage suppliers I use. I've posted pictures of the parts individually in the past, but thought it might be useful to see the parts together.

These models come from three separate suppliers, and only refer to western allied kits (although some of the parts are pretty interchangeable)

The model makers I am comparing are:

Peter Pig - specifically their Sherman Stowage Basic Pack's

Skytrex - specifically their  CD SP1 General Stowage Pack and CD SP12 Sherman Tracks & Road Wheels Pack

Battlefront -  Specifically US Stowage US670

Starting with Battlefront's offerings, this pack is billed as US stowage but would be suitable for any Western Allied vehicles. It includes some bedding rolls, Sherman road wheels, Jerry cans, track links and both a US and Tommy helmet and a few boxes. the pack contains 6 strips of each of the two types. From my perspective, the offerings from Battlefront are good and add some great variety. However, the casting isn't great and will need a lot of cleaning up in some cases. I paid £6.47 on ebay for this pack.

Next up, Peter Pig. The Peter Pig packs are a lot smaller and fairly limited in scope, containing 3 large cloth rolls, 3 strips of Sherman tracks, 2 Sherman road wheels and 2 strips of connected boxes. These packs cost £3 each. They require fairly little prep to use, not needing much in the way of cleaning up.

Then we have Skytrex. The Skytrex packs are larger than the other offerings, but a bit costlier and p+p is also quite steep. However, they do contain a lot of different bits. There is a pack of stowage that only includes the canvas rolls, jerry cans and boxes, and leaves out the 'camo net' style rolls. My experience of the Skytrex models is that they require fairly little in the way of cleaning up. 

Both of these packs cost £10, although there are smaller, cheaper, packs available. P+P is about £5 within the UK.

So how do these various offerings compare?

Peter Pig (left) with Battlefront (right)

Mix of all makes

Battlefront on left, Skytrex on the right.

Rear view of the various tracks. Peter Pig on the left with their flat backing, Battlefront at the top and the other offerings are Skytrex.

Front view of the various Sherman tracks.

Small Skytrex barrels and Jerry Cans on the left, beside Battlefront versions.

Battlefront offerings in the centre, surrounded by Skytrex and with a few Peter Pig Sherman road wheels in the center.

Skytrex Jerry Cans and Crates beside the Battlefront offerings.

As you can see, size wise they are all fairly interchangeable with minimal drift in scales. The Skytrex and Battlefront versions give you some decent variations while also providing the bulk you need to detail a lot of different vehicles. The Peter Pig offering is pretty limited in numbers - useful if you are only doing one or two tanks, but you need quite a few packs to do a lot of vehicles and there is not much variation with only the Sherman tracks and road wheels alongside the 3 connected boxes and the large canvas roll.

There are some other options, which I do use from time to time. One is to use greenstuff/miliput to make your own. Doing canvas style rolls is fairly easy and can be done with a little practice. Another is to use small strips of material, tinfoil, etc.

I also carefully strip any stowage on plastic sprues, such as the plastic Open Fire Shermans and StuGs, plastic half tracks, etc. I do try to be careful with mixing these in when I am detailing my models, as I don't want every vehicle being identical (or looking like every other Sherman out there!).

Another version which isn't on the market yet is the Plastic Soldier Company stowage sprue. PSC are working on a British 15mm Stowage kit, similar in scope to the German one. No news as to when this will be released, but they did reply to an email from me recently stating that one was in the pipeline. Another new addition is 'Flames of War Bling' which is an Ebay store selling 3d printed bits and bobs for FoW. They include crates, barrels and tools.

So there you go, a very quick and dirty comparison between all the various stowage options I use on my Flames of War vehicles. If you know of a producer I haven't mentioned, please let me know in comments! I hope you found this blog entry useful! Apologies for the lighting in the photographs.

WiP - 15mm M10C Foliage

Hi folks,

I've been experimenting with foliage on my M10C, and could do with a little input as to whether it adds anything to the model/looks natural, or if I should just give up on the idea. Opinions welcome as while I think it looks good, I think I might be a little biased!

So far, I have only added some to the camo netting on the turret.

I'm thinking I will touch up the 'branches' with a darker brown shade, as they are just the colour of the sea-foam sprigs at the moment. I am looking for genuine negative or positive feedback on this, as it is a big change from what I have done in the past (deliberately so, I wanted these to stand out as not being 'just another' British unit, with them being Canadian).

Leave a comment and let me know!

6MMRPC: 15mm Camo Netting + progress update

Hi folks,

A few weeks ago I'd posted some pics of the first batch of painted Shermans V's which had been traded on to Scotsgreys in exchange for new Sherman I's. A few people had commented on the camo netting on some of the tanks - and having used the same netting on some of my Churchill Crocodiles I thought I'd do a quick post on what I'm using.

First up, a quick shot of how it looks unpainted:

So the netting seems to be this stuff, although I can't be 100% sure as I bought it years ago from a small modelling shop in Glasgow. It was labelled as (I think) 1/72 scale netting.

Some close ups of the netting:

I use my trusty nail scissors (a very useful modelling tool!) in order to snip small sections of the netting to roughly the size and shape I need for the surface I'm applying it to. I then put a coat of superglue on the tanks surface and apply the netting. Don't worry about the fit, you can always trim the netting to the shape you need afterwards. I think I should then have applied a thinned down coat of PVA, but I just went right on to priming and painting.

Some more pics of the Croc turret (with some Sherman track links as extra armour on the front turret):

This particular look was based roughly on this picture of a Churchill Crocodile in Normandy:

 

I've actually got a odd number of Churchill Crocodiles, due to 2 of the models I had bought having very rough and badly cast/pitted fuel trailers. I had emailed Battlefront Customer Services for replacement trailers, and I was sent two whole new tanks!

While prepping a couple of the Crocs for my next wave of painting, I hit upon the way of sorting the pitting on the fuel trailers... Hide it!

 

This involved putting a couple of bits of stowage on the trailer, then using the same technique as above to drape the netting over it. Obviously, this is just with the base colour on, and not the finished article!

Lastly, some pics of the primed Croc:

6MMRPC wise this week I have also:

 

- primed and base coated the vehicle crews I prepped last weekend. These now just need helmets, webbing and flesh (and a few other details) painting.

- detailed another Churchill Crocodile with Stowage and got this primed and base coated.

- added steel paper to the bases of my Universal Carriers. These are now stored away securely awaiting Army Painter varnishing.

 

Things to think about for the coming week:

 

- basing for the Churchill Crocs and trailers? How to have the trailers remove able? Magnets? Some sort of hole drilled and paper clip 'hook'?

- finish off the vehicle crews.

- get the other three Crocs started.

 

 

 

 

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How to: Using 'Tufts' - MiniNatur product review

Hi folks,

The other week a few people had commented on the materials I was using on my basing. I thought it might be worth a quick blog on the products I use. When I started basing my infantry units I had bought some ArmyPainter tufts. The pack was quite small and I got through it pretty quickly. A few months later I was at one of the Scottish wargame shows and came across MiniNatur. These packs were roughly the same price as the much smaller ArmyPainter products and are of just the same quality.

The packs I have open and have used look like this - the actual new packs are obviously a lot fuller!:

Basing wise I start a layer of acrylic resin which I then trim down and paint with Vallejo Flat Earth. A quick coat of PVA then a few squirts of static grass from my home made applicator (A washing up bottle!) and the base is ready for detailing.

Normally I would glue the model to the base at this point and then add the tufts afterwards. I put a dab of superglue on the static grass then I use hobby tweezers to take the tufts off the backing and press them gently onto the superglue.

I messed up slightly by not putting the model on this base first! As a result I had to move some of the tufts so the tank was sitting correctly. I also use some nail scissors just to trim the odd sprouty sections from the tufts and any of the static grass that is over the sides of the base.

The pictures were taken under normal lights rather than my daylight bulb, so they look a little yellow/brown. The finished article looks like this:

The tufts go quite far on vehicle models as you only have to do around the edges. You can use slightly more on large artillery bases and less on medium bases. I just try to vary the placing on each base to make them distinct. I find that they break up what would otherwise be large plain spaces.

I payed  £4.25 for each of the MiniNatur packs and they have lasted me quite a while. I only purchased the new ones as the old packs are getting quite sparse. I also know that I have to go back over all my older bases and bring them up to the standard of the new ones!

So there you go, a quick and easy method of making your plain old static grass bases look good without using that horrible lichen/horse hair stuff. The MiniNatur products seem to be great quality and you definitely get your money's worth.

State of the Collection - 1st Video Blog!

Hi folks, a quick mid week blog post for me based on something I worked on at the weekend. Egged on by Paul to try out video blogging, and with the new felt table cover to try out, I decided to lay out my painted collection and do a bit of an overview of everything!

The video is a bit long and I could have prepped more (and remembered where the mike was throughout) but you get to listen to me say 'hey ho' several times in my Scottish brogue, so it's not all bad!

For those of you not keen on shaky camera work...

Let me know what you think of my first video blog! Constructive criticism welcome!

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