Finished: 15mm Battlefront Sherman DDs

Hi folks,

As is now my tradition, I've taken part in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (AHPC) again this year. Unfortunately, after finishing off my Spitfires I've hit a patch of lack of mojo - not helped by the Rogue Trader CRPG coming out. This has resulted in not much actually being painted since December. 

In order to try and jump start my enthusiasm, I went back to basics. Prior to 2021 I had been putting together a Sherman DD squadron for our D-Day games. I had an order in for the remaining vehicles I needed with Battlefront, and had 2 tanks on backorder. Unfortunately, the dreaded Covid caused production issues, and my back order was eventually cancelled. Despite me asking several times about these kits (and others) being available again from Battlefront, they have not made a re-appearance - as of time of writing, at least.

After a long time checking Ebay, I finally picked up the last few tanks needed. I took some effort to match these in with my previously painted models. 

Previously painted tank is in the middle

These four tanks (the two I was waiting on, and another two that were in the painting pile) finish off my planned Fort Garry Horse Sherman DD compliment:

I'll try to get a group shot of these at some point, currently they are stored in different boxes that need digging out. 

I'm still planning to paint three Sherman Fireflies for this unit, as another option, so for not the whole force isn't quite done. But I was really happy to pick up all the models I wanted and finally start to put this one to bed. 

 

Finished: 15mm Sherman DD's

Hi folks,

Another bit of a delay from my last blog post, but work has been continuing on a series of beach landing based projects. This has kept me busy, but working on multiple things at once has meant that I've not actually finished anything yet. 

First to the finish line, after my AVRE's were delayed due to some last minute stowage additions, are the five Sherman DD tanks. 

I've six of these painted already, so these chaps take me to eleven total for the squadron. I've used some birthday money to buy another four, but two are on back order currently. When they all arrive, I should have a full squadron of these. 

They are 15mm Battlefront models, and are M4A1 based Duplex Drive Shermans. Unfortunately, this is the wrong version of Sherman DD's for the Brits/Canadians, who used the M4A4 hull for theirs. However, I'm not keen on the Peter Pig or Skytrex representations of these tanks, so I stuck with the incorrect but nicer sculpted Battlefront model. 

Sticking with the same these as the previous batch, I've gone with a sandy 'beach' base rather than my usual basing technique. I have been tempted to add some grass tufts, but tried this previously and was unhappy with the look. As these are, they match in with Dave's DD tanks. 

Highlighting was done to my current method, which made me go back and update the previously painted tanks to have the same garish style. These look odd close up, but much better at tabletop distances. Decal wise, I've only gone with a star on the turret top. The floatation skirts hide where the markings would normally be on the hulls, and while I have read mention of the Canadian units having unit markings on the gun mantlet, I've not found any pictures supporting this. Plus, leaving those markings off lets the unit represent tanks from different units. 

I do have a couple of tank commanders to paint to fully finish two of the tanks, but the models can be used without for now. 

With the models on order, the current painting plan for this project is looking like this:

And on completion, this will be my fourth painted allied tank squadron... (the others being 24th Polish Lancers, 144RAC and 10th Mounted Rifles). 

 

Finished?!: 15mm Battlefront Sherman DD tanks

Hi folks,

Still catching up on some of the finished models from last week. This time, I've some DD Shermans to show off - both landed and swimming:

So a couple of things with these chaps:

- I'd initially done the canvas screens Khaki, but having seen Dave's and looked again at my pictures from Bovington, I went with a Desert Yellow drybrush over the Khaki.
- I had planned to put some tufts on the bases, but they just did not look right. As a result, with these tanks I am very tempted to go to Dave's smaller bases (60mm by 40mm, I think) as there is a lot of empty space around the models.
- Bases are Desert yellow with a drybrush of Iraq Sand. I then painted the edges Desert Brown. I recognise that the shade is quite close to the screen colour though, so may have to review if I do switch to a smaller base.
- I've another two of these to do, but might just make them up to a full squadron - because why not. I think I'd need another 3, and 4 Fireflys.

These tanks will be representing Canadian Shermans for Juno beach - possibly the Fort Garry Horse. Lack of places to put decals makes these pretty vague however. I may consider going for 1st Hussars though, as I have plans to do a FGH squadron with Sherman III's later.

To represent these (briefly) on the table while they swim in, I also finished another three swimming DD's. These are cheap resin models from Ebay, and are nowhere near as nice as Dave's Battlefront models. However, they will do for now.

That's it for DD's, unless I revisit the basing. Now onto finishing off the HMG42's and blocking in the colours on my three Sherman Crab Flails!

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!

Finished!: 15mm 'swimming' Sherman DD's

Hi folks,

Just a quickie for today. My AHPC 'water feature' round entry was a trio of resin DD Shermans, to go towards our upcoming D-Day games.

These were resin models from a ebay seller, and as such are not my usual Battlefront offerings. The models were pretty rough with lots of holes and flash. They also have a pretty odd turret hatch cupola which I don't think I've ever seen on Normandy Shermans.

These were given a quick paint job, and I'll consider whether to leave or replace them further down the line. As much as the BF offerings are nice, they are expensive for what is effectively a marker in the game.

I would also point out that with all the DD tanks on the market, they sit too high in the water. As far as I'm aware, the canvas screen displaced enough water to keep the tank afloat, but the result was that there were only a few inches between the water surface and the top of the screen - hence the issues on D-day with choppy water causing the screens to collapse or coming over the top. The British apparently discovered prior to D-Day that screens needed re-enforcing with stronger steel, but didn't pass this info on to the Americans.

These three will be added to the collection, and will go towards some future beach landing.