Finished!: 15mm German SS Radio Truck + The Other Partisan

Hi folks,

As promised last week, I managed to finish off my SS radio truck this week. This is a 15mm Battlefront vehicle, with a selection of 15mm Battlefront figures to make the base into a little diorama. Useful for table decoration, an objective marker or something more complex for when playing the Battlegroup rules!

As with my other SS figures, I've gone for a mix of camo patterns and standard uniform on the figures. I added a double radio to the table I had, as well as a figure with what appears to be a field telephone (painted with yellow shoulder tabs to mark him out as signals).

I imagined the scene as being a busy temporary command post 'somewhere in Normandy', with orders being passed on to a runner while signallers try and get through to other units.

I had gone with camo netting and foliage on the truck, but messed it up and ended up removing it all last minute. I may revisit the concept, but basically I normally add the netting before painting, and I didn't this time - which resulted in the varnish messing it all up.

I've put aside the rest of my German painting queue for now, and have instead switched to finishing off my 10mm scale ACW limbers. More on that soon (I hope!).

In other news, myself, Dave, Martin and Scottie will be at 'the Other Partisan' on Sunday. Dave's putting on his Sudan game. We'll be at table 21 (over by the toilets, handily...) should anyone want to stop and say hello!

Finished: 15mm German Brummbärs

Hi folks,

Getting back to my German armour painting efforts with the completion of 2 Brummbärs. These have been on my desk since before I went on holidays in June. Hot weather, lack of motivation and work on my LCT really delayed completion of models that were almost finished.

I had planned to have all my planned German armour done by July, but I'm not into August with 5 Panther A's, 3 StuGs, a radio truck and some Kubelwagons still to do. The radio truck I will complete this week, but I think the other vehicles are going back to the storage depot for now. I've hit a wall with regards to painting German tank camo for now (which is scary given the number of half tracks I have to paint...). i figure it is better to get something else on the table rather than have more delays due to my lack of motivation with these models just now. Back to painting plain green for a bit I suspect, or maybe some Necromunda models. I've also ACW limbers to finish off...

Anyway, these two vehicles represent part of Sturmpanzer Abt 217, who were assigned in August 1944 to support the 89. Infanterie Division and who were therefore involved in Operation Totalize as the Canadian, Polish and British units moved through the area south of Caen. As a result, this unit lost several of it's Assault Guns to direct tank fire as it's positions were overrun.

There are not a lot of pictures out on the internet of these vehicles in Normandy, so I've just done my best to make them fit in with the rest of my collection. I decided that the side skirts made them look odd, and the pictures I found of destroyed examples showed no sign of the side skirts being in use, so I modelled them without. I've gone for some light foliage cover, but other than that the two vehicles are pretty plain.

One of those vehicles that's so ugly it's kind of cute...

Also of note is the fact that one of these vehicles came to me via Lee a while ago, and this is me just getting round to fitting it into my force - it does take a while, but I do get there!

In FoW, these Assault Guns can only fire directly and with a short range. However, my reading of their role and placement with the 89. Infanterie Division was to provide indirect fire support, which I understand the guns were capable of. As such, I think in my games I'll be letting these use the same stats as for the 15cm Infantry Guns in an indirect fire/bombardment role. Shout up if there is a particular reason you think this is wrong!

15mm LCT Scratch Build - Finished

Hi folks,

A couple of weeks ago I posted some pictures of my WiP 15mm scale LCT, for use in Flames of War and other such games. Since then, I've been busy painting, and then repainting, the built model. However, this week I've got it to the point that I am happy for now, aside from getting some crew figures sorted.

Unfortunately, I had been so keen to get this painted, that I jumped in with both feet and didn't check colours or references. This resulted in me having a complete paint job, which was wrong:

Reference to some D-Day images, and then the shipmakers models for the LCT's, shows that the colour was basically white with a dark blue camo pattern on D-Day. So I repainted the dark grey a lighter grey - but then decided it was still too dark, so went with off white, which seemed to do it. The camo colour is 2/3rds Dark Bluegrey Pale and 1/3rd Prussian Blue (roughly). Upper hull surfaces are London Grey, while the hold is Luftwaffe Uniform. I just used a selection of reds for the markings, and light browns and khaki for the lifeboats.

Weathering was done using stone grey, beige brown (for rust) and a very light grey wash.

So here she is, in all her glory:

I'll be replicating the paint scheme for the smaller craft I have and will be keeping an eye out for some more smaller craft to pick up in the future.

As for making more... well, when I finished this one I had the urge to try an LCI... but with enough deep breaths the madness subsided. For now. I think I am still going to pursue some other options, so who knows!