Assault on Camembert June 9th 1944

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 4 Comments

As the British moved forward from the Normandy beaches they managed to grab some small towns ahead of the main invasion force. One of these small towns is a little known hamlet called Camembert, on the road to Rochefort. A worn down British Company from the 17th Durham Light Infantry had taken the German forces by surprise and were just holding on by the skin of their teeth. Colonel Frank Mustard was occupying the town with two platoons of infantry, a couple of Cromwells and a Firefly as armour, plus a 17 pdr and a battery of 80mm mortars. In reserve he had the lumbering Churchill AVRE which was fresh from blowing up some Normandy beach defences. So not an insignificant force. Colonel Mustard had orders to hold Camembert against a possible German counterattack.

Just down the road through the bocage the counterattack was inevitably coming. A much bigger German force was on the way including one troop of Panthers, a troop of Panzer IVs, a company of Panzer Grenadiers, an 88mm and some Pak40 AT guns, plus a dangerous Tiger in support. So outnumbered and outgunned the British had their work cut out to hold on. The British plan was to try and destroy some German armour on the main roads leading to the village and block them up, then bring in mortar fire to further mess up the forces and pin them down.

It all started so well as the Firefly took out the lead Panther on the West road and blocked it up, while the 17pdr stalled the Tiger rolling down the East road. That was as good as it got for the Brits. The mortars never found their range and basically did nothing allowing the Germans to continue to advance. The remaining three Panthers got through the bocage and made very light work of the Firefly and his Cromwell friends. Then once the Tiger survived three direct hits from the 17pdr it took one big shot from close range to destroy the doomed anti tank gun. By this time the reserve Churchill AVRE has spent 5 moves moving about three inches and was already too late

Suddenly the Panthers and the Tiger were in the village. The Brits had no answers to the big cats and Colonel Mustard threw in the towel. So a decisive German victory i think. Next time the British need to be more alert and get those mortars firing early to have any chance. Plus be a bit smarter with some ambush tactics rather than just exposing themselves to the enemy so easily.

Farmhouse Rural Building

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 5 Comments

I finally finished my farmhouse for my Normandy terrain. I based this roughly on some of the amazing scenery built by David Wright in his book “Making Rural Buildings For Model Railways”. This book is a must read for anyone looking to build their own scenery. I followed all of the suggestions in it and it improved my little farmhouse no end! I have tried a couple of manufactured buildings from different companies and nothing measures up if you have the time and the energy to scratch build your own structures. Your creations will also be what you want, to your designs, and fit perfectly with your other scenery and models. I think making your own stuff is the most rewarding thing about this hobby!

Using a foam board base for the structure, the key is to give it a coating of glue and modelling clay or ready made filler or plaster. Stonework is then carved into the buildings skin in whatever texture you like. Regular bricks or rural stonework or anything that looks the part. I picked up a $15 electric engraving tool from eBay (China) which speeded up this process a great deal. Hand scribing individual stones is a time consuming effort, but well worth it. Roof tiles were made out of Christmas cards, flashing from aluminium foil. I did buy the chimney pots (another suggestion from David Wright) but everything else is easily found and inexpensive to pick up at the art shop or stationery cupboard.

I was very pleased how this turned out, now i need to finish the rest of my farm, including  a little stable with a corrugated iron roof, an old shed with a hay loft and a big barn. Also need to pick up a vintage tractor from somewhere and make some hay bales. Will probably make a farmyard with walls and find some animals to scale to finish the scene. If you want to make your own buildings for wargames i suggest you check out David’s book as it is all you will ever need! I put the new farmhouse on the edge of my table just so you can get an idea.

HaT Industrie British Mortars in 1/72 scale

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 3 Comments

I finally got around to painting up some mortar teams for my British Army units for Normandy. These plastic figures are great value as you get 4 complete mortars and a whole bunch of crew, radio operators and officers with binoculars. I think for under $10 a box (i picked mine up from Hannants on line) they will make an excellent mortar battery for your infantry company.

Image result for hat british mortars

It means that you can vary your set up with each mortar and make each base a little different. The detail is not that great, but, in plastic, and for that price you cant do much better. I think other metal manufacturers will do a sharper job but you will pay lots more. The facial detail is particularly lacking and you end up almost painting features on some of them which isn’t ideal. I based my guys on MDF as usual and mixed up the poses to create four different scenes. Another blogger had given me a good tip for using gauze or crepe bandage as camo netting, so i applied some to the helmets of some of my mortar crew. A few highlights and they look pretty good. Also with my new magnifying glass i was able to paint some maps as the spotter checks his coordinates. I also added some boxes and bits and pieces. Happy the way they came out and i always prefer to have my mortars on the board. I used an officer and a radio man as the forward observer. The only thing i may change is the plastic radio aerial which is way too thick.

Below are some photos of my finished teams. Also i based my Revell Tiger tank and did some more weathering and dirt. He is in there somewhere with his buddy the Zvezda Tiger.

 

 

Painting Light and Magnifying Glass

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 4 Comments

I had a whine about my poor old eyes being old and grey and my arms being knackered and broken and a fellow blogger chimed in with a recommendation to purchase one of these. It’s an awesome magnifying glass with a bendy arm and clamp, plus a built in bright LED light. The days of going cross eyed trying to paint tiny dots on tiny men in semi darkness are now a thing of the past. Well they are a thing of 2016. Now in 2017 i can paint even smaller dots of camouflage and even put dots inside the dots. I can even paint tiny maps and tiny ordnance survey symbols on the tiny map. Well maybe not but still it’s a huge improvement. Anyone out there who is struggling with this stuff please go and get one. My lovely wife purchased one for me for Christmas. Woo hoo. Also thanks to my blogger modeller friend for a great suggestion. It even has a small section that is double the magnification. It takes a while to get used to the distance your hand is from the model under the lens. Bit of practice is all you need. I don’t know how i managed before i had this.

Esci Kubelwagens and Airfix SdKfz.222

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A while back i bought two of these Airfix German Reconnaissance sets from Hannants, mainly because they were on sale and a bargain too good to be missed. Even though they were listed as 1/76 scale i thought i could fit them in somehow. On opening up and building these little models i realised that the Kubelwagen included was just so tiny and a really bad looking model that i could not use it after it. The SdKfz.222 is a very average kit but once he is painted up he is passable. Luckily i have a couple of Dragon small armoured cars i will be building soon which will probably replace this guy.

Airfix A02312 1/76 Scale Model Kit - WW2 GERMAN RECONNAISSANCE SET

So i still needed Kubelwagens for my officers and forward observers. I soon found some Esci Kubelwagens on sale at Lucky Model in Hong Kong and picked up three boxes of them for bugger all, and you get two vehicles per box which is a bonus. Super easy to build and so much better than the Airfix version. They are only a few parts, which is not a surprise being a little car really, and can be modelled with their canvas roof fully up or totally retracted. I wanted to see my occupants so kept the roofs down in both my builds. You get a few decals too which is nice, but i ended up using my Airfix ones instead. I gave them a two colour stripey camo scheme over the usual dunkelb base coat.

One Kubelwagen is transporting a couple of very important generals while the other has a forward observer unit. The dude in the front has his radio headphones on (Bose wireless i think) and the guy in the back is at the ready with his MP40 and his feet on the seats. Figures are all from the great AB Figures and fit beautifully. Although i did have to glue the front seats back a bit in one so the long legs of the front occupants would fit. You could cut their feet off i guess but how will they drive without any feet….

 

 

 

 

 

Revell PzKpfw VI Tiger Ausf E in 1/72 scale

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My second Tiger tank build this time from Revell, after having a mixed experience with the snap together Zvezda kit a few months ago. Revell make really nice kits and this Tiger is no exception.

It’s a really easy kit to build with most of the parts being in the tracks. I managed to make a mess and misread the instructions and get the tracks on the wrong side. After completing nearly one whole side i had to take them all off again and in the process had to sling a few track links. This meant that i didn’t have enough links for the turret tracks which had to be replaced by some spare metal Panther tracks i had…. So that was the only tricky bit and mainly to do with my own lack of focus!

The whole kit goes together really nicely and easily with great detail. I think you can model the commander’s hatch open if you like. Kit comes with a few decals, only a couple of turret number options, but that will do. This Tiger is super solid, only the turret MG is delicate, so i did not see the need for a base. I just went with a plain dunkelb paint job, mainly as i was tired of painting camo schemes and needed a break! I need a couple more Tigers to make up my troop so next will try a Trumpeter version and might spend a bit more money on a Dragon kit too…….

Here is my Tiger wandering the lanes and fields of Normandy.

Normandy Bocage in 1/72 scale

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 2 Comments

I was on the verge of getting a game set up to play over Christmas while i had a few days away from work. But then i was hit with a wave of dissatisfaction like a seven year old opening a really shitty present on Christmas day. My Normandy bocage sections were just not up to scratch. I had to do something about it. I keep looking at Pat’s blog Wargaming With A Silver Whistle and having feelings of inadequacy! Anyway, armed with sections of MDF, rubber matting, poly fiber stuffing, acrylic sealant, coconut fibre, and lots of flock i set about redoing my bocage.

I have a rubber mat that’s about 2cm thick and meant to be used for camping or something, but works well cut up and glued to MDF strips roughly 3cm wide by 10-15cm long, as the base for my bocage banks. I make sure the rubber is a good 0.5cm thinner on each side than its MDF base. I then blend the bank into the base using acrylic sealant or crack filler, but you could use modelling clay or anything else really. When the sealant is dry i give it a good covering in PVA glue and then chuck a heap of sandy dirty gravel on it from out the front of our house. When that’s dry its a heavy spray of dark brown paint from cans i pick up from Bunnings for a few bucks.

The actual bushes are made from a mix of coconut fibre (also from Bunnings for next to nothing) and that poly fibre people use to stuff toys and cushions and probably dead animals. Again very cheap, my wife bought me a bag from Spotlight for about $5 and i will be dead long before i finish the bag. Maybe i can be stuffed with poly fibre. I jam bits of cocktail sticks into the rubber matting top of my bank and that supports the bushes. Lots of PVA again and then get lots of bush material onto the bank. I tried to vary the height as much as possible, but by all reports bocage was anywhere from 5 – 7m tall so i reckon 5 – 7cm is good for 1/72 scale. When the bushes are dry they get another good brown spray.

The last bit is the fun bit when i am throwing lots of glue onto the bushes and then dunking them into a two colour mix of flock (a mid green and a dark green). I use coarse flock from a Vietnamese company called MP Scenery. Its probably the only part of this terrain that costs any significant dollars. I flocked the base too with some finer stuff, and did a bit of lighter brown dry brushing too just to finish things off.

It all came out a lot better than my last attempt, you can see below with the doormat wheat fields and the carpet tile crops. Inexpensive and i think just as effective as anything you can buy. Maybe i can get to play a game now…… Happy New Year!

German Assault Guns and Tank Destroyers 1940-1945 by Anthony Tucker-Jones

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 2 Comments

Another excellent book from Anthony Tucker-Jones, published by Pen And Sword books. For fans of German World War Two armour and all you modellers out there looking for some inspiration this book doesn’t disappoint. All the important tank destroyers are featured within its pages, including the Jagdpanzer, Hetzer and Marder, all copiously illustrated with some awesome photos.

Each vehicle has its own chapter with some history behind its design and creation, its combat performance, production numbers, and distribution. Some tank destroyers were born out of necessity with designs that were a product of what was available at the time with restricted resources, rather than anything else. Plenty of success and failure both.

The photos are excellent, with pictures including vehicles in combat and also plenty of destroyed and wrecked vehicles in situ. This is a great reference book for anyone with an interest in the lesser known German armoured vehicles of World War Two. I am immediately going to run out and grab a couple of Hetzers to start with. I think Unimodel make a 1/72 scale kit i need to find!!!

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Sandbags and Obstacles Terrain Part 2

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 1 Comment

I finished off my sandbag defences, rubble obstacles and embankment this week. Spray paint of matt black undercoat and then a dark brown base, highlighted with a sand yellow for the sandbags, grey and brick red for the rubble, plus some silver highlights for the barrels. I added some flock and bushes to finish things off. Not much else to add, i was very pleased with how the sandbags turned out considering how easy they were to make. I think for some bits of modelling clay they will do the job quite nicely.

I took some photos of a heavily defended ruined crossroads. German AT gun, panzerfausts and a panzershreck can be seen safely dug in, with a lone Panther in the background.

Rural Farm Buildings and Terrain work in progress

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I had a fine weekend of starting some terrain projects. First of all using my excellent book “Making Rural Buildings” by David Wright. I have been planning to make a group of farmyard buildings for a while and the ideas and tips in this book are just excellent. David Wright also has his own web site called Dovedale Models which has more inpsirational ideas. I decided on his Dales Farm as my basis to create my new farm for Normandy. You can see a screenshot from his web site below. Using a base of 5mm foam board i created the shell of my first two buildings. Just cut out the sides of your building and PVA them together. Then i added a layer of PVA glue covered in DAS modelling clay that creates a skin we will carve into to make the stonewall texture. So i am up to the etching part next, and that will probably take me all week to finish, but i think will be worth it in the end.

While I was on a terrain drive i made a whole stack of sand bags and rubble from modelling clay. Adding this stuff to small strips of MDF creates some excellent obstacles and cover. i will need to texture the bases and then paint. I also had some metal oil drums from Sergeants Mess and some other bits and pieces that i also added in. The sandbags were easy to make, just roll out a length of modelling clay, flatten it slightly on a cutting board and then cut it into 5mm sections. The cutting action of the knife flattens each end of the bag nicely. Once you have stacked them up you don’t notice the different sizes that inevitably occur. So will write on more progress next week! Shame i have to go do my day job…….