Plastic Soldier Company - M9 Half-track Platoon

Next up in the new additions department for my late war British is this platoon of PSC M9 Halftracks

I decided to be exceptionally clever here and stowed them in such a way so I could tell them apart in the heat of battle and knew who was in what ride.

The Platoon Commander's vehicle:

This M9 is plain, with no side stowage - which tells me it's the Platoon Commander's track.  It also has a .30 cal on the pulpit - and the driver's visor is closed.

1st Section

1st Section's M9 is armed with a Bren gun and the driver's visor is open.  It has 1 pack on each side, so that tell's me it's 1st Section's track.

2nd Section

2nd Section's M9 is armed with a .50 cal and the driver's visor is open. It also has rear stowage.  The gunner is a PSC figure that comes with the models - but I have changed his rear webbing to look a bit more British.  The M9 has 2 packs on each side, so that tell's me it's 2nd Section's track.

3rd Section

3rd Section's M9 is also armed with a .50 cal and the driver's visor is closed.  It has 3 packs (or at least bits of stowage) on each side, so that tell's me it's 3rd Section's track.

So that's my platoon of M9's.  They may not look totally lived in, but they work on the tabletop so that's good enough for me.  One day, when I can find the appropriate figures - I do chaps for the back or each.

Thanks

Richard

Milicast Recce Stuart Jalopy

Well the last post was all about starting a new "project" that was related to my British Battlegroup: Fall of the Reich force.  In addition to the LVTs I had a bunch of other stuff nearing completion as well - so just like most of my projects, some of them got finished first...

One of these is a Milicast Stuart Jalopy - a recon choice in FoTR.

I really love this little vehicle, which comes fully stowed giving it heaps of character.  I added the under side hull using plastic card (it is cast as 1 piece so the underside is empty), the .50 cal from a Matchbox Priest and the two AB Figures crewman in pixie suits.

Eventually I will probably weather it to make it more muddy and dusty - but I'm quite happy with where it is now.

One thing I love about this little fella, is that it doesn't have delusions about its capabilities.  With no turret and no gun, you're not tempted to take on things a recce vehicle should really be avoiding.  Instead you just go for things you can kill with a pintle mounted MG - deployed guns and infantry.

In a recent game, this fella was my star.  Survived the whole game, was fairly aggressive, got shots in nearly every turn and in the end took out a Pak40 with extra crew, and a complete infantry section.  May not sound like much - but it had a significant effect on the game.  I was rather chuffed.

That's all for now

Richard

Airfix LVT IV - Work-in-Progress

I've been on a bit of a building spree lately, and over the weekend finished building these 2 ancient Airfix kits:

I've "chunkified" the Airfix 20mm Polsten gun as it looked a bit lame, so I used some photos of the Milicast Polsten as a guide and used various Evergreen plastic rods and beam to make it look a bit better - in a wargaming sense - not an accuracy sense.  I also added 2 x PSC .30 cal brownings to that LVT, so it has the right weaponry of Battlegroup: Fall of the Reich. FoTR provides for 2 different British LVT's, so I decided to make the other one - so I've added 2 x PSC .50 cals with plastic card gun shields.

Nothing to tricky, but within my limited skill set.

So they are now basically ready for painting.  It will be interesting to see how they perform in a game - other than having massive targets painted on them - as they hold a load of infantry

Thanks

Richard

British Armoured Troop

Some more pics of finished kit.  Here's some Airfix Cromwells, joined by an old Revell (previously Matchbox) Firefly.

All vehicles have been sprayed black, and then base coated with PSC British Armour spray.  They were then worked up to this state.

Stowage is a mix of handmade and some from Milicast Models, decals are pretty much all Battlefront which in my opinion fit very well despite them being 15mm.  The one crewman is from AB Figures from Eureka Miniatures

I've used Vallejo pigments - my first attempt - but was not really happy with their colour, so I'll be using another pigment in the future.

Thanks

Richard