1970s Winter USAEUR- Sitrep

Unfortunately my headlong charge towards completing some vehicles for the 70’s US force hit a snag round about Christmas and has since ground to a halt….

Everything was going quite well initially, I fired through one of the super S-Models M551 Sheridans in jig time; it’s a lovely little model, although comments re: thin gun barrels and fiddly PE parts from the BRDM still apply.

I replaced the plastic .50 cal with a metal Elhiem one, which should be slightly sturdier, and finished the beast off with some stowage…

Then it was onto the painting of winter MERDC, the bit I’d been looking forward to. And damn did it look good

However, following this, the next stage was the application of gloss varnish ahead of the oil wash. And that’s when the wheels came off. Due to the cold temperatures, I’d decided to set up a spray booth in the loft, because I was too impatient to wait until the warmer weather to spray up the vehicles (after all the whole idea was to do this through the winter and keep up the inspiration for the theme. Seems to have been justified since I’m still waiting for warmer weather…!), and up until now it seemed to have worked. But this time, having allowed the varnish to dry, I found that the cold temperature had caused it to wrinkle and bubble the paint beneath it

The pictures don’t really show the full extent of how bad this looks. This left me with a coupe of options; 1) leave it as is and cover up the imperfections with weathering/stowage/ foliage/ cam net or 2) strip it all back and start again. I decided against the former, however I’d got so pissed off with what had happened that I couldn’t bring myself to start stripping it all back, so the tank has just sat on my work bench, silently judging me ever since. Looking at it now, I reckon I can probably try a local fix by just scraping/stripping the affected areas and just doing a touch up job, but that may well be very much trial and error…

In better news though, I did obtain a couple of Elhiem’s new dismounted US Cold War Tank crew. Although designed with the late 80s in mind, with a bit of judicious hacking and filing, they should suit my purpose admirably, and at least let me continue with this project until I pluck up the courage to restart that Sheridan!

Cheers

Iain

First of 2015- BRDM-2 Finished!

Happy New Year to all, and best wishes for 2015! So, hopefully Santa brought you all plenty of lead/ plastic/ resin/ figure casting medium of choice, and you get plenty of time to indulge in it...

Over the last week or so I've been able to be fairly busy on the modelling front, and have made some progress on a few fronts.

First up, the BRDM-2 was finally finished off!

Quite pleased with how this has turned out, overall. I know the Guards markings would most likely have been painted out in the event of hostilities, but the version supplied by S-Model omitted the white infil, and as such looked like a sort of "Low-vis" version, suitable for field use, so I kept it in, to avoid the vehicle being a plain green blob....

So that's a total of 1 Russkie vehicle finished, but it's better than nothing!

More to follow shortly.....

Cheers
Iain

Soviet Reinforcements

Remember I said I was plotting something big for the Soviets? Well, it’s finally arrived…

 

Yeah, I went there...

While this is in actual fact far too big for the groundscale we intend to play, it will make a cracking centrepiece of terrain for games, or potentially an objective for some derring do on the part of some SAS mobility troop infiltrators. However, you can’t just have a TEL on its own, for any sense of realism, (and for yet more stuff for GMPG clad Landies to brass up), the attendant fleet of supporting and command vehicles should really be represented.

Boxbodies, you gotta have boxbodies.

I also took the opportunities to pick up some assorted APCs  from Hobby Den, in the shape of an MTLB, a BTR-60, and a BTR-70. The thinking is that the MTLB will be used as a generic command vehicle to accompany the SCUD deployment, as well as for use in other scenarios requiring a Soviet HQ to be represented, while the BTRs will be used to transport a “specialist” motor rifle squad for two of the Soviet forces; the BTR-70 will transport a KGB Border guard squad accompanying the temperate force opposing the BAOR, while the BTR-60 will carry a Naval Infantry squad for use with my planned Soviet force in Norway (these will be given a higher troop rating than the normal MR units, and have really just been included to let me paint some funky looking uniforms as a change to the usual Soviet Khaki, and also so I can make use of the new Elhiem MR troops in the pipeline with different poses…). It will also allow my to mount up my existing Motor Rifles until some obliging company (I’m looking at you, S-Model) provides us with a decent plastic BMP-2…

So all in all, that should be enough Soviet vehicles to keep me going in the meantime (until I cave in and get tanks…), and before I’m accused of Meglomania, I should point out that I have refrained from buying the 1/72 Topol ICBM and TEL that Zvezda have recently released. I’m fairly sure this would allow games where we could just set up a board each in our own houses, and deploy our own troops thereon, and I could then just phone Dave and instruct him to douse his board in lighter fluid and drop a match on it, while playing The Doors “The End”…

I’m aware that the Christmas Season is well and truly upon us, with all the attendant commitments that brings. So, with their being every chance that this will be the last update prior to the big day, and in the event that it is, I’d like to take this chance to wish all of you a very merry Christmas and all he best for 2015, from John, Dave and myself. Thanks for your interest in the blog and your support over the last year, we hope that the posts have provided something of interest to you, whatever side of wargaming floats your boat. Hopefully 2015 should bring a renewed burst of creativity, we’ve got lot’s planned, and as ever, watching the inevitable chaos as we try to bring it to fruition should be amusing if nothing else!

Best Wishes!

Iain

PS, to continue the madness of that video, do a Google image search for "Soviet Christmas cards". Thanks to Andy Rix over at Cold War Gamer for opening my eyes to that particular brand of inspired lunacy....