PSC Kickstarter 2 – CMP Tractors and 25 Pounders

The new CMP tractor sits nicely in size in between the Fow 1:120 and the Denzil Skinner 1:100 scale Morris Quads, so a crafty wargamer will place the Skinners closest, the CMPs in the table centre and the FoWs at the far end to give a false sense of perspective. John Sandars was a past master of this wheeze, except that he used 1/35th and 1/72nd models in his dioramas.

Here are the WIP photos. I was delighted to see that the British gunners look like people, and not Orkses. They are still a little short in the leg, but they fit in nicely with everyone elses’ caricatures. I should have gone in for fantasy gaming *sigh*

I thought it would be fun to see if the kit could produce one of the cut-down narrow-wheelbase 25pdrs used in Burma. The nearest unfinished gun is a reasonable enough approximation. The cam net on the back of the CMP hides the fact that I struggled to get a close fit at the back of the tractor. It also frees up a spare wheel. I am going to need a total of 8 for the extra four 25 Pdrs that can be part assembled from the kit sprue, and will have to find four spare limbers from somewhere.

More Tilting

Flatbeds are much more useful on the wargames table than trucks with covered canopies, but having overdosed on PSC 15mm Raupenschleppers the tinkerer in me thought,

“what would a tilt frame look like?”

Here is the answer: For good measure, I added some canopy struts to one of the QRF  Bedford QLBs that had been assembled earlier. Now it is just crying out for a couple of scruffy gunners lounging in the back.

Raupenschlepper Progress

I took a break from the massive heap of nowhere-near-finished British Desert Infantry to complete something achievable. It turned out to be a true-scale door (don’t ask) and this practically free Raupenschlepper Ost with the scratchbuilt tracks.

It turns out that a creative bit of paintwork on the wheels can fool the eye into thinking that it is a proper model. I’ve grouped it with a Peter Pig Pak 38 to lend it some credibility, and because it is heading straight to one of my Neu Art German infantry divisions. Note the over-the-top superdetailing on the grenadier’s collar tabs. He is very proud of his new Waffenfarben.

Aussies – WIP

[A] batch of some 50 or 60 Australian prisoners were marched off close behind us—immensely big and powerful men, who without question represented an elite formation of the British Empire, a fact that was also evident in battle.^*
—Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel, Commander, German Afrika Korps, Battle of Tobruk, 1941.

I’ve made a start on  9th Australian Infantry division. I already had one brigade of more-or-less fully painted Piggies (so Veteran troops then), and have added another from the PSC late war British infantry. All that I have managed to do so far is base them up, undercoat them, and add some black for boots and rifles – so green troops for the time being**. Progress has been slow, as on the 1:1 scale front, the garage is turning into a Man Cave (The Den is much too nice now and I have to wear slippers in there).

9th Division contained all the original volunteers and was of very high quality. 10th Division had a proportion of jailbirds in it, with correspondingly lower performance (cannot remember where I read that).

Major General Leslie Morshead

Comd staff car (C3), Ammo Truck (L3), POL Truck (L3), Ambulance (L3), Workshop Truck (L3)

• 9th Division Cavalry Regiment

  • Crusader III or M3 Stuart Tank (F3)

• 2/2nd Machine Gun Battalion (not modelled)

• 2/3rd Pioneer Battalion

  • Truck (L3), Comd, 2 Pioneers (E3)

• 2/7th Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery

  • FOO (O1), Quad limber (S3), 25pdr (S3)

• 2/8th Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery (As Above)

• 2/12th Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery (As Above)

• 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery

  • Universal Carrier (S3), 6pdr (S3)

• 4th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery

  • Morris Limber (s3), 40mm Bofors AA (s3) (or portee)

• 2/3rd Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers

  • Truck (L3) + optional trailer (L3), 3 Sappers (@E1)

• 2/7th Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers (As Above)

• 2/13th Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers (As Above)

• 2/4th Field Park Company, Royal Australian Engineers

  • Low loader (L3), D7 bulldozer (L3)

• 9th Australian Division Signals

  • Signals truck (C3)

24th Australian Brigade

Brigadier Arthur H.L. Godfrey

Comd staff car (C3), signals van (C3)

• 2/28th Australian Infantry Battalion, Western Australia (WA)

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

• 2/32nd Australian Infantry Battalion, Victoria (Vic.)

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

• 2/43rd Australian Infantry Battalion, South Australia (SA)

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

26th Australian Brigade

Brigadier David A. Whitehead

Comd staff car (C3), signals van (C3)

• 2/23rd Australian Infantry Battalion, Vic.

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

• 2/24th Australian Infantry Battalion, Vic.

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

• 2/48th Australian Infantry Battalion, SA

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

20th Australian Brigade   (As Above)

Brigadier H. Wrigley

• 2/13th Australian Infantry Battalion, New South Wales (NSW)

• 2/15th Australian Infantry Battalion, Queensland (Qld)

• 2/17th Australian Infantry Battalion, NSW

* Miller, Ward (1986). The 9th Australian Division Versus the Africa Corps: An Infantry Division Against Tanks—Tobruk, Libya, 1941. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: US Army Command and Staff College. OCLC 14129655 Accessed in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9th_Division_(Australia) [3 Nov 2016]

**The urge to add some captured Italian Bush Artillery and an M13 with Kangaroos on the side will prove irrisistable at some stage.

Tyred Out

Tyres provide the modern wargamer with the equivalent of button painting. Every wheeled vehicle has at least four of them, often more, and don’t get me started on wheeled Wehrmacht Aufklärungs vehicles with eight wheels apiece, or panzers with rubber rims to their wheels!!

there are some bright spots though: muddy tyres and tracks just need a wash or a dust over, and the 8th army were fond of roughly painting wheels to spill over onto the tyre itself. Excellent!

A range of options from “merely passable” to “If he’s paying attention to the tyres, he’s probably losing the battle” can be seen above and below.

I start by painting tyres black or charcoal grey. Some years later, they may get a drybrushed highlight in a lighter shade, or some mud or dust splashed over them. Visit Olicanalad or YesthatPhil to see properly painted tyres.

4th Indian Infantry Division

The 4th Indian Infantry Division were old desert hands by the time of the battles at EL ALAMEIN. Here they are, having fought through solidly since GAZALA:

4th Indian Infantry Division

Major-General Francis Tuker (known widely as “Gertie”)

Comd in India Patt Carrier or Jeep (C3)

• Central India Horse (Reconnaissance)

  • 2 India Patt Carrier (R1), Vickers MkVI Tank (R1)

• 5th Battalion, 6th Rajputana Rifles (machine gun battalion)

• 1st Field Regiment Royal Artillery

  • FOO (O1), Quad limber (S3), 25pdr (S3)

• 11th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

  • FOO (O1), Quad limber (S3), 25pdr (S3)

• 32nd Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

  • FOO (O1), Quad limber (S3), 25pdr (S3)

• 149th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery

  • India Patt or Universal Carrier (S3), 6pdr (S3)

• 57th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery

  • Morris Limber (s3), 40mm Bofors AA (s3) (or portee)

• 2nd Field Company, Bengal Sappers and Miners

  • Truck (L3) + optional trailer (L3), 3 Sappers (@E1)

• 4th Field Company, Bengal Sappers and Miners

  • Truck (L3) + optional trailer (L3), 3 Sappers (@E1)

• 12th Field Company, Madras Sappers and Miners

  • Truck (L3) + optional trailer (L3), 3 Sappers (@E1)

• 11th Field Park Company, Madras Sappers and Miners

  • Low Loader (L3), D7 bulldozer (L3)

• 4th Indian Division Signals

  • Morris or Bedford Signals truck (C3)

5th Indian Infantry Brigade

Brigadier Dudley Russell

Comd in India Patt Carrier or Jeep (C3), signals van (C3)

• 1/4th Battalion, Essex Regiment

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

• 4th (Outram’s) Battalion, 6th Rajputana Rifles

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

• 3rd (Queen Mary’s Own) Battalion, 10th Baluch Regiment

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

7th Indian Infantry Brigade

Brigadier Arthur Holworthy

Comd in India Patt Carrier (C3), signals van (C3)

• 1st Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

• 4th Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

• 1st Battalion, 2nd King Edward’s Own Gurkha Rifles

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

61st Indian Infantry Brigade

Brigadier Francis E.C. Hughes

Comd India Patt Carrier (C3), signals van (C3)

• 1st Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

• 1st Battalion, 1st Punjab Regiment

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

• 4th Battalion, 7th Rajput Regiment

  • Comd (s3), 3 Rifles (s3), MMG (s3), 3″ Mortar (s3)

By now, it will be obvious to even the most casual reader of this blog that I mix and match British desert infantry. A few turbans, Glengarries, Tam-o-Shanters and slouch hats mixed in with a lot of steel battle bowlers and berets make up the necessary numbers. I must get some of those splendid Kiwi scout hats to add to the mix.

On the Workbench – More Maultiers

The new Plastic Soldier Company German Medium Trucks box is an excellent offering – Five easy to build trucks straight out of the box, with options for an Opel Blitz, Mercedes L3000, or Maultier version of either. Five trucks for £17 pounds or so, roughly £3.40 a truck.

Why do I like plastic kits better than resin or metal? They build up into square models, and they are easy to convert. So looking at the sprues more carefully, there are not five trucks in the box, but ten! All that is absent, are five cab backs that cannot easily be seen, five sets of front wheels and five chasses. Any self-respecting bodger will have spare wheels in the spares box. The card from the box itself, with judicious use of cork or plasticard will do the rest. Call it £1.70 per truck – excellent!

Even after giving a sprue away, I rapidly assembled four Blitzes and four L3000s, making half of them into Maultiers. I was looking for photographic evidence of Maultiers in North Africa, but could only find them in Italy. Each sprue comes with a spare tyre, so these were made up into two sets of wheels for two of the trucks. En masse, any slight inaccuracies in the wheels should disappear.

In case anyone is wondering, The four trucks furthest away are complete kit builds and the Maultiers closest to the camera are the bodges. Soaring off into speculation, I think that PSC missed a trick by not offering the Chevrolet  cab and the office body on the box art; after all, everyone does a model of a Blitz.

I would have preferred the office body, rather than another cargo body version, but I suspect most wargamers don’t want as many logistic or HQ vehicles as me. Either way, the box is excellent value and is recommended.

Humble Pie is Delicious!

Having ranted about the Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) 6 pdr in my last post, I put the model together and was pleasantly surprised to find that I was wrong! Next to a Peter Pig (PP) 6 pdr, the PSC offering actually looks slightly smaller, wider and thinner. Next to a 1/76 model it is obviously 1/100.

From top to bottom: Airfix PP, PSC 6 pdrs

A correctly-scaled standing figure should be able to rest his shirt pocket on the top of the gun shield and crouch down to see through the gunsight, but as the PSC gunshield is 14mm off the ground, and the PP is 13mm neither is possible. However, as the PSC gunner is 11mm to his eye when kneeling, he must be a Guardsman, making the gun look smaller than it really is! Others have already commented that Flames of War models are exaggerated in the vertical axis to compensate for the thickness of the figure base, as common FoW practice is not to base tanks. Olicanalad’s excellent basing shows why this should not be an issue.

I fished my Airfix 6pdr out, and it is noticibly larger than the PSC 15mm jobbie, but here’s the thing; the PP overscale barrel looks more like the picture below to my eyes than the PSC offering, which is visually a little thin but is probably to scale (I don’t have a micrometer handy)*.

With the 3.7cm Pak, the situation is reversed. Here, the PSC offering is visibly higher (15mm) and longer than PP (12mm). (The gun is listed as 1.17m tall).

In appearance however, the PP 3.7cm Pak 36 looks too small, but this is due to the thickness of the figure bases, as I was too lazy to do what YesthatPhil does, which is to shim the gun up. I looked more closely at the crew figures on the PSC sprues to find a visible difference in height and bulk between different figures on the same sprue – so I’m still not entirely happy. At least I can use the PSC 6 pdrs! Previously, I never really cared about this sort of stuff; must be getting old.

*We’ve been here before.

MOSCOW Surrounded

20 Motorised Infantry Division halts the advance of 2 Guards Mechanised Corps

Depleted as they were from the previous Summer’s Drive on MOSCOW, 7 Panzer and 20 Motorised Infantry Divisions still managed to blunt the breakthrough by 1st Shock Army on the city’s southern flank. No less dangerous though, was the northern flank breach.

The initial bridgehead was widened until it burst through the reserve line and soon, long columns of Soviet infantry could be seen trudging through the snow on their way west.

Dislodged from their prepared defences on the canal line, all the disorganised infantry defenders could do was fall back to the east or south into MOSCOW.

Attempts by 20 Motorised Infantry to halt the Soviet advance lacked vigour as they had yet to recover from halting 2 Guards Mechanised Corps. 7 Panzer Division  was in no shape to assist, having had its own battle with 1 Guards Tank Corps, so retired west to refuel and reorganise. As part of its reorganisation,  20 Motorised Infantry was redesignated 20 Panzer Grenadier Division.

The defenders in MOSCOW were in crisis, with continued enemy infantry attacks from the east and south, and the rail line of communication to the west in Soviet hands. LittleHitler formally declared MOSCOW to be a fortress even as a relief  by 3 Panzer Korps was prepared.

Retreating Fascist Forces see MOSCOW Dwindle in the Gathering Gloom

See More Frontline Soviet News Footage on P.B.Eye-Candy

On the Workbench – Scratchbuilt searchlight

Sometimes a project starts with a rummage through the bits box; this was one such. Having transcribed the ALAMEIN orbat, I needed something to represent 27th (London Electrical Engineers) Searchlight Regiment, Royal Artillery.

The core was a German ROCO searchlight/radar body, with extra gubbins added to make it look more British.

Its not every day that a regiment has engineers and artillery in its title. I well remember a demonstration at Chatham of the TA searchlight troop, as a young Sapper subaltern, back in the late ’70s. Credit went to the Troop Commander for being able to keep a straight face when shouting the command “Expose!” in front of the assembled audience. Very illuminating that was!

The model is pretty generic as I want to be able to use it for various nationalities, so it has no figures on the stand and will probably appear at 8th Army HQ or an airstrip as extra clutter.