SH.A.G

My part of this years Whif GB over at the Airfix Tribute Forum

"It´s early 1944, the Invasion planning is well underway when, P.King, Special Agent of the S.O.E, sends back photos of the Normandy countryside. His attached report on the French Bocage gives particular Detail of one part of the Terrain, the Hedrows, a Detail that until this Moment,  the allied Command has overlooked. Furtunately P.King´s report contains a Suggestion which will turn the hedrows into an Advantage. With only months to go a Team of engineers is put together and Operation SH.A.G was Born".

The build.
The kit. The boxart is classic. A spray of bullets bouncing of the hull, the hull MG firing into the sky, explosions, fires..great stuff.

Hull cleared of all the bits and Bobs. At this Point I realised that I needn´t have bothered with removing the turret ring

Hull Remake with plastic Card.

Lifting rings made from florist wire, hatch from the kit, Drivers viewing slit from an old Esci Panther and gun from an old Esci Stug

I couldn´t properly fill the line between the new hull and the lower hull so to hide it I added a track rack on each side.
Painting..Basic dark olive green with a couple of lighter dry brushes.


Thing is..was a SH.A.G ever used at Normandy? Answer no. There are a couple of reasons for this. 
It was, with the gun mounted as it was, too Long for the available Landing craft. 
Also the hull ended up only a couple of Inches lower than the turret Version which more or less took away the Advantage. 
Lowering the hull any further went against H&S considerations. The Driver would have to be sat at a slightly uncomfortable "forced" Position which, after a long drivetime,  may have led to back and neck ache. The MGU, (Machine Gunners Union) rightly put in a discrimination Claim which, even though they were reasigned as principle tea maker, was upheld. 

Airfix StuH 42

As part of the Airfix 2016 Stug III/75mm Assault Gun Group Build I wanted to do two StuG´s, one a Fantasy based one, the other an OOB but as I started I decided on making  a Sturmhaubitze 42 (StuH 42)
The Fantasy based one is now on the "to do" list.

The 10.5cm Howitzer Comes from 30 plus yr old and now damaged  Hasegawa kit as do the track Frames and  the commanders Cupola.
Stowage rails on the back are scratch built, the stowage from various old and damaged kits, the ammo box is from a 1/32 kit.
Commander from ...unknown kit.
Towing rope from twisted wire, the starter handle bent paperclip wire.
Antenna made with  old brush bristles.

Track sag created by Putting the tracks on then using a pin, press the track down (to create the sag) and mark the spot with the tip of the pin. Drill Little holes (I used a hot pin with a cork handle which meant removing the track) insert a length of wire  and Bingo. Any adjustments (less or more sag) can be made by bending the wire with some thin nosed pliers.

 

Bit out of my comfort Zone and I´m not 100% satisfied with the end result..the cammo doesn´t look as I imagined, it looked better without. Building it was fun though and I got more out of it than the intended OOB.

 

 

 

 



 

Airfix WWII British infantry

After a long pause I´ve finally got back to my quest of painting every set of bods that Airfix has ever produced using only original figures.
63 sets, of which 3 feature mainly  animals so don´t count (ok, the Zoo animals set 1 has a bod in it) and the SAS set which is listed but was only ever made in 1/32nd. 5 sets are repeated..they have an earlier version and if I ever get through the PSR list I´ll paint them as well. 59 sets of which I´ve got 31 finished !!!! :-)

I won´t make any comment, the review at PSR says it all.

Narnia - The Invasion Begins!!!!!

Airfix Astronauts

I don´t know about you but having all those visors looking at me gives me the creeps :-D

Airfix US Paras

A great little set. A good range of poses and virtually no flash to speak of. Fun to paint and they have hardly dated at all :-D

Airfix Nato ground crew

West told me to tell him when I started with 20th centuary bods , so here mate...I´ve started!! :-D
By a coincidence Tim Gow of Megablitz and more posted the Airfix USAAF at the same time. Unlike me, who cheated by using a picture to create a dio, Tim  did a proper job of work and made a dio to go with them.. Tim´s Airfix USAAF Ground crew

WWI 18 Pdr

Well, it is Gun Month so I thought I´d get in on it before it´s over. This one is from Emhar...not a bad little gun, comes in 7 parts..the plastic is fairly hard. Fitting the thing together was a bit of a pain...I painted the parts first but when it came to fitting, I discoverd that the holes in the wheels are too bloody small and had to be forced on to the axles which bent and nealry snapped one.!!!! Also the barrel has to be pushed  thorugh the shield with some force due to the poxy locating pins. After it was put together it needed a bit of re-aligning and re-painting.
What I shall do with it now, I don´t know...it needs a crew. The crew supplied is in poses so relaxed it looks like they´ve taken handfulls of sleeping tablets.

"Run Rabbit, Run"

It´s the year...er?...well it´s sometime in the not to distant future in a place, the name of which I can´t even begin to pronounce. The poor bod running,  has just made his last mistake....!!