Scottish Baggage train (Bannockburn)

This will represent Sir William de Erth of Airth´s  baggage train at Bannockburn. I won´t even consider creating the english baggage Train as even with them plundering the local countryside for provisions it  must have been massive and would be a Project all of it´s own.
The  wagons used will be either scratch built or the ones in the strelets Transport sets but with considerable Alteration.. The Crews, guards and  the animals pulling them will be from Strelets.
Sets used;
Normans on the March (several of the marching bods)
Strelets Norman Train (Driver and wagon wheels)
Roman Transport  (the ox)
Medieval Levy (2)  (marching bods)
"Shaab" with crusader Crew (one the marching bods)                  


The bods new weapons come from the Zvezda medieval peasants set.

Removable /swoppable load

The wagon is mainly made from old CD case plastic as are the bases.

A group of marching bods.

The new wagon and bods with previous strelets based baggage Train stands. A couple morer Groups of marching bods and some stands with mules/donkeys, should see this finished.

And........the Neoplolitan Painting Challenge is underway.:-D
3 Bloggers, 3 minis, a Blonde vs a Brunette vs a Redhead.
Anne will paint a Blonde, Marzio  will paint a Brunette and I´ll be painting a Redhead.
Final pics and The Vote is on the 7th of Oct over at Anne´s blog.

Here´s mine, primed and ready. (The left hand hasn´t been attached yet)

Polish Field Artillery (Mars)

Another set of medieval artillery from the manufacturer Mars. 4 guns,  each with a 4 man Crew, again, IMHO,  like the Siege Bombard set,  a bargain.

This lot have been kitted out in the colour  scheme I´ve Chosen for my artillery bods. (which I forgot to use on the Bombard Crew..DOH!!)

The weapon. This one looks like  a large version of a hussite tarasnice from 15th century. They had a caliber from 5 to 10 cm´and had an effective range of 250 -300m´s.
It was fiddly to put together, the holes meant to take the stand etc werent fully drilled through (they had plastic in them from the casting) and the shaft attached to the Barrel had no hole at all. Still, all easily remedied and the end effect is very nice.

Handgonne  ("hand cannon") in use, ca. 1400  (from Karl Keyser, Belli Fortis)

A fun Video of a Tarasnice (to the right of the Screen) and two Haufnitz (Howitzers) being fired.

 

Polish Siege bombard (Mars)

This is from a new range of Medieval weapon sets from the manufacturer Mars. Each of the 4 bombards in the set comes with a 6 man Crew, 4 bombards and 24 bods, which for the price is pretty good.

Another pic of the whole Crew and thier bombard

I really like these two poses..especially the bod whose decided that putting a bit of distance between himself and the bombard would be a good idea. His base is a bit tiny, he does balance on it but it could have done with being a wee bit bigger.

I´m not sure about the burning fuse being used to fire the Bombard, I read that they used hot Irons to ingnite the Charge and the Ram has a rather large head is much too big to fit into the Barrel of the bombard but they are nice poses.

Size wise they fit alongside other manufacturers. Left, bod from the Strelets "Shaab" with crusader Crew and to the right, bod from Orion´s Medieval seige troops.

The bombard. Like the rest of the set it´s made from soft plastic which means a bit of warpage leading to some small gaps when it´s fitted together. With hot water to straighten the parts and a bit of filling it brushes up nicely.

Apart from the Crew and the bombard each group Comes with  a small "shock Absorber". I haven´t used it on this bombard but it´s a usefull Addition if it was to be based.

Soft plastic, minimal Flash, nicely animated poses that interact with the bombard and apart from the warping of the bombards carriage a great little set.

A bombard being fired. Unfortunately the vid won´t upload but the link is HERE. It makes one huge bang!!!! :-D
                                                     

Medieval Seige Ram (Orion)

This ram is from Orions Medieval Siege Engines Part 1
The kit is ok, hard plastic with very little flash and the plastic is the sort that takes glue well but....
1. The holes in the wheels (which are quite small) don´t fit onto the axles and need drilling out
2. The supports for the ramming bar are very thin and even though I took a lot of care removing them from the sprue, three of the 4 snapped, so I replaced them with thread.

With side cladding added

The frame is a bit of a pain to fit together, it´s best to just remove the locating pins, which don´t line up properly  and attach without them



With side cladding removed. The crew are from the Miniart French Foot Soldiers with Rams. I´ll add a permanent crew at some point which will be based directly onto the floor of the ram.

 
Now added to the Croeburn 1813 Diorama,  Mine and Peter´s small addition , the Austrian cuirassiers Regt. Nr 8

Medieval Bombard (working scale model Mk 2)

Another one. This would be a Monster for 1/72nd scaled bods and is more suited for 28mm.

A second before blast off!

As before the Barrel is made from brass tubing covered in paper and Card. The "carriage" is made from an old CD case, the strips glued together to give more thickness and then filed and rubbed with sandpaper to allow the paint to stick.
The Lifting rings are made from thick copper wire.

In Action. In the first Video the bombard has been pegged down as the recoil is pretty massive, which can be seen in the second Video. The force of the recoil throws the bombard off Screen and the "Hand of Bod " can be seen replacing it.

Bannockburn (bits and bobs)

More bods are needed which means making more conversions for the Bannockburn Project, which is fun, getting back to the Feeling of the good old days, when Airfix and matchbox ruled the 20mm plastic bod world, metals were rare and expensive and to get something different meant working with the limited range of sets.

Some Spearmen for one of the next two Schiltrons.

 

 

From left to right, Army of Joan d'Arc,(first two, heads turned to face the other way) Army of Henry V (he was an archer) and the kneeling bod, top half from the army of Joan d´Arc, the bottom half from The Scottish Army of Wallace (the kneeling bod holding what Looks like a Baseball bat)

Both from the Shaab set. Like the one on the far left (above) the one on the left is (appropiately) left handed. Apparently Julius Caeser and Alexander the great were left handed, so if it´s good enough for them....:-D

Some other conversions using the Shaab set.

Hammer replaced with an axe, Lever replaced with a spear.

The "arsonist" bod becomes a command bod, the other Lever Operator gets a halberd from Zvezda

A bit more difficult. Bottom half from the Army of Joan d'Arc set, top half from the Army of Henry V set.

Treadwheel Crane

Brilliant devices, they came in all sizes and types with single wheels or double ones. . One 15th century one was found in 1868 in the (then) unfinished south tower of the Cathederal in Cologne.
This one is an HO/OO version in resin from the modelmakers Modellbau Luft
Direct link to the crane HERE .

A video of a treadwheel crane being used for real at the  Guédelon Castle construction site. This one is an advanced version that turns  so the load can be moved from side to side and not just up and down. Fredericus -Rex has recently brought out a medieval crane similar to the one at Guédelon which can be seen HERE

If anyone hasn´t heard of Guédelon..then this vid is worth a look...I really hope I´m still around to see it finished.

A couple more bits of my construction....a second (or is it third?) prison wagon....

..............and a third carpentum.

Life´s a Beach

It´s Holiday season and even the bods have to have a break.


Finally after a Long and ardous journey and  climbing the last sand dune Lord Brashford and Lt. Tompkins have thier first view of the sea.

The brave trio, Lord Brashford, Lt, Tompkins, Achmed  and thier Faithfull mule Dobin. In the Background a beach camp.

Lt. Tompkins  - "CRABS sir! HUGE CRABS

Lord Brashford - "Tompkins!I have absolutely no interest in your personal Problems!!"

The big bods also did a bit of travelling and had a look about.
The For Freedom Museum in Belgium. On the link there´s a virtual visit to the Museum which is way better than my photos. One thing which was a bit of an eye opener was a video of some Archeologists excavating a Messerschmitt BF-110 Nightfighter ...........with a Digger!!!!!

 

Just up the road was another Museum, Sincfala - Museum van de Zwinstreek.

Mostly about the life and times of the locals from the medieval to present, it had some cracking wooden model boats. The ones pictured are all around 1/72nd - 28mm scale.

 

Bunkers!!!! The whole are is dotted with WWII bunkers, most of which you can go inside and look around. A lot of them are in a poor condition, Graffiti, used as rubbish dumps, like this Type 630 not far from the camp site,

Garffiti!! I´m not sure wether the marks on the side are from Shellfire. Apparently the walls are 3.5 meters thick!

Inside the main door.

One photo of the Type 630 at Breskens that the Bunkersite.com People didn´t get..., the turret on the top. There´s steps going down into the bunker but it was too dark to take photos.

 

Behind the Type 630 there was a Type 112a. As with the 630 you could go inside but had a few inches of water inside and frogs living there.

Bunkersite.com is a mine (no pun intended) of info about the bunker Systems in the area of Zeeland / Belguim. There really are masses of them.  One we visited was massive..with loads of bunkers of all different types spread over an area of two footballfields. Unfortunately we´d forgotten the camera..doh!!