More vehicles for the Chindits and DAK

Added a few new vehicles to the motor pool of the world war 2 projects. The LVT is somewhat of an odd kit, that I really didn't know what to do with it at first, but when I read the Wikipedia article I got an idea. The British used the Landing Vehicle Tracked as well, but if you think about the Buffalo, most think about the use of it during the late war in the Netherlands or in the Pacific, but they were used quite broadly even in North Africa by the US Americans.

So, with this vehicle being used by the British, and being used in the South East Pacific, I thought that could be something for my Chindits. The LVT-1 were used by the British 14th Army in Burma, but the original to use them in an operation against the Japanese on the Burmese coast at the end of 1943 was cancelled and the LVT-1s weren't used in combat.

The derivative of the LVT-4 and LVT(A)-4 were used by the Royal Marines Amphibious in landings in Burma and Malaya. Therefore I went with the LVT-4 Water Buffalo kit.

Interesting build, a bit of diversification towards the regular tanks that I build. Casting is good, but the larger, especially longer parts need a bit more patience during assembly, as they are to thin and not stable enough to hold themself. So the stability increases during the building process. This kit has the option to be build as a waterline model, so just the upper half is standing out. Quite a lot of spare parts, for the other variant(s), as some of the sprues are shared from the other LVT kit.

I am looking forward to get some fitting wasp flamethrowers for this one, to recreate the Sea Serpent. It was never build, but the design seems very fitting for the jungle fighting troops of the Chindits.

As for the Afrikakorps, there were a couple of smaller and lighter vehicles on my wishlist. I was really looking forward to the SdKfz 222 since last year, and it is out of stock in Germany for ages. But I managed to buy one. Quick build, a bit fiddly for a wargaming kit. Quite a lot of bits over after you build it, I'll tell further below why.

I managed to buy the SdKfz 250/1 second hand at a fair rate and got myself the 250/9 upgrade kit. I've already build the SdKfz 250/1, but as the 250/3 Greif. So this variant, with the 2cm gun was quite appealing. This one is going to be used with the DAK as well.

As you can see, the additional sprue from the 250/9 and 251/23 upgrade kit, is although included with the SdKfz 222, so that is a lot of spare parts. I can see myself turning one of the Hetzer kits that I have around, into a Aufklärungspanzer 38(t). The instructions are a bit messed up, minor errors happen and jumping between the two kits assembly instructions is a bit messy.

So these will see some Dunkelgelb as a primer. The Greif will receive the crew from the Perry version, and the other two will get theirs from this set, GWW3 German Tank Crew. I have to say, the poses of the british tanker crew (WW8) is better from my point of view. I might kitbash one from the plastic infantry.

As these have no proper competition, only a few resin kits, with some of them having quite a couple of years under their belt, it isn't difficult to place them on the market. I bought some from the remaining stock at Heer46, and the other codes at the Valentines Special at Plastic Soldier Company. Got 25% off and they arrived within 3 work days. Very pleasant and good timing, as they for example weren't available at Tactica.

I hope that the distribution situation clears up during spring / summer, as it currently is a huge pain to find a trader that has Rubicon on stock. That has multiple reasons, one is that the former distributor in Germany went bancrupt, and the other one is a huge mess up in organisation on the other side of the channel. Looking forward to build the Jagdpanther and maybe the SdKfz 7.