Heavy Field Car – Steyr 1500A for the DAK
With the first supply drop this year back in february of the Rubicon novelties, I did not only get my hands on some reinforcement for the British with the Morris C8 and a QF-25, but a nice heavy field car (at least that's the matching entry on EasyArmy) for my Afrikakorps as well with a Steyr 1500A/01.
Captured equipment for the desert
A long time ago, I stumbled upon this conversion of a Chevrolet 15 CWT on Panzerserra (on of my favourite model builders) and ever since I build the British 15 CWT, I was thinking about building it myself.
I was unsure if to go for a vehicle in Commonwealth service with a captured gun, or the other way around, with a captured vehicle in German service. After looking for an appropriate breda gun to use with the plastic vehicle. To match the remaining project, the Perry Miniatures Italian 20mm Breda was a good choice. Yet, I have build some of the weapon teams from the world war 2 range and after giving the breda a second look, I decided against it.
Rubicon 2cm Flak Vierling 38
To create the Sd.Kfz. 7/1 variant, the Selbstfahrlafette 2-cm-Flakvierling 38 auf Fahrgestell Zugkraftwagen 8 t (self-propelled anti-aircraft half-track), I'd need flakvierling kit by Rubicon.
These kits are already planned in a way to be combined, so it can be build either as a weapon team of itself or optional mounted on the flatbed of the Sd.Kfz. 7.
The kit comes with a crew, of which I am not really fond, so these will be replaced with the proper crew from the Perry Miniatures as range, as this vehicle and AA-gun will be deployed with my Afrikakorps.
SdKfz 7 for the Afrikakorps – but which variant?
Didn't we need a tow for the 8,8 cm FlaK? Here it is! The mighty Sd.Kfz. 7, or Sonder-Kraftfahrzeug 7 − Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen 8t (German for medium towing motor vehicle 8t) as the full name of this interesting vehicle was. So far, there are a couple of resin kits on the market, and then Rubicon came along with a plastic kit.
The Rubicon kit comes with a few variants incl., it can be build open or closed, so covers a tarpaulin for the back seats, or can be build with a flat bed to cover the Sd.Kfz. 7/1 and 7/2 variants, sporting different FlaK guns on the back.
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.
Bolt Action Deutsches Afrika Korps German Grenadiers
Warlord Games released for Bolt Action the latest campaign supplement, The Western Desert, and this time the book is accompanied by not just one but two new plastic kits. We're talking about the Afrika Korps Grenadiers we're going to review today and the 8th Army Commonwealth Infantry we'll see here as well.
We were shown the 3-Ups of these kits at our visit to the Warlord Games Studio and the day after at the Salute 2018 in London back in April. The wargaming crowd is eager to get their hands on both of these boxes. But why is that so? Well, back in the day, when the now veterans of our hobby started, long before there was this broad range of miniatures made from plastic, pewter or resin, the only commonly available resource for toy soldiers were 1:72 or 1:32/1:35 plastic kits from companies like Airfix (if you're British) or Revell (if you're German). And from what I've heard, for many people the conflict in North Africa was in particular interesting from the war stories that they heard from their parents or grandparents.
Perry Miniatures AEC ‘Dorchester’ Armoured Command Vehicle
Fresh from the molds, the AEC Command Vehicle by Perry Miniatures, directly covered as a review as part of the Africa themed week.
The AEC 4x4 Command Vehicle was the most common ACV (armoured command vehicle) of the British Army. It was based upon the AEC Matador chassis (although available by the Perrys as code WR W47), as the British used to develop and employ purpose-built armoured trucks and busses as command vehicles.
Bolt Action Duel in the Sun
The Bolt Action supplement Duel in the Sun covers one of the most well known campaigns of the second world war, the African and Italian Campaigns. And we want to share it with you in this review.
Pinterest: Grim Dark, Steampunk and the sands of Africa
December is moving forward, closer to christmas and it is time again to cover some more picks from pinterest and the boards.
The french Blog le Kouzes is entirely focussed on 40k, some really nice conversions and he covers an advent calendar as well. Just look at this conversions, like the arbites from the latest human Blood Bowl team, the flyer based upon a knight or this extensive plague centurion. If you dig into it, you'll find years and years of content, going back to 2008 (56 articles alone back then...).
Afrikakorps and Conversions
Spend some time at the weekend with the airbrush. Preparing my Afrikakorps, which consists mostly of Rubicon vehicles and Perry infantry.
I started with Vallejo black primer. You can use it directly from the bottle, but i thin it down a bit never the less. You get a thinner coat with the airbrush, compared to the spray can. But it takes a bit longer. And it is a bit more matt finish. At the moment the motorized part of the Afrikakorps consists of an Tiger I, a Panzer III and IV, SdKfz 251 and Opel Blitz, with two more to come. The Greif and Kübelwagen aren't prepared yet and will follow in another batch.