Cruel Seas Kriegsmarine R-23 R-Boat
I've added the Fairmile D to my Royal Navy, so I needed a medium sized counter part for my Kriegsmarine. Something the R-Boat could take care of.
Similar how E-Boat was an allied term for Enemy Boats, R-Boat is a term for Räumboote (meaning minesweeper). These R-Boats were build already before the second world war, and saw service post-war for clearing naval mines.
Cruel Seas Royal Navy Fairmile D MTB 624
I had the Royal Navy flotilla from the starter set already increased with the Flower Class Corvette, but I was looking for a mid-sized ship, that could be used in smaller to medium battles and went for the Fairmile D MTB.
The Fairmile D Motor Torpedo Boat is a british MTB, that was built by Fairmile Marine. A Fairmile is bigger than the earlier MTB/MGB (Motor Gun Boats), for example the Vosper or PT Boat, but slower in speed. They were named Dog Boats, and were designed to combat the more advantaged E-boats by the German Kriegsmarine.
Cruel Seas M-Class Minesweeper
After the decision fell towards the Flower Class Corvette as the large ship of the Royal Navy fleet, I was looking for a fitting counterpart for the German Kriegsmarine. My choice went towards the German M-Class Minesweeper.
The Minesweeper was in competition with the Marinefährprahm (basically a landing ship) and the Vorpostenboot. The landing ship would be something to keep in mind, if I wanted to extend the Operation Sealion / Gigant towards Cruel Seas. The Vorpostenboot is an armed civil ship, similar to the armed trawler of the British and looked a bit to improvised to counter the proud British Corvette. So the decision was clear, it must be the Minesweeper, Minensuchboot M1940.
Cruel Seas British Flower Class Corvette
In extension to the fleets of the Strike Fast! Strike Hard! starter kit I chose a large vessel for both sides. For the British that was the British Flower Class Corvette.
Among the large British ships would have been a Landing Craft Gun or the armed trawler. The landing craft looked more like something for the pacific and the armed trawler was a bit too close to the merchant tanker, and this is a Corvette, a Corvette! So the choice was pretty clear.
Cruel Seas Merchant Tanker
The Merchant Tanker is one of the firsts vessels that were available for Cruel Seas and has a cardboard stand in included with the Strike Fast! Strike Hard! starter kit.
As a "neutral" ship that could be found in service of every nation this kit bears the potential to be part of most scenarios, either as a mission objective to defend / attack or for example to claim its cargo. Merchant tankers had the objective to ferry supplies such as food, fuel, steel, clothing or munitions and weaponry.
Jams, Titans and Vessels
Radaddel celebrate 25 years of tabletop in their store, and even added a delicious jam to your orders during the celebration. I know Matthias for more than 10 years now and that jam thing caught me, so I ordered two boxes of Adeptus Titanicus and got strawberry jam on top of it. Yay!
Why Reaver and Warhounds? Well, I had a blast reviewing both kits last december during the Titan themed week, the regular Reaver is a fine kit, but the "evil" one with Melta Cannon and Chainfist is really great. Originally I had planned on buying the battlegroup, but that one is currently not available through my resellers (I'm simply not paying retail on a box with that price tag), I went with the Warhounds that they had on sale with 25% during the celebration and added the Reaver to it.
Tanks for the Spanish Civil War
I am currently consolidating my projects, among them Bolt Action. The problem in that case aren't the vehicles, but the amount of miniatures you quickly end up with. Especially with the plastic kits (and then adding sprues from the sales), 30 something paratroopers, and 30 something grenadiers, and 30 something ... you get the picture.
For that reason I decided to go with Winter Germans for late war, Afrikakorps for mid / special theme and have the Spanish Civil War as a early war German list. The Spanish Civil War is often described as a prelude to World War 2. Communist fought against Nationalists, supported by larger powers like the Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and the Soviet Union, who were testing their gear for an (possible) upcoming greater war.
The russian armory supplied the republican faction with tanks, among them the T-26 in several variants. Rubicon offers the kit with 10 variants, for those built between 1931 until 1939. But why is that interesting for me, with my Nationalist forces? Equipment, vehicles and tanks were captured by both sides, and T-26s were not a rare sight within Nationalist armies. And I got a soft spot for captured vehicles.
Modern Combat Black Dog 1:48 Upgrades
From Czechia with ... some kind of love. To pimp the Tamiya Humvees that I bought last month, I got myself two boxes of Black Dog conversion kits. The Iraq War Accessoires Set (T48034) and IDF Uparmoured Humvee (T48058).
I visited the black dog page a couple of times in the past, as they have some very extensive conversions and upgrade kits for world war 2 vehicles in 1:35 and 1:48. And I like to take those as ideas or inspiration to upgrade my Bolt Action (28mm / 1:56) kits. And to be honest, that was the main reason, why I spend that much money on these kits. Kinda like paying for the inspiration, as the upgrade sets are rather boldly priced with 14,50 EUR and 27 EUR for the two kits and that's without shipping.
Heer46 Carro Armato P43 Bis
Following the Krupp-Steyr Waffenträger from Tuesday, today we unpack and build the Armato P43 Bis by Heer46.
This is another tank from the resin series produced in cooperation with Rubicon Models. The Armato P43 was an Italian heavy tank that was developed by FIAT and Ansaldo, but never left the draft stage. The sources why the development stopped are not clear, some say the design was dropped in favour of the lighter P26/40 tank, but it is likely that the resources were just not available after the armistice of Italy with the Allies in 1943 and the Axis had other things valued higher than Italian tank development. Only two mock ups were build, but as mentioned before not further progressed. The tank was intended to weigh around 30 tons and have a 420-430 hp diesel V12 engine. The name Carro Armato P43 stands for armoured vehicle, P for pesante - Italian for heavy - and the number '43 most likely standing for the development year.
Heer46 Krupp-Steyr Waffenträger
There is a new range of 1:56 scale resin kits produced by Heer46 in cooperation with Rubicon Models, as an addition to Rubicon extensive plastic range. One of the vehicles offered as part of this assortment is the Krupp-Steyr Waffenträger.
Among the several Waffenträger (and their blueprint / papertank / prototypes) the Krupp Steyr Waffenträger is one of the less known vehicles. And like many of his kind, this tank destroyer never actually saw service. Only a similar concept of this Waffenträger, known as the Ardelt project was produced and can be seen nowadays in the Kubinka tank museum in Russia. Two wooden models and one trial Waffenträger were produced in 1944, that had a chassis constructed by Steyr mainly using parts from the RSO (Raupenschlepper Ost), and armed with an 8,8 cm KwK 43. This was the base for the model we see here. Due to the turret, and in combination with a small mobile ramp, the firing arch of this Waffenträger was amazing versatile. As this is a rather special vehicle, there aren't that many further information available. Most may know the Waffenträger from games likes Warthunder or World of Tanks.
Like us on Facebook
Follow me on Instagram
Categories
- events (188)
- fantasy (514)
- General (155)
- historical (588)
- Little Big Adventures (4)
- offtopic (5)
- reviews (457)
- science fiction (564)
- showroom (97)
- work-in-progress (373)
