Sicily WIP part 1

Managed to make some substantial progress on the vegetation: forty "orange" trees. seven bamboo thickets and various Cacti. The bamboo and trees have been glued down onto foamcore but the cacti will be based on ordinary card.

Bersaglieri

As I mentioned in my previous posts these were needed to complete the infantry component of my Italian forces for North Africa. In particular because the early infantry organisations 1940-31 had far less heavy weapons then my current force based on Monty's Desert Battles.

Figures are the Caesar Italian Infantry

For Konrad - the colours used are
Undercoat and uniform/helmet/topee - Humbrol Sand (63)
Webbing, etc - HUmbrol Sea Grey (27)
Waterbottle - Humbrol Brick Red (70)
Boots - Humbrol Dark Earth (29)
all heavily drybushed with lightened Humbrol Sand
Rifle - Coat Arms Wood and Humbrol Gunmetal (53)
Bersagliari fez - Humbrol Scarlet (60)
Flesh - Humbrol Flesh (61) + wash of GW Ogryn Flesh

In retrospect I should have use white as an undercoat as the figures are slightly darker than my others that started with a lighter plastic.

On the Workbench - March 2015

I was hoping to start on my Mediaevals in March, but I really have to get started on the terrain for the big game and this will become my main priority for the next couple of months. Although I have some bits, mainly buildings, that I can use, the majority will be new and over the last month I've been buying bits over the internet. My biggest piece of luck was finding an almost complete sheet of insulation foam in a skip, this will easily provide all the seventeen hills I will need. So be prepare to see lots of Sicilian themed bits of terrain over the next few months. In addition I still need to finish off what's still on the workbench:-

• An Italian winter battalion
• the remaining bits of the Hungarian battalion
• The Zvezda Russian winter MMGs and Mortar
• the Saxon Thegns - these at last have the chainmail finished
• A number of Italian desert Bersagliari (while sorting out my Italian last months I worked out what was needed to ensure all the possible Italian Rapid Fire orbats were covered

Hungarian Rifle Coys

Haven't managed to sort out the heavy weapons for the Hungarians and Italians yet, so I decided to carry on with just the rifle companies. The figures are all Strelets


and another oddment a reworked matchbox Panther in ambush camouflage

Russian Command Wagon

Just in time I've completed my entry to the SOGGy "Paint your wagon" charity auction it's a Gypsy Caravan by Blotz. It took quite a bit of effort to complete and I'm not convinced that MDF is the right material for this scale vehicles.

The command team is a collection of various figures that I had to hand, amuse yourself by identifying the sources.

T8 Reconnaissance Vehicles

After completing the Plastic Soldier Company Stuarts I was sure that I'd be able to use some of the spare components, but I wanted something American. The T8 Reconnaissance vehicle was the obvious solution, but it was only used for trials. However I discovered that units were advised the could make the conversion using the M49 ring mount. and some saw service as a limited standard.

The underside was filled in with plastic card and at the rear I added a pair of access doors to break up the flat surface. the ring mounts came from the Airfix/Heller GMC, but to experiment I tried making the canvas cover on one, and the sandbags on the other from some old blu-tac. To ensure it was firmly fixed it was covered in some cheap superglue and it is pretty solid.

The crewmen obviously had to be the leftovers from the Plastic Soldier Company's Half track

Folgore rebased

Continuing to catch up on plan I got diverted into rebasing my Italian Paratroops. Typically I had been looking to see if I had any spare heavy weapons for my winter Italians and these were falling off their bases. I had experimented a while ago with using tile grout., which was now crumbling. I also took the opportunity to add a flame thrower and radio from the Waterloo Italian support set to complete the battalion for the latest Rapid Fire organisation. For these figures I used Blu-tact to convert the putties into baggy trousers, hardening it off with PVA.