Parthian light infantry

The Hat Parthian cavalry came with a few light infantry with shield/javelin and bow. I'm not sure how I will use them in what is essentially a mounted army, but I painted them so I had the choice is needed.  The main problem is that as they are add ons to the mounted sets there is only one pose of each, which makes very boring irregular skirmishing units.

Mig 3

My second Hobbyboss Aircraft was a Russian Mig 3 one of the mainstays of the VVS in the early part of the war.  As provided in the kit I assembled it as one used by Aleksandr Pokryshkin the second leading Soviet ace of the war with 59 official victories

Hawker Hurricane Mk IIc

One of my Xmas presents was the Hobbyboss model of the Hawker Hurricane Mark IIc.  This is a later version with the four 20mm cannons.  The only problem with the Hobbyboss kits is that they are modelled with the undercarriage lowered and I prefer flying versions.  Therefore I had a little bit of extra work to remodel the door flaps closed.  I also decided to paint it in Western Desert colours as I will only be using it in games involving ground support and there was little of this action in North West Europe during the period when it was in significant use.

M3A1 half tracks

My final purchase of 2008 was a brace of Italeri fast build half tracks.  I was uncertain as to whether to bother or not as most of my WW2 armies are 1/76.  However someone over on the Society of Gentlemen Gamers posted up a comparison of the vehicles and they are almost the same as my Airfix ones.  They assembled really quickly and produced an excellent vehicle.  I decide to use these ones to provide some extra protection for my Russian Recce troops.

Pak 40

Along with the Fujimi PanzerJager I was a Pak 40, which seems a bit out of place as a Pak 36 or 38 would be more appropriate for the early war.  I still had some left over late war crew from the Pegasus infantry gun so I put them together.  The only obvious mismatch is the size of the round as the pak 40 round is almost 1 metre long.

Behind the gun are a number of Eidai Kubelwagens, I am leaving them at this stage until needed as I haven't finally decided whether they will be used in the desert or Europe.

Krupp Protze

Finished this batch of extra early war Germans on Christmas Day, but this has been the first chance to take pictures. I bought a pair of Eidai Krupp protze a few months back, as I need them as tows for my 37mm's. The reason for the purchase was that the Matchbox set only provides the truck version and not the protz (limber) version. Unfortunately only one complete kit was available, but some parts from another set were included and this included the protz part. Since I had two unassembled Matchbox kits I decided to fit the Eidai protz parts to them. It turned out the Eidai kit was larger and I ended up having to trim down the parts to fit and in retrospect it would have been easier to have scratch built the parts. The other unfortunate part was that I copied the Eidai model so I have incorrectly modelled the rear of the vehicle.

Front row left and right the converted Protz and centre the Eidai truck version.

Rear row a additional Panzer IV plus a reconditioned old model (both Airfix) and a Panzer Jaeger I (Fujimi)

I still need to add some crews to the vehicles.

Russian m/c combos

A recent WW2 game required me to have a Russian Recce Company equiped with motorcycle combinations, During the game they did not move so I didn't need to deploy some German combos that I had ready. I found that the Eidai Krupp protze set had a combo in it so I basically painted them up as Russian in case I need a unit again.

The moulding of the figures is pretty poor as can be seen above, particularly the arms of the driver, which are very spindley. The motorcycles themselves are not too bad.