On the workbench - July 2022

Well, June was another choatic month and I don't see any prospect of the situation changing for a while so I'll just get on with painting/modelling whenever I get the chance.

Left over from June

• Napoleonic Spanish artillery and cavalry
• Extra Afrika Corps and Italian figures to convert my Rapid Fire troops to use Batttlegroup

And then onto

• Japanese trucks, AT and AA guns
• German PAK43 (if I can stop the gunshields from curling) and Borgward Wanze
• MDF Pegasus bridge

I will also be at Attack in Devizes on Saturday 16th, so a chance to get together with friends "down south"

Progress against plan Q2 2022

Or rather lack of progress, with the same pace continuing in Q2 as in Q1, and only completing 503 items. This is partly due to a number of problems with my resin printed vehicles, most of which have had to be drilled and drained of uncured resin. Even so some have still split and some irrepairably so.

Looking at progress against the detailed plan:-

First and foremost my plan is to meet with as many friends as possible, assuming that retrictions come to an end, other than that I'll be working on three themes. - underway - Beacon Wargames club is well established and we've now celebrated our first birthday. There have been less shows than pre-Covid and family comitments have prevented me from attanding others, luckily they do mean I will get to Attack at Devizes in two weeks.

Game specific projects

• Pegasus bridge and Horsa glider for a D-Day game - not started
• Continuing to build my War of Spanish Succession forces, as quickly as Strelets release them - underway - French mounted dragoons completed, still waiting for the new releases
• Rebase/upgrade the whole of my Anglo-Zulu War armies including the Boers - not started
• Attempt to rationalise my terrain - not started

Reducing the existing stash, I'd like to make at least a 10% reduction - underway - I had a purge in Q1 and sold some surplus on ebay

• Paint the already printed WW2 French vehicles - Completed, and painted the extras I have printed.
• Extra Afrika Corps and Italian figures to convert my Rapid Fire troops to use Batttlegroup. - only undecoated
• French Goumier Platoon - Completed
• An Australian Platoon plus supports for the desert/Crete, etc - Completed.
• WW2 German Gebirgsjaeger and remaining Two platoons of winter infantry - not started
• Cavalry for the Seven Years War/Jacobite Rebellion - Completed
• Napoleonic Spanish artillery and more cavalry - not started
• 1800 French in Egypt - double up the unit size from 12 to 24 - not started
• French Revolution - Cisapline legion troops - not started
• More Crusader baggage and Saracen cavalry - not started
• Imperial Croat cavalry and Polish pancerni - not started
• WW1 odd bits and pieces - not started

Exploiting the 3D resin printer - I'm learning about post production problems, I have lost several vehicles due to the models splitting. So once I start printing again I need to make sure the same problems don't recur.

• Completing my Japanese forces for Pacific/Burma, by printing a selection of suitable vehicles to hopefully cover various 1941-1945 campaigns. - Well underway - a whole range of tanks, vehicles and guns have been printed and most painted.
• Gradually replacing poorly cast or moulded models with new resin prints - underway - in the latest print run I printed replacements for my existing Somua S35's
• LVTs and any other extra vehicles so I can carry out Pacific beach landing games - underway - LVT's printed and painted
• Test printing of 20mm figures - Carried out, seems feasible, still need to decide on approach
• Components for buildings, doors, windows, shutters etc. - not started
• Try some 1/100 moderns for NorthAG - not started
• More vehicles for "Setting the East Ablaze" - underway - Lanchester armoured cars completed, still need trucks, Austin armoured cars need replaced

Japanese Tanks

Completed over a week ago before I went off to see my elder daughter. There should have been trucks as well, but those suffered badly with distortions after I drained the uncured resin from the cavities. These will be used for operations on the Pacific islands as well as for Burma and the Phillipines, I think the early operations there where they faced Stuarts will be interesting.

Kurogane field cars, they are correctly scaled but I can't see how to add any crew

Type 97 Chi-Ha, I kept with an early war camouflage pattern for these

Type 95 Ha-Go light tanks

Type 89B I-Go

Type 1 Ho-Ki APC, much less common, but used in Burma and the Phillipines so I had to have them.

Type 2 Ka-Mi amphibious tanks as used by the Japanese Navy.

On the beach

At long last my LVT(A)-2s are finished, after discovering they still contained liquid resin and repairing the track on one where the released resin caused a breakage. I dicided to paint them in basic grey to give maximum flexibility.

These are the basic LVT(a)-2s just armed with MGs, but I didn't fix the MGs so I could change them over to either

LVT(4)-1 with a 37mm turret fitted

or a LVT(A)-4 with a 75mm.

Plus illustrating that I need to upgreade my jungle basing

On the Workbench - June 2022

Well, May turned out as chaotic as expected, ending with a major pipe burst. So lots of effort diverted away from painting, still there was some progress and despite continuing family commitments I intend to work on:-

• WW2 US LVTs - these are base coated, but I need some large US star decals
• Complete a pair of WW2 French 25mm AT gun portees
• WW2 Japanese tanks, etc. that I printed
• Napoleonic Spanish artillery and cavalry
• Extra Afrika Corps and Italian figures to convert my Rapid Fire troops to use Batttlegroup
• WW2 BEF Bofors gun crew

Then there is Phalanx in St Helens on the 18th June, which should be a good day out.

WW2 eclectic mix

A WW2 selection to finish off the month.

Some German winter vehicles, the Opel Blitz and Kubelwagwn are both Italeri and the RSOs are PSC with resin printed tracks.

Mediterranean Fallschirmjaeger heavy weapons with a Panzer III N. The FJ only came with the mortars and recoiless rifles and I will normally use the gun crews with some spare 50mm Pak 38s that I have somewhere.

1940, French motorcycle combos and artillery plus a BEF bofors and tractor. The combos are very nice but the resin printed MG barrels are very fraile and 3 out of 4 lost their ends.

Finally a second Stug 33b, this time in late war camo, and a trailer with assault boats, that took quite an effort sorting out how to print on my printer.

WW1 French field kitchen

One of Strelets more unusual sets is a French field kitchen for circa WW1. The pack contained two field kitchens and a selection of associated figures. A bit of eye-candy for behind the lines.