Russian Engineers

Rather a small item for this post. For some items like the 122mm guns the Zvezda Art of Tactic sets are good value at £2.50 a box, However there are only four engineers in this box along with a few game accessories of which only the barbed wire is of much use. The pill box might be of use to some 15mm gamers so I'll pass it on to someone down at the club.

AWI British Infantry - Rebasing

Having earlier rebased some of my AWI collection, I decided on a quick rebase of a few more, as a number of figures were falling off their bases. Easier said than done! The culprits were based with a coarse sawdust that was difficult to remove, and I found quite a most needed touched up, and a few repairs were needed as well.

The original units were split by pose, but since I had started the work I decided to split the kneeling/firing poses between the 10th and 14th Foot by changing the yellow/white facings on the appropriate figures.

Overall they were not in bad condition from thirty years service and they are now ready to see a lot more service.

Over the next few days I'll try and post the individual units over on my AWI blog

Frundsberg Jaeger

Another unit for my imagi-nation Frundsberg. I had a bit of fun with the basing and added a bit of extra texture using some cork and artificial turf.

Figures are Revell SYW Austrian Infantry with the muskets cut down to rifle length.

Russian 122mm guns

Following on from the 152mm guns and a trip down south to visit the family, here are the rather nice Zvezda Art of Tactic 122mm guns.

The only downside was that they only provided two crew, so the others were sorted out from other sources including a couple of Hat WW1 Russian gunners with a head swap.

In the background is a STZ 5 from Red Star assembled at the same time.

Russian 152mm guns

A slight? change of plan. I had intended to convert the Zvezda 122mm guns into 152mm by using the spare 152mm barrels that came with the PST kit for the 122mm guns that I built years ago. I couldn't quite work out how to fit the barrels into the Zveda kit so I got out the old models to see what was needed. Horror, the barrels on them did not look right either, so I went off to the Henk of Holland site to look up the assembly instructions, and yes I'd mixed up the 152mm and 12mm parts!

The net result was I ripped the old models off their base and extracted the barrels with minor damage then reassembled them as 152mm guns instead. Then a repaint job on the guns and a tidy up and texturing of the bases. Net result two 152mm guns up to my current standard.

And the 122mm's? They are now assembled (very easy) and painted, but the crew will be painted along with the rest of the Russians in the queue.

Bashi Bazouks

A bit over two months later than planned, here they are. I've decided to try an experiment with the basing as I've always felt that two figures on a base looked wrong for irregular light cavalry and one looked insufficient. Putting three on a double sized base would mean difficulties forming a march column.



So each unit has a pair each of double and single bases. If it doesn't work out then I still have two units, plus a collection of scouts to dot around the battlefield.



Although Strelets sells the Bashi-Bazouks for the Russo-Turkish war of 1877 they look sufficiently generic to use up to 200 years earlier and they'll certainly fight with with my Siege of Vienna 1683 Ottomans, Egyptians Mamelukes, etc.

Crusader castles, Rhodes

Getting slightly off the tourist track on Rhodes a walk from Archangelos to Haraki on Rhodes takes you past a couple of castles based upon ancient acropoli.

From the town side the Archangelos castle doesn't look much, but is situated in a dominant position overlooking the second largest city on Rhodes!

Inside it's just a heap of stones and rough walls, but once you head out to the east there is quite a stunning view of it.

Further on this rocky promontory may not look much, but it's Feraklos Castle, the last site held by the Knights of St John on the island. In the distance is Lindos.

Close up you can see what made it so impregnable. The walls are built on top of a cliff with only one crumbling staircase to reach it.

On top stunning views all round, but little feel of being in a castle except a few remnants of walls.