15mm ZIS-5 Truck With AA DsHK

Some pictures of my recently finished ZIS-5 truck with an equipped DsHK AA machine gun. Basically it is the ZIS-5 from Zvezdas "Art Of Tactic" wargame with scratchbuilt arnament. I did not take a closer look at this thing yet, but you can find some nice reviews on the web and youtube.

The truck got painted in the same style like my other 15mm ww2 Soviet vehicles. I use different greens as basecolor for them but the rest of the procedure is always the same. Some red star decals from the sparebook were applied after it got painted.

Detail pictures show that I have at least 3 things to do, I will have to overwork the muzzle of the gun, the windshield needs some more blue paint and there are some spots on the mini which need some more paint.

A little bit annoying, but this should be fixed quickly.

I took the picture above from a previous post which shows the other Soviet AA truck which I partly scratchbuilt. The gun was built, using some needles, a part from Orions 1:72 AA DsHk, and an spare machine gun from the Battlefront miniatures T-64, if I remember correctly.

This thing was easy to build and it looked not as bad as I suspected when finished.

The operator of the machine gun was taken from the bitsbox, it is one of the spare crewmembers from the 1:100 Plastic Soldier Company Bren Carrier. Formerly under British service, after some rough handling with the cuttermesser and sanding paper, now this guy has joined the Red Army and, well, it could have been worse.

I am pretty satisfied with the finished model, before it was painted I thought this would look crude when finished, luckily everything went well, even the figure does not look too bad. If you read some of the last posts, you already should know what it will be used for. Some brainstorming with two fellow mates solved the last remaining issues, that a final playtest should show that all would work as supposed.

Maybe tonight but at least tomorrow I will show some legitimate targets for this new addition to my growing collection of 15mm models.

By the way, all planes and AA vehicles for a first revision of the planes expansion for "TANKS" are now painted and ready to get photographed, this will be done in the next days, I will keep you informed.

Zvezda 1:100 LA-5FN

A closer look at the 1:144 Lavochkin LA-5FN modelkit made by the Russian producer Zvezda. This kit belongs to Zvezdas range of 1:144 modelplanes for their "Art Of Tactic" wargame. I got the Messerschmitt BF-109 and Ilyushin IL-2 kits some years ago, that I had a rough forsight what would be to expect.

But as usual, with no further words left, let us take a look at the content of this game expansion:

The kit comes as single sprue of green plastic, which is pretty hard and takes modelglue very well. The parts are casted without flaws, there are no ejectormarks which could be seen when the plane is built. If there is any flash, I did not see it when I built the kit. Here and there are some mild mouldlines which need some sanding.

This kit can be build either with opened or closed landing gear, whatever you prefer. I built this thing with extended landing gear. Building did not take much time and made no issues, all parts fit well and this kit could be built even without the use of glue.

The second sprue in this box contains 2 parts to build a decent stand for the plane. It is included in every "Art Of Tactic" plane expansion. It seems solid and not too bad, I think I will use it for an other model and I think I already know, which it could be.

Next is the clear part for the canopy. This is casted as solid block but since there is no way to add a pilot figure this does not matter. But a nonsolid canopy and the addition of a pilot figure would have been a nice feature.

The last thing to show is the decalsheet which contains some red stars and generic numbers. These were printed in good quality , as all Zvezda decals I used before, and they took only some seconds to detach from the paper when watered. They are not as thin as Battlefront Miniatures decals but their borders will not be seen with a final layer of varnish applied.

Once again Zvezda offers a nice model kit for a fair price. I do not see any issues with this kit, since this is a gamepiece, it is ok. Some panellines would have been nice a nice addition, but except for the canopy its overall quality and level of detail is ok.
If you want a "real" 1:144 modelkit I would not approve it, but with if you need this for wargames, get it, with some paints and decals this thing looks pretty fine.

The paintjob was inspired by the boxart and pictures from the LA-5 wikipedia page. I used only basic colors on it, no washes or weathering were applied, this thing was almost speedpainted.
Basically the model is finished but it needs a new and final layer of matte varnish, since the stuff I normally use gave a pretty rough surface. It is not as heavy as it seems on the picture, but its surface is really rough. I ordered some new matte varnish (normally I am using the Revell Aquacolor stuff but I had some bad experiences with it), I hope the new paint will work as supposed.

And would it not be nice to get better canopy pieces for this and other 1:144 Zvezda model planes?

15 years ago I was into slotracing and had some successful attempts to vacform the windowpieces of some of my cars to get less weight on them... I could try this for the Zvezda planes, should I do this again and would it work for this small scale?

The stuff needed for that is pretty lowcost, some basic materials for the vacbox and the frames, a heatsource, and a vaccumcleaner, all stuff that can be found in every household. Except for clear polystyrene sheets I should have everything ready, I think I could use Forex either.
I may give this a try in the future, eventually you could expect even a video for this, but this would be at the end of my list of ongoing projects (2020?), there is enough stuff with a higher priority to do first.

One of that are one or two posts about colors, pigments and all that stuff. I got some more or less useful new things which I would like to show to you.

Rubicon Models Kingtiger is coming

I just found this on their Facebook page and wanted to share it. Rubicon Models soon will release a 1:56 modelkit of the Panzerkampfwagen VI.

Normally I do not write about future releases like this, but, at least for me, this thing hits the nail. As they write in the post, this tank will come first with the Henschel turret, but later, more versions will be released. And there will come a version with full interior, what is pretty nice.

Just look for yourself:

Even the seriously underpowered engine will be included in full detail. Later versions of this kit will have Zimmerit and/or the Porsche turret.

Did I mention that this kit will include photoetched parts? Seems like I will have to take a closer look at this kit, when it is available.

Another Planes Playtest for TANKS

Pictures of the third playtest for my upcoming planes expansion for "TANKS". Once again Germany vs the UK, once again my forces were crushed by their enemy, and my opponents plane did some serious damage, just as my plane did.

Even when I had the air superiority after the destruction of the German flak, it did not help, I shot down the Stuka right after it destroyed the second tank of mine.

You will have to choose from 7 planes and  6 AA vehicles in the first version of this expansion, plus various new crewmembers, equipment, and doctrine cards, but feel free to use whatever you want to use for the new ruleset, for this case I will include some generic unit cards to use.

This time we used new movement templates. Those things work fine, just as supposed, but I may resize the round piece. Sometimes you will have to improvise to reach your target but the new rules for the movement phase are completely finished, at least in a bunch of handwritten notes.

The use of new custom doctrines for special air manouvers can make their movement unpredictable, maybe barrel roll and looping may be over the top, but these two were pretty useful. 

You may notice a black die on some of the pictures, which determines the height the plane, in the final version these will be replaced by custom paper counters. You can fly in 2 different heights, if you are on high altitude you will get an additional defense die.

The attack phase addon rules also work as supposed, there is one thing left unclear, it is where the plane has to be to drop a bomb and how to decide which tank will get hit, but I think we found a reasonable solution.

A final playtest will have to follow, but almost everything is finished and only needs to get tested a final time, maybe on a bigger scale, but after that I am going to compile the rules and make them downloadable. I started with this task, but I can not say when it is done.

Maybe new units will be added in further revisions of the ruleset, when it is finally done. I do not want to give out a release date, but at least I want it finished several weeks before halloween depending on the time I can spend for this.
Luckily I am able to write this blog without the need for a translator, and sometimes my grammar could be crappy, but for me writing the plane expansion is something different than my casual blogging, I want it filled with less creepy English than the usual stuff I write.
And then there is all this copyright stuff, I will use loyality free stuff, but I do not have to forget to credit their creators, and all this stuff.

While the picture above is already bad, it is getting worse. I close this post with some pretty bad pictures from that game, there may even be some dublicates.

1:100 Dassault "Mercure"

Some weeks ago I built and painted the 1:100 Avions Marcel Dassault "Mercure" passenger jet made by the German modelkit manufacturer Master Modell. I made a minireview about this kit some time ago

Building the model took a lot of efford. I had to use a huge amount of putty to hide some big seamlines followed by extensive sanding. This was the worst kit I ever constucted, the only good thing was that the plane would become a scenery piece that I could be a little sloppier than usual.

When it was finally built, the result was not attracting me. But anyway, I cleaned it from any dirt and residue, and gave it a coat of white primer, pretty thin but I thought the following white paint would cover the plane properly.

I almost gave up, first I messed up most of my white paint. Then, the first coats of (the now rare) white paint did not really start to cover the massive amount of putty which was used to fix all big gaps, but eventually the whole surface of the primed plane got its coat of white. The fact that my airbrush pistol was jamming the whole time did not rise the level of fun. 

What is mostly annoying to me, when I have to comletely clean the airbrush while I am in the process of painting, but I had to and after that I applied some glosscoat to prepare the Mercure for its decals.

I absolutely followed these intructions, they are a variation of the basic text which comes with all decals, but my mate Olli noted that I should take a closer look at this, and fact, the last sentence says "Do not apply at frost".
I was glad that I, even when did not know this, followed that advice.

The decals were, hmm, meh (?), the small decals were applied without any issues, while their medium sized counterparts did not stick to the surface. Everytime they seemed dry and sitting, a minimal touch moved them.

Then came the biggest decals, and, just look for yourself:

This thing not only stretched, before I even touched it, there are no holes for the windows. Since they are sunken in and the surface is not flat, the final look is horrible. Luckily this kit will be an absolute exception, I will stay mainly with groundvehicles.

Some parts of the thin red line of the decal just disappeared what almost crossed my red line. But I repainted them by hand just as the black front of the plane and a lot of the blue parts.

Finally it was sealed with matte varnish, sloppy but this kit will get its very final coat of sealing  when it serves its designation.

(Sure, a modeller with skills could make a nice model from this box, but not me, and I continued to work on this.)

The next step felt like some kind of liberation, I prepared all parts for building a nice scenery piece using them. At the next Montagsmaler meeting I will start to build this and I am going to try to include some LEDs.

What I did not mention in my closer look at this kit, was the fact that I got this kit twice for various reasons (I should not have done this) and the second kit was not even better to build, this text would fit on it too. In a future post the second Mercure will be shown, if that thing has not been flown into the wall right beside my workbench before.

1:100 Shilka AA Tank

In the last post I gave the 1:100 Shilka AA tank modelkit from Zvezda a closer look, in this post I will show you the finished model. The picture above shows the Shilka accompanied by a Battlefront Miniatures BMP-2 and a BFM T-72. And while I made this picture, I thought that I should rework my Soviet forces for "TANKS The Modern Age", because I prefer the look of the recently finished Shilka tank.

The tanks was primed as usual, got its basecoat of  olivegreen, some parts were painted in dark green. After that it got a heavy drybrush of greenish gray, followed by a lighter drybrush of light olive, all paints used for this were Revell Aquacolor acrylics.

Then the tank got a wash, consisting of GW Gryphonne Sepia with some drips of Black wash, thinned in 2:1 ratio with Vallejo airbrush flow improver. Since I tried this stuff as thinner for washes, I will newer use any other thinner, it works great.

The tracks were painted brown, washed with several washes, then I used a pencil to give them their metallic look. Before the kit was sealed with matte varnish, I added some numbers from the decalsheet included in the BTR-80 kit, and an GDR insignia which almost all of my custom and proxie units got.

This is a nice addition to my collection and soon it will get its use as a custom unit for "TANKS The Modern Age".

Zvezda 1:100 ZSU-23-4 Shilka

A closer look at the Soviet AA weapon system ZSU-23-4 "Shilka", produced by Russian manufacturer Zvezda for the "Hot War - Battle for Oil" wargame. This kit is made in 1:100/15mm scale as all other Zvezda "Art of Tactic" and "Hot War" tank kits. Some are good, some are not as good as they could be, what is the case with this kit?

Especially since the "Hot War" kits cost twice as much as their ww2 counterparts, I hope the quality of this kit does not suck, but no further words, let us take a look at the modelkit:

The kit comes in 2 green plastic sprues containing all parts to build the Shilka. The casting is ok, and I did not find any flash or sinkholes while this kit was built. The plastic seems harder than the stuff they use for their "Art Of Tactic" models, and it takes modelglue very well, but you will not have to use it, all parts sit and fit well even without glue.

The kit is casted very sharp, with a good amount of details. At a first look, the built may seem complicated, and you should read the buildig insturcions careful, but this is not the case with this kit and everything went together well.

There are no bits left over for the bitsbox except for the flagpiece which would be needed for the "Hot War" game only.

Mostly I complain about the quality of the tracks of Zvezda 15mm kits, but this time I was positively surprised. The tracks of this kit show a better detail than the tracks of their ww2 tanks. Sure, they may be a bit better, but for 1:100 scale I think their detail is quite ok.
Not to forget to mention that this is "only" a gamepiece.

The decals included in this box made a good impression. While I wrote about diferent styles of decals in my T-72B minireview, scrap that, as this is the 4th "Hot War" Soviet tank expansion I give a closer look, I would state that every box has different decals, see the decalsheets of the T-72B, the BTR-80 and the 2S1, while all boxes contain a set of generic Soviet numbers, they all are different.

All in all, this is a nice kit, even the tracks are ok. Building this kit should make no issues, but you have to take care of the barrels which are very fragile. The addition of a decalsheet is a fine extra.

As you read, I have no issues with this kit and I can only recommend it if you need some AA power for your Soviet cold war army.

How this kit looks built and painted can be seen in the following post.

1:100 ZIS-6 With 3,7cm Flak

I recently finished this crude hybrid which was shown in a previous post (this picture). This thing is a combination of the ZIS-6 truck from Zvezdas BM-13 Katyusha "Art Of Tactic" expansion, a 3D printed flakgun and various parts from my bitsbox.
Some pictures from this website were the inspiration for this built.

I did not take a closer look at the 1:100 Zvezda BM-13 Katyusha modelkit but you can find reviews on the web and youtube.

After I removed the rocket launcher from the truck, I added a freightbed made of thin cardboard and some other bits to improve its look.
I did not find a matching Soviet gun for that truck that I had to improvise again. Originally the flakgun is a British 40mm Bofors but after a quick comparison with the Soviet 3,7cm Mod. 1939 AA gun I did not find too may differences between them, that I took the Bofors which can be found at Thingiverse.

The barrel of the gun and its gunsight were printed improperly and I had to replace them. I used parts of a broken 1:72 Zvezda Soviet 3,7cm flak for this.

The crew figures came from the Plastic Soldier Company M3 halftrack kit, they are US minis, but since I do not have any 15mm Soviet minis, once again I had to improvise and used them. But I think this will not be seen from a distance.

I painted this thing with the same colors which I used for the KV-1 and KV-2 from the 2 previous posts and added some decals from the 28mm Rubicon T-34 kit.

I am happy with the result, but to be honest this is an ugly thing which looks very crude on close sight.

Next up is to paint this thing, after I found a matching figure in my bitsbox to operate the (scratchbuilt) gun on its freightbed.
When this thing is done, there are only 3 planes to finish before I can start to create the needed custom unit cards and write the plane expansion for "TANKS".

By the way, I added this picture of the (almost) finished kit to the Zvezda T-72B review.

Update: I mistakenly wrote 3,7mm gun, this was corrected.