Faces Of War (7)

More pictures from the second world war. My grandfather took these while he was a part of the German invasion troops on the African continent. He died while I was still a kid that I had no chance to ask him about these dark time, but the pictures give some clues, where he had been.

By the way, I still remember him enough to know that he in not the guy on the picture above, he is shown on this picture.

On the first picture you can see a damaged British airplane, a quick online search showed that this could be a US P-40 in British service or as they called it, a Kittyhawk.

While I wrote the last post about these old pictures, I found out that he at least visited the Lybian Marble Arch, found on this picture, near Ra's Lanuf. This time there are no special landmarks on these pictures but we may get some more hints about his military past.

The first picture of this group shows something like a cantina. You can read the Italian words "DI RISTORO PER MILITARI" what can roughly be translated to "refreshment for military". This may be a hint that his unit was connected with some Italian units.

Update:
A reader from Italy mentioned that the whole phrase should say  "PUNTO DI RISTORO PER MILITARI". Thanks for that addition, mate.

The plane on this picture seems like a Messerschmitt BF-110. There are a lot of clues that my Grandfather could have been a member of the Luftwaffe since there are a lot of planes on these old pictures.

I suppose this plane shows a Messerschmitt BF-109 as it seems. The insignia is showing the Berlin Bear with a crown above that. This could be a hint, in which unit he could have been. I will try to find out for which unit this sign stands and will add this to this post.

Update:

It seem that the Berlin Bear insignia was used by the second squadron of the Jagdgeschwader 27.

This picture of the Bear seems almost identical to the one on the plane above.

Dieses Werk (ausser dem Bärenbild aus der Wikipedia) ist lizenziert unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung

 - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International Lizenz. -

-

Sunday, funday. Today I am going to build some 28mm figures using some bits I got from the bay. There are a dozen of unbuilt Britons and some Germans who will get new weapons and the rest of the Westwind Productions gasmask heads. I hope this will work, there are way enough arms and weapons for the British troopers but I do not have any clue which of them belong together, this may include a lot of puzzeling.

While I am looking out of the window, I reminds me to the fact, that the color gray was invented here in 1254.

In tonights post we will keep staying in Africa, I am going to take a closer look at the first of the two available African themed Italian expansions for "TANKS", and a first look at the included cards shows, that the tanks are pretty weak, but the available crew and upgrade cars are pretty strong.

Zvezda 1:100 Sd.Kfz. 186 Jagdtiger

A closer look at Zvezdas 1:100 Sd.Kfz.186 Jagdtiger for their 1:100 "Art Of Tactic" wargame. As I mentioned in earlier posts, the use for these models is not limited to the Zvezda game, virtually this Jagdtiger model could be used for every 15mm wargame which rules support this tank.

But without any more words, let us take a look at the plastic modelkit which comes with this expansion:

The kit comes in two grey sprues and somehow the plastic feels different from their green plastic, it feels minimal softer, but it is still hard and sturdy enough for a modelkit. The kit can be build without the use of glue, but it takes modelglue well and binds pretty fast, but it seems not as fast as the green stuff does.

All parts are moulded well, without any sinkholes or flash, but there are some mouldlines which should be removed. Some tools and the towropes can be found moulded onto the hull. The trackdetail is simple, with low details on the outer trackside and no details in the inner side of the tracks except for some guideteeth.

In contrast to the Tiger 2, the sparetracks are moulded onto the hull, but I think this is because there was no more room left on the sprues for them.

But all in all this is a nice kit with some ignorable faults, there are no decals included, the tracks are pretty simple, and it would have been nice to have the option of an opened or closed commander hatch.

But we must not forget that this is a simple wargaming kit which is pretty cheap, a quick check on some (German) onlineshop shows that this kit costs below 4 Euros.

The construction of the Zvezda 1:100 Jagdpanther model went on pretty fast without any issues, but on some parts you will need a serious amount of pressure to avoid gaps. As usual for most Zvezda 1:100 tanks, due to its inner frame structure its construction may seem complicated, but the well made instruction leaflet is easy to understand.

After I built this model in less than 30 minutes, with some paint and decals my Jagdpanther is ready to be used as a custom unit for "TANKS".

Model Storage

At last I found a way to store at least my 15mm models properly. Some days ago I was at a local discouter and found these boxes. I took the opportunity to get some of them for my minis, these things cost 1,99 € what is ok, and, what is important, in these boxes the models should be protected from (my eternal enemy) dust.

From a friend, who is musician, I got some accustic foam, he did not need this stuff anymore but I can use it for the bottom of the boxes to secure the models as you can see on the pictures above.

There was enough for the (first?) 10 boxes, if I would need some more of this stuff I could get it from him.

Each army got its own box plus two boxes for all planes and helis, on the picture above you can see my cold war US tanks (and a batch of Heinlein books), but since I ordered another dozen of Zvezda "Art Of Tactic" expansions (the whole range will get a closer look in the future), I may need additional boxes, some of them are already full.

At the moment the helis are stored sub-optimal, I wanted to glue some coins or stuff like this to the cover of the box, to attach the magnetized rotors on them, but most of the glues I already tested did not stick. And I should get a separate box for all heli and plane bases.

But all in all I am happy with this solution, and while I sorted my models to the new boxes, I noticed that I have a lot 15mm models, more than we will ever use for games, but I like these small things, and I will add more 1:100 models to my collection.

While I had a flue last week, I was not in the mood for any modelling or blogging, but last Thursday I was fit enough for another roguish Montagsmaler meeting. My mate Olli finished his Tiger 2 and started to paint another tank, while I painted several tank crews and some of the kits which I still want to review, luckily I made all pictures which are needed for this before I started to build them.

This weekend is dedicated to modelling. At the moment I have one half of Ollis 15mm Bundeswehr platoon on my bench, these kitten got an additonal layer of matte varnish and he left them here to dry. The new Vallejo matte varnish I use is great, works fine with the airbrush and the paintbrush

Just a random Montagsmaler picture:

At the moment I am planning what I will post the next days, I think it will be the Zvezda Sd.Kfz. 186, Ollis Bundeswehr models, both Italian expansions for "TANKS", and some ww2 pictures. I still have 4 "TANKS The Modern Age" expansions laying on my desk which I want to (mini)review, but one thing at a time.

Too bad, I already built one of them without taking pictures of the sprues. But I will improvise when it is time for the closer look at that kit. Not to forget to mention all the new custom unit cards I made in the past few days.

I just came home from work but now it is weekend and you can expect another post tonight, then I will take a closer look at the Sd.Kfz. 186 for Zvezdas "Art Of Tactic" wargame, I only need to take a picture of the finished kit and write some lines, the rest of the post is almost finished.

Zvezdas SU-76 Versus The Plastic Soldier Companys SU-76

After we took a closer look at the Zvezda SU-76 and the Plastic Soldier Company SU-76 in previous posts, in this post I will compare both kits. I am no professional but this should be no hindrance for a simple comparison of these two models.
Both kits were primed with AK Interactive Russian primer on most pictures.

A frontal view on both tanks. The PCS tank looks wider but they have the same width. Both tanks have some tools and a steelrope moulded onto the hull, what can be seen better on the picture below. But at an overall level, the Zvezda kit seems finer. A plus for the PSC kit is the option to build the drivers hatch openend.

You can see that the Zvezda model is a little longer than the PSC SU-76. While the front part of both tanks roughly measures the same, the Zvezda kit is a bit longer since its crew compartment is bigger.

A look at the rear shows that the PSC model seems higher than the other tank, but this is not the case, I choosed a bad angle for this picture. While the general grade of detail is ok on both tanks, I prefer the kit on the left side.
On the PSC tank I lost the box part at the right side and replaced it with a tarp from the bitsbox.

 

Both models from both sides. You can see some differences on these models, but the overall look is pretty equal. The exhaust pipes of the Zvezda kits are finer, also this kit has a spotlight, what is missing on the PSC kit.

A look into the crew compartment of the Zvezda model. The amount of details is pretty nice, you can see some munition racks and the gun is made pretty fine including a gunsight. The crew compartment is much deeper as on the PSC kit, on the first picture of the post you can see, that the crewfigure is hard too see, since it is almost at floor level.

A look into the crew compartment of the Plastic Soldier Company model. The inner details are given but simplified and the gun is pretty basic with a low grade of detail. But for a wargaming model, this is still fine.

If I would have to build a SU-76 platoon, I think that I would take the Zvezda kit, and no, I did not get paid by them to write this. Its amount of details is higher than on the Plastic Soldier Company model. This does not mean, that the PSC model is a bad kit, it is a nice model for wargamers, but on a personal view, the Zvezda kit is the kit which I prefer. A quick pricecheck showed, that a 5 model box of PSC SU-76 is almost priced equal to 5 single Zvezda SU-76 kits.

But at the end it is your decisision which models you would use for any games. But I hope, that this post may be helpful.

By the way, finally I found out how to change the name of my Youtube channel, and I replaced the retarded former name with the name of this blog and added a nice header image.

1:100 BM-13 Katyusha

Some pictures of my recently finished 1:100 BM-13 Katyusha rocket launcher from Zvezdas "Art Of Tactic" wargame range. I had built that kit before and used it as a base for this built. Some time ago I ordered it once again and made some simple modifications to improve its look.

First of all, for the windshield I built a simple armourplate from scrap plastic. Even when the armourplate is on the boxart of this expansion kit, it is not included in the actual modelkit as we saw in the closer look at the kit in the past.

I searched through my bitbox for the leftover rocketspart from the first BM-13 that I built. Since the Zvezda BM-13 has only an upper row of rockets, it was good to keep this bit for the bottom part of the second rocket launcher. Then I separated all rockets from each other and glued the single pieces to the rail.

The last thing I did was to add support stands for the rear of the truck. They were built from scratch using some scrap plastic. While they are pretty basic, they improve the look of the BM-13 a lot, just as the other two modifications do.

But no further words, let the result speak for itself:

Tomorrow I will compare Zvezdas 15mm SU-76 to the Plastic Soldier Company 15mm SU-76, and we will see, which of them I would recommend for platoonbuilding.

I am still unsure, what to post after that. Both Italian expansions for "TANKS" are on my desk, just as the Humvee expansion for the ww3 version of the game, there are still some unfinished "Art Of Tactic" reviews, and somehow keeps the list of custom units to make still growing and growing.

We will see. You can see the next custom "TANKS" unit on the picture below. When the KV-2 cards are uploaded, this beast is next.