Armoured Preparation

One of my club chums commented to me that my Blog had been quiet recently. Yes, I coudn't
disagree with him but there have been a number of reasons for that.

First of all I had nothing in particular that I wanted to share with my blog readers for a week or two.

Secondly, the weather recently played havoc with the roofing felt on my wargames hut which produced a leak which dripped onto my wargames table.

An initial repair made during the storm produced a patchy conglomeration of temporarily nailed down torn felt and a very large sheet of polythene. This reduced me to a shivering wreck, soaked to the skin, fairly well battered, missing the skin off a few knuckles and a bruised thumb.

A few days later during a dry windless spell another 30 meters of new roofing felt and 2 Kg of clout nails restored the roof to its former glory whereas my shivering battered state was increased to one of reluctant immobility as well as a quite painful shoulder.

On the good side I did some remedial therapy in that I painted and based all the World War Two tanks I had lying around in preparation for an Autumn/Winter series of games using Charles Grants Battle rules.

Three Hetzers in ambush camouflage, lefthand pair made by UM purchased in Prague. The heavily camouflaged Hetzer is a second hand purchase, maker unknown.

A trio of Panzer IV's with the long 75mm cannon, maker is probably Airfix.

A Tiger 1 with a pair of Panthers. Makers are unknown, the far right Panther is the Schmalturm configuration, unusual I know! The commanders standing in the turret hatches are yet to be painted.

A pair of Jagdpanthers and a Tiger II. The Jagdpanthers were an already built eBay purchase . I added scratch built mudguards, schurzen plates and repainted them. The Tiger II is a Revell kit.

The nearest vehicle is a Grille Ausf. M with 150mm gun and is a kit by Attack purchased in Prague. The central model is a Panzer IV, maker unknown but possibly Airfix or Revell. The schurzen plate brackets are incredibly fragile and I have to repair them often. The far vehicle is Sdkfz 251/10 with a 37mm cannon.

Here's them altogether ready to Blitz.

Three Shermans, the nearest two are M4A3 105mm by Armourfast. The third Sherman is by ESCI. The machine gunner is needing painted.

More Sherman M4's by Armourfast.

And some more Sherman M4's by Armourfast with scratchbuilt stowage.

Resin cast Shermans by Britannia Miniatures. These are heavy compared to a plastic kit.

And finally a trio of Sherman M4A1's by ESCI. These were painted some years ago when my painting style was considerably lighter in tone than today.

And here's a fuzzy shot of them all together. Do I have enough Shermans?

My next task is to get some infantry and some transport together.