M3 Stuart Recce Tank

As the latest lockdown has dragged on for months, I have been finding it difficult to work up much enthusiasm for anything, including gaming.  When I say "gaming", I mean the hobby in general, because over the last 12 months of the pandemic, I think that I have managed to squeeze in 3, possibly 4, actual games; the rest of my hobby time has been spent painting, terrain-making, reading, blogging etc.

Anyway, over the last several weeks I have managed to finish off an M3 Stuart tank, which I intend to use in a reconnaissance role in NW Europe-based scenarios in Iron Cross. What inspired me to dig this old Blitzkrieg Miniatures resin model out of the unpainted pile, where it has languished for years, was a book I have recently finished.  "Tank Commander: From the Fall of France to the Defeat of Germany: The Memoirs of Bill Close" was an excellent book, which I can thoroughly recommend. It follows a tank commander, Bill Close, from the start of the war all the way through to the end of hostilities 6 years later. It is quite an incredible story, not least because he was involved in so many theatres of war and managed to survive them all. Anyway, in the book he regularly refers to the recce troop, which used Stuarts to scout out enemy positions. So, at a time where little is inspiring me, I felt compelled to paint this model so that I could push it out in front of the main troop of Shermans.

A couple of things that I have been trying out this year are using an airbrush and using oil paints to weather and "distress" the paintwork. I don't know whether my photography does it justice, but the paint job has turned out pretty well, even if I do say so myself! lol

The base colour was Vallejo Model Air 71.330 Khaki Green No.3. I then highlighted some of the panels and upper-facing surfaces with a 70:30 mix of Khaki Green and 71.075 Sand Ivory.  I applied a very small amount of chipping and scratches with a manual brush. A light dry brush on the straight line edges brought out some of the detail.

One thing that I have noticed when reading a lot of memoirs and other accounts of tank units is that the tanks themselves did not seem to last very long before being destroyed, so it seems strange to me to paint too much superficial damage onto them, especially rust effects, because the vehicles seemed not to survive long enough to become rusty.  Perhaps some German vehicles on the Eastern Front, perhaps, but the pace of advance and almost daily combat in NW Europe seem to make it implausible that they survived long enough to become as well weathered as some of us seem to paint them.

Once I had finished painting all the acrylics, I sprayed the whole model in matt varnish and applied the decals. Next step was to use an oil-based dark wash from MIG Productions to place shadow into all the crevices and around rivets etc. Another oil-based step I have been experimenting with is to use highly diluted oil paints (white, yellow, brown and green in this case) to give the flat armoured plates a mottled appearance. I was initially put off this technique because it seemed hard to do, but after a couple of experiments, I found it really easy and I think the results look good. It replaces the need to "over-chip" the model and creates IMHO the impression of a vehicle that has been on the battlefield in the thick of it.

Here's a photo of a Japanese Ha-Go tank, which I took on a visit to Bovington Tank Museum a couple of years ago, which I think illustrates the mottling effect (in between the camo scheme).

I feel slightly ashamed that I cannot confidently identify this vehicle (a Panzer Mk.I command tank?), but the mottling effect in both the grey and brown colours is evident.

Anyway, back to my Stuart...

I used some "realistic light lenses" from AK Interactive too. Decals were obtained from Company B.

Maybe I'll be able to get some gaming in over this summer as lockdown measures are starting to ease a little?

Universal Carriers and Caunter Camouflage

To build out the support units for my Greek army for Iron Cross, I've added some British anti-tank units mounted in universal carriers. I have painted three resin carriers from Die Waffenkammer; I'm not a great fan of resin because I have had many bad experiences of paint flaking off no matter how well I have prepared the surface before applying the paint.

One of the reasons that I chose the Die Waffenkammer models was that they came with four crew members per carrier plus lots of stowage. I'm in the process of painting the miniatures at the moment. I'll add a little bit more weathering too to dull down the newly applied decals.

There are some great photos on the web of carriers in Greece painted in the "Caunter" scheme, so I ordered the 'British Caunter Colors' paint set from Vallejo and duly applied it. Having read around the Internet on the subject of caunter, it seems to be catnip for web trolls, but having used the colours supplied by Vallejo, and read both sides of the argument, I feel like I have achieved a historically accurate result and think they look pretty good. I even think that I have used the correct shapes! ;-)

Painting caunter is hard though! I had originally planned to use an airbrush on the carriers, but it requires so much fiddly masking that I ended up painting the straight lines by eye and a steady hand.

I've started to paint a couple of A13 Cruisers for the desert in caunter too...a bit more work to get them to a finished state though. Masking the A13s was easier, so I've been using the airbrush to spray the straight lines.

Operation Marita - German invasion of Greece

I've been working on painting up a German invasion force and defending Greeks, supported by some Brits, for a few months now. The armies shown here have been put together for Iron Cross, where a handful of miniatures represents an infantry or support unit and one vehicle per vehicle unit.

Other than adding tufts and flock to the bases, I finally finished all of the miniatures this afternoon. Here is the whole of the Allied forces, awaiting some armoured support...

The core of the force is made of an HQ squad...

...and four infantry platoons

A sniper is really useful when defending, which I am expecting to be doing in the majority of scenarios with this Greek army.

A couple of CV-35s (captured from the Italians), which are useful for putting down heavy fire onto infantry.

A couple of infantry support units: a medium machine gun (again, good for putting down a weight of fire and stopping infantry assaults) and a mortar team, which I mainly use to cause units-in-cover to move and lose their cover bonus, which is especially useful for disrupting support weapons and limiting their rate of fire.

A Skoda M.15 75mm mountain gun, an anti-tank rifle, and an 'Elephantino' anti-tank gun to provide some heavier fire against advancing panzers.

In support of the Greeks, I've got some extra British infantry mounted in a lorry. I've also got a British 2 pounder anti-tank gun on the painting pile to provide extra AT punch.

I've also got a few more armoured vehicles to paint for the British

• a platoon of universal carriers to add further mobility to the reserves, 
• a couple of Vickers MkVI's just for the nuisance value, and
• a couple of A13's which have a reasonable chance against the panzers.

I plan on making some terrain pieces too: trench works to give the defenders some protection and barbed wire and minefields to slow them down a little and channel the enemy's advance onto the AT guns.

On the attack are the Germans with 3 x Panzer 38(t)s, 2 x Panzer IVs and 6 x Panzer IIIs...

...and 1 x HQ unit, 6 x infantry squads (3 in trucks), a mortar team, an HMG team, a Pak36 AT gun, 2 x anti-tank rifle teams, and 2 x teams of Panzerjagers armed with AT grenades. A formidable force!

A selection of German armour. I have no idea how the Greeks are going to stop that lot!  I might need to "dig" a few anti-tank ditches in addition to making the other terrain pieces to stop the Greeks from being overrun immediately.

German panzers scouting ahead of the main force...

Greek anti-tank units concealed in the pine forest lie in wait...

I will crack on with making the terrain pieces now and also finish off the British armoured units and then maybe by then we will be out of lockdown and get some gaming in.

Greek Mobile Support (CV-35s)

I've finished painting a pair of captured CV 35 tankettes for my Greek force. They are armed with dual machine guns, so no match for the German panzers, but useful as mobile pillboxes to suppress the attacking infantry.

They are a boring green, but I did add some hand-painted national identification flags to the hull sides. ;-)

These tankettes are pretty small - some Greek infantry figures alongside the tankettes for comparison.

More Greeks to come soon (plus some I have already painted here). The tankettes are from Company B; figures from Great Escape Games.

Some more WWII Greek Infantry

I've not been particularly productive so far in 2021...probably general apathy brought on by being in lockdown for so long. Anyway, I have painted some more Greek Evzones from Great Escape Games. I've fully finished, other then adding some vegetation to the bases, 21 individual figures now; 23 left to finish, plus the mortar and anti-gun models. 

Here are a few shots of a little vignette containing three infantry figures. I have started basing some figures on multi stands like this, even though they are 28mm, because it makes moving them around the gaming table so much easier. I intend to use this army for Iron Cross, so there is no requirement to have them based individually anyway.

I have also started work on painting two (captured from the Italians) CV-35 tankettes. I have only applied the base coat of dark green so far. I started off using an airbrush, but gave up with that after three coats: there are so many little nooks and crannies on the model that it is virtually impossible to get the airbrush angled correctly, so I ended up painting a couple of watery coats all over and into the many recessed areas.

I wish that I had bought a tank commander and stuck him in the top hatch to reassure me that they are the correct scale! Every time I look at them I think they are 15mm sized models! Here is a CV-35 with the Greek Lochagos.

These tankettes are tiny in comparison to every other armoured fighting vehicle; it must have been terrifying for the crews to go into battle during the Second World War in such a diminutive bit of kit. Here is what it looks like next to a Panzer 38(t) in the same 1/56 scale.

The CV-35s are only armed with machine guns, so won't be tasked with taking on the Panzers, but will certainly have to keep out of their way or get trampled beneath the tracks. It should make for some interesting gaming!

The CV-35s are from Company B, the Panzer 38(t) is from Warlord Games and the infantry figures are from Great Escape Games.

Greek infantry figures

I have started painting some Greek infantry from the Great Escape Games range. I intend to use them in games of Iron Cross, in an Invasion of Greece scenario, so these first 10 figures will represent two platoons.

The colours I used (this helps me to remember in case I come back at a later date and want to add more figures to the existing army) were all from Vallejo Model Color range. I based the colours on some photos of a group of WWII Greek re-enactors, who I assume have paid plenty of attention to getting the authenticity of the uniform correct.

• Helmets - 70890 Reflective Green
• Tunics, trousers and greatcoats - 70924 Russian Uniform WWII (painted over with a wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade to make the green a bit browner)
• Rifles and webbing - 70846 Mahogany Brown
• Metal - 70995 German Grey
• Ammo pouches and holsters - 70822 German Cam Black Brown
• Bags - 70882 Middlestone
• Puttees and waterbottle cover - 70921 English Uniform
• Boots - 70843 Cork Brown
• Cap badges and rank insignia - 70824 German Cam Orange Ochre
• Collar tabs - 70946 Dark red

The bases are 4Ground 'New Wood' with a dry brush of Dulux Sandstone.

Some of the figures have "bushy tails" on the back of their caps (does anyone know what these are called?), which I have painted black and very lightly dry-brushed with 70991 Dark Sea Grey to pick out the detail.

I have so far purchased 20 infantry + 4 HQ figures; a mortar; a heavy machine gun; a sniper team; three anti-tank units and a couple of captured Italian CV35 tankettes.

These will be supplemented by several squads of British infantry and a 2 pounder. I've got a variety of early war British tanks too, so just need to research which ones can be fielded in Greece.

I've not worked out the points value for Iron Cross yet, but it seems like I have enough to hold back the invading Germans. Just need lockdown to be over so that I can get back to some tabletop gaming!

Aufklarungspanzerwagen 38(t)

The Aufklarungspanzerwagen 38(t) was a reconnaissance version of the German Panzer 38(t), which itself was based on the Czech LT vz.38 light tank. This model is from Rubicon and is made from the base Hetzer kit plus two add-on packs to convert it into a light recon tank with a 20mm autocannon.

Like all Rubicon kits, it is really well manufactured with lots of detail and clear assembly instructions. I do have one gripe with this conversion kit though. The resin superstructure piece, which sits atop the ABS plastic main hull, to convert it from a Hetzer into the recon version, did not fit correctly. No matter where I placed the superstructure onto the main hull, there was a gap of 1-2mm. In the end I flush-fitted it to bond together at the front of the hull and then used filler putty to fill in the gap at the rear. You cannot see the join after it has been sanded and painted, but it is not the quality that I have come to expect of Rubicon. (I have assembled almost 30 of their kits over the last couple of months and every one of them has been micromillimeter perfect except this one piece.)

I wanted to add this Aufklarungspanzer to my growing collection of German armoured units, so that I have a specific unit to use for reconnaissance in Iron Cross. I've been playing a game of Germans vs Russians with Stuart from Great Escape Games. In the ongoing scenario, his Russians are dug in and hidden from the advancing Germans, so a recon unit will come in really handy to expose the disposition of his troops prior to the rest of my tank units blindly stumbling onto his anti-tank guns. I've also got a small number of motorcycle mounted early war troops (from Crusader, I think?), so will deploy these as a recon platoon too.

Surprisingly, Rubicon do not have a Panzer 38(t) kit, so I recently bought a troop of them from Warlord. I quite enjoyed putting the Warlord kits together, but having now assembled the Rubicon kit, which is ostensibly modelled/based on the same Czech LT vz.38 chassis, I thought that they should be the same size. I thought that whoever mastered the 38(t) model for Warlord got some of the dimensions wrong. The length is the same as the Rubicon kit, and also consistent with them both being 1/56 scale, but the Warlord 38(t) is almost a centimetre narrower that the Rubicon 38(t), so cannot be correct to the 1/56 scale.

However, some members of the wargaming community have pointed out my misunderstanding! 

There are/were in fact two variants of the Aufklarungspanzer, which were based on the 38t. The Rubicon model is based upon the Hetzer chassis, which was itself derived from the chassis of the LT vz.38 chassis, but modified, hence the difference in size. The Hetzer-based version apparently never saw action and was a prototype developed at the end of the war. The second version, which did see action albeit in limited numbers, was built on the original chassis of the 38t and is far more similar to the Warlord models I have got. Rather than the tank turret shown in the photo below, the recon version had a 2cm autocannon and open top turret.

I'm still intending to use the troop of 38(t)s because they still look cool and are a bit different to the usual plethora of Tigers that grace too many wargaming tables. By the time the troop gets close to the same position as the Aufklarungspanzer on the gaming table, I am fully expecting the recon unit to be obscured by a smoke marker i.e. a blazing wreck!