More Second World War British vehicles

When it comes to using my airbrush I tend to work in batches. Invariably that means I have a queue of unpainted models. It also means, every now and then, I'll have a fair bit of finished work to show in a short period. Over the last month or so this has undoubtedly been the case. 

It started with the US armoured infantry platoon transport and an accompanying M4A3E8. Not British, I know, but bear with me.

Those halftracks were inspired by the new rules in Chain of Command v2 for armoured assaults and the use of APCs. Of course, that means I've also looked at what I can do in a similar vein for my British. 

When we embarked on the Road to Bremen campaign for Chain of Command back in 2018 I picked up a set of the Italeri Priest self propelled guns. That set includes an option to create Kangaroo APC.   

While the campaign itself calls for Ram Kangaroos I made do with what I had, but I've always wanted to add the Ram version to the collection. These were based on the Canadian Ram tank chassis and they saw much use by the commonwealth forces in the later stages of the war in Europe. The tank museum in Bovington has an example of the Ram tank and one of the Kangaroo conversions.

However, I've not been aware of these being available in plastic kit form. These new additions are 3D prints from Dark Castle Terrain and very nice models they are too. For now, they await crews and passengers, but those will come in due course (hello AB Figures, once again).

With the addition of these armoured personnel carriers and the new rules for assault deployment I'd be very keen to replay the Road to Bremen campaign. I suspect we would play it very differently (the campaign also has tremendous replay value in its own right). I'm sorely tempted.

I have a good stash of Plastic Soldier Company universal carriers and so with the addition of crews from AB Figures I've put together a carrier section for the British.

It's not that I didn't have any carriers, but with so many in the stash and these rather lovely figures from AB it only seemed right to go for an upgrade.

That adds a few options for infantry transport.

Moving away from transport another recent addition is this Challenger A30 tank, a 3D print from Dark Castle Terrain.

This rather ungainly looking variant of the Cromwell had an extended chassis and new turret to house the 17 pounder anti-tank gun. It was a somewhat hurried expedient to fit as many 17 pounders into tanks as possible for Normandy. It might not be the most attractive of tanks, but served its purpose.

To be honest, I was quite disappointed with this print. The level of detail is well below what I've come to expect from Dark Castle Terrain. The road wheels are the most obvious examples. I couldn't do much about those, but I've added camouflage netting to the turret and upper chassis to cover some of the lack of detail and add some embellishment of my own.

The Challenger is a tank that often sails under the radar. While only 72 were made, they had a life well beyond Normandy. In the initial phase they were assigned to the armoured recce regiments of the armoured divisions, where they formed the fourth tank in a troop of Cromwells, performing a similar overwatch role to that of the Sherman Firefly. 

They continued to serve in this role during Market Garden with units like the 15th/19th Kings Royal Hussars. They were later transferred to 7th Armoured Division, which had been operating Cromwell tanks as their main battle tank and served with their armoured regiments until the end of the war. You can spot at least two of them in the picture below at the Berlin victory parade.

While the turret makes the tank look like it might be excessively high, it comes no higher than the Sherman Firefly.

And is not much taller than the Comet.

While I was applying the camouflage netting to the Challenger I took the opportunity to add more to a few other British tanks including these Shermans. I think it's a very effective way to blend the rest of the stowage in with the tank.

As I mentioned earlier, I often use the airbrush for batches of models and while this post has focused on the British I've also been painting up a few vehicles for the Germans. So there will be more to come shortly in a future post.

British for the Sudan

I think my interest in the colonial period was triggered by this photograph of the Queens Own Cameron Highlanders formed up in square in a barren stretch of desert. It is nothing, if not incongruous. Men from Scotland, dressed in uniforms designed for European conditions, in the middle of an expanse of desert that couldn't be further from the Highlands. It begs the question, what on earth are they doing there and why?

As it happens, I've yet to add figures in kilts to my collection, for now the majority of miniatures are from the Perry Miniatures plastic range that covers the period 1877-85. 

I've used them for a few different rule sets including The Men Who Would be Kings; Death in the Dark Continent and a variant of Sharp Practice.

I had initially based the figures individually, which made sense at the time as several of the rule sets required casualties to be removed. However, I've gone off sabot basing and moved over to multi-basing instead. In this case in groups of four figures. That's been the excuse to create this new post to reflect the new appearance of the collection. 

I like the compact look of the figures and the more seamless appearance of the basing.

Most of the commanders and leaders are from the same Perry plastic set. 

I've carried out a couple of very simple conversions to create wounded figures that I can use to replace a leader figure once a wound occurs. 

 

The two prone figures are also Perry plastics. In their case they come from the Zulu war British set, as the Sudan set doesn't contain any casualty figures. To say I 'converted' those two is to stretch things a little. I haven't even gone to the effort of giving them puttees. All I did was shave off the cuff details and piping and paint them in khaki.

I made use of a few spare Perry plastic figures to make up a suitable deployment point.

Also from Perry Miniatures is a contingent from the Naval Brigade.

Unlike the regular infantry figures these are all in metal.

I particularly like the command figures, which are full of character. 

One of the key contributions made by the Naval Brigade was to operate heavier weapons, like the early machine guns, in this case a Gardner gun. 

And a 7 pounder screw gun, once again from the Perrys.

I have a small mounted contingent from the 19th Hussars. Once again these are metal figures from Perry Miniatures.

While the vast majority of figures are from the Perrys, there are a few extras from other ranges. I wanted a group of figures that could represent something like a railway survey party or armed civilians. The intention is to use them as characters in scenarios where they may need to be rescued or escorted. This set below is from Wargames Foundry and come from their Darkest Africa range. 

Thinking along similar lines, I acquired this camel train and drivers from Empress Miniatures. Once again they could be a scenario objective or something to be protected and escorted. 

The Mahdist opposition to these units haven't required rebasing but do deserve a post of their own, one where I can compile the full collection in a single spot. That's a job I will get around to soon.