15mm QRF Valentine II

 To go with the 15mm Crusaders I wanted some I Tanks, and for some odd reason settled on Valentines and not Matildas. I was thinking more of Gazala, but nearly all the scenarios I have are for Operation Crusader and earlier! One thing in their favour is that Valentines were resolutely plain, no fancy Caunter paint schemes, which seemed fine to start with.

I've already got a QRF Valentine III to use with my Russians, so I got a couple of Mark IIs for the desert, and bravely went for the sand skirt option. These have smaller turret bustles than the Mark IIIs but look quite cute. My headmaster at junior school commanded Valentines in the war, and was wounded by shell splinters while he had his head out of the turret. He liked to show us the scars!

They went together very well, although there aren't many bits to stick on. I had to look at a couple of photos to work out where the cylinder thing went, and realised it needed quite a bit of filing down to fit.

The sand skirts also went on OK, although they are very asymmetrical and I had to  look at many photos to work out which way round they went on. Who knew the rails were on the outside, and not to locate them on the inside of the mudguards? The vehicles are cast as models without sand skirts, so you have to trim down some external parts of the mudguards to get the skirts to fit. After a few dry runs, they eventually went on perfectly without any unsightly gaps.

Its a Valentine, so has masses of raised detail. Perfect for washes and drybrushing. Just look at that engine deck!

Valentines were generally plain sand, but rather than Light Stone, I wanted to try a Light Mud/Desert Pink finish on these. The base colour was VJ Dark Sand (supposedly a match for the Italian Uniform colour), which came out of the dropper bottle a very similar shade to my old Humbrol Desert Sand.

The method was the same as the Crusaders, a heavy damp brush, wash, then another damp brush, followed by a light drybrush of Pale Sand. They came out noticeably darker and more earthy than the Crusaders, which was exactly the effect I was after, and it will be useful for both later war vehicles in Desert Pink, as well as early ones in Light Mud.

Infantry tanks generally had more prominent markings than Cruisers, so these both got Crusader Stripes on the sand skirts. I thought about doing them on the turret rear as well, but that seemed a bit over the top as these already stand out quite brightly. I painted the basic design, and then squared them off with my new Posca Paint Pens.

Hopefully they will see some action. Infantry Tank Brigades had a mix of Matildas and Valentines for much of the campaign, but it made me resolve to get some Matildas too.