To supplement my 2pdr Portees I got some more AT guns for the British. Like the Germans, they went through various increases in calibre as the desert war progressed culminating in the mighty 17pdr, they were just several months behind the Germans.
These are all BPM resin models. A 6pdr, 6pdr Portee and a dismounted 2pdr.
The Bedford Portee is a thing of beauty, I never even imagined someone made such a thing. It was however an utter pig to get off its printing flash, and I managed to snap off one of the (very thin) rear bed railings. Fortunately the model comes with the armoured side shields supplied with some 6pdr guns, which provided a reasonable base to stick it all back together again.
This model is printed in APL, so a bit rougher than the resin versions. The gun is separate, and I added a couple of Peter Pig gunners to the finished thing. I had to chop various bits of their bases and knees off to get them in as there isn't much space in the back behind the gun.
This is one of the resin 6pdrs, a much cleaner print.
Like its truck mounted pal, a couple of PP gunners to crew it.
The 2pdr is a neat little model. I could have got a PP one, but as I was ordering from BPM anyway, I got one of these. The wheels are separate, and I ended up glueing them onto the front legs.
Like all 3D prints, no crew supplied (why not?). The standing gunner is PP, whereas the seated gunner is a Skytrex Bren carrier crewman chopped around. The seat is tiny and there isn't much room for legs in there.
Another view of the Portee, you can see the armoured side shields very clearly. They were actually issued to (some) towed units as well, but I imagine they were very unwieldy to use in action unless in a very static position. The Portee is huge, you'd need a large depression to safely set up hull down with this.
Anyway, sorry me welcome reinforcements for the Royal Artillery, and eagle eyed readers will already have spotted some of these in action at the recently reported Himeimat game set in 1942.
Hi Martin,
ReplyDeleteNice portee! Have you tried the BPM figures yet? Their AT gun crew looks pretty good (at least on the interweb).
Cheers
Jay
Thanks, yes, the Portee is lovely. I didn't even realise BPM did figures, although apparently they only do 6mm and 20mm? Perhaps they would scale them down to 15mm on request? They do look nice though.
Delete