With an eye to my planned Megablitz game at COW, I wanted to expand my British desert armoured car collection. I've already got a QRF Marmon Herrington Mk II, so I fancied something similar but different.
And here is an absolutely gorgeous Battlefield 3D resin Marmon Herrington Mark III. A fascinating vehicle as it mounts a Boys ATR and no less than two Vickers guns, one as a coax!
This is a joy to 'assemble' as there isn't any assembly. The hull and turret are just single piece prints, so no sticking on wheels, MGs to get knocked off or anything like that. What a lovely model and not a striation in sight. It even has the correct treads printed on the tyres.
My only slight anxiety is the relatively thin ATR gun barrel, but if it gets snapped off I can always replace it with wire I suppose.
Like so many 'box' armoured cars, it has lots of nice sharp edges to take a drybrush. I thought about adding some stowage but it is quite a busy vehicles already with its spare wheel, various tools and all sorts of things seemingly welded to the hull.
I did this in three tone Caunter (dark green over grey over sand) to join my early desert armoured car fleet. The desert sand basecoat got an inkwash, then a heavy drybrush of desert sand again, then I did the camo, pinwashed around some of the highlights, and did an overall drybrush of pale sand. It looks suitably battered an dusty I think.
Here it is next to my QRF Mk II. If a picture speaks a 1000 words, I think this clearly demonstrates why traditional manufacturers are in big trouble in the face of the 3D print revolution. The QRF one is a nice enough model, but it is pretty crude in comparison to the print, and it has lots of fiddly bits which needed sticking together. Getting the wheels to stick on the QRF one was particularly nightmarish.
Having seen the B3D one though, it looks like I need to adjust the direction of the turret mounted Vickers on the QRF one.
Nice model. I have to agree, I'd rather get a complete vehicle that just needs a bit of paint than mess about gluing fiddly parts to my fingers etc
ReplyDeleteVery nice Martin!
ReplyDeleteMy 1:76 and 1:72 Marmon Herrington armoured cars are awaiting assembly after the tanks.
There were a lot of them in Operation Crusader; KDG (1 sqn in Tobruck - received a sqn from one of the SA regts), 2x SA Armoured Car regts, 2x SA Recce Btns. 11 Hussars had received Humbers, but the rest were "Monkey Harris". Most were Mk2, but 6SA was wholly MK3 IIRC. However, some sources suggest there was a mix of Mk2 and Mk3 in the SA units. There's a photo showing one of each from the same unit at Halfaya.
Stowage; apparently the MH were festooned as the crews discovered it helped improve armour protection!
3D. Yes, it's a game changer with the caveat that we don't know how well the plastic and especially UV resin holds up over time.....more concerning is the frequency with which a lot of firms come and go...
Neil
Nifty model and nice paint job! For some periods, especially those featuring vehicles, 3D printing definitely looks the way forward. Are you printing these models yourself or buying them? If so, from where?
ReplyDelete