Roco WW2 personalities - Tail end Charlies

 The last three figures from the Roco WW2 Personalities set are a  bit of an odd bunch.

We have Rommel, Herman Goering and then Herman Goering. Two Goerings? really? I'd much rather have some more actual Generals, Patton or Bradley would have  been great. Anyway, this is what we have.

Rommel is fair enough. I already have a Rommel from QRF who is painted in temperate uniform, so I did this figure in Rommels Panzer Armee Afrika guise (the figure has very obvious sand goggles moulded on his hat).

At some point he acquired a tan jacket in the desert and was photographed extensively in it, which certainly isn't a regulation German issue one. It  might be Italian or privately purchased I guess.

Anyway I did him in a sandy jacket, olive green trousers with a red Generals stripe and jackboots. I did his cap grey as in photos it looks darker and also had a go at doing the sand goggles but they don't stand out very well. He is moulded with a huge pair binoculars hanging down at his waist, which actually proved quite hard to paint as they are virtually moulded into his body, but I got there in the end.

I realised later that I'd forgotten to paint his hands too! They are clasped in a very Rommellian stance behind his back. I added various Field Marshals distinctions in red and gold as well. 

He is a very useful figure and will be turning up a lot.

The first of the Goering figures is clearly modelled in the white Reichsmarshals uniform he favoured (and let stood trial at Nuremberg in). It isn't actually white but a very light grey with white piping.

A fascinating modellers rabbit hole is the unforms of very senior members of the Third Reich military and political establishment, which I had to delve into to a degree. So this is a genuine attempt at a Luftwaffe Reichsmarshals uniform - white/light grey jacket and trousers, black Sam Browne belt, and white dress cap with a black peak and gey band.

There are various bits of gold dabbed on for shoulder boards, collar tabs etc. 

This one really is the most useless figure of the lot, but it was in the box so I've painted it. I really can't imagine ever using it.

If I don't need one Goering figure, I certainly don't need two. However this figure is in a slightly more practical Field Marshal uniform and might do very well as 'Smiling' Albert Kesselring. He wasn't quite as portly as Goering but he was a bit stout.

This second figure I did as a Luftwaffe Field Marshal, which is mainly a dark blue uniform. The Dragon 1/6th scale model of Kesselring has him in a white/grey dress cap (like the previous Goering figure) but in photos he more commonly wore his Luftwaffe blues. I did think about mixing up some Luftwaffe feldblau, a sort of blue/grey shade, but the senior Generals uniform was distinctly blue.

So, 'Kesselring' got a dark blue hat jacket and trousers, white shirt and black tie plus white stripes down the trousers which was apparently a Luftwaffe thing. Standard Luftwaffe brown belt with a gold buckle and then varius collar tabs, shoulder flashes, chest eagle etc in gold.

The figure is brandishing a Field Marshals baton, which irl was blue, red and gold. I haven't quite got the colour balance right so I need to go over that one again.

This figure might be useful in some circumstances? Perhaps he could be Kurt Student at Arnhem. Who knows.

Anyway, they are all done now so that is another batch of stuff painted. As I said in earlier post, I much prefer painting batches of identical or similar uniforms to a random collection, I keep missing bits when they are all different.

Roco WW2 personalities - The Good Guys

 After the previous Rogues Gallery of dictators, this time we have the Western Allied personalities from the Roco WW2 Personality set. I do find painting figures in lots of different uniforms hard, which is why it took so long to get around to doing these.

And here we have General de Gaulle, Eisenhower and Winston Churchill (!). Much as I love Winnie, I would much rather have had Montgomery, but hey ho.

First up is Charles de Gaulle. I did him in a fairly plain khaki uniform, which is more like the sort of thing he wore after WW2. He still wore his Generals bars then (which I've put on) but I mainly vacillated about his kepi. In the end I just did it khaki with a thin black band, although there is a wartime photo of him wearing a full patterned Generals kepi in blue, red and gold.

Otherwise he has black shoes, a brown belt and a white shirt with a black necktie which provides a nice bit of contrast. I had a go at adding his moustache but it is very hard to see.

He will be very useful indeed as I don't have many senior French officers except WW1 figures who are usually wearing blue, so I expect he will be turning up a fair bit in WW2 games.

Next up is Ike. This is a fabulous figure, it really looks like him and has captured a classic pose (I think I've seen a photo of this one?).

I did him in the sort of typically simple uniform he favoured, but I did his jacket in khaki drab and his trousers as pinks for some contrast. He just has a standard khaki officers hat with brown leather peak and brown shoes.

My US officers are all combat types in helmets so it is great to have a more senior looking officer and I expect he will be turning up in games quite a bit too.

Finally we have Winston Churchill, and disappointingly he is carrying a stick and not a Tommy Gun! It is actually a very good likeness and even has a large cigar jammed in the figures mouth.

He is modelled wearing a three piece suit rather than the 'Pixie Suit' he liked to wear in the war, and surviving examples of Churchills suits are often a rather dull grey. In my mind, Churchill wore a lot of blue in the war, so I did him in a dark blue suit. There are buttons and things moulded on, but my wobbly hands weren't up to painting those, however I did a bit of a drybrush and they popped out nicely.

Otherwise, like De Gaulle, he got black shoes and a white shirt with a black tie. I also did his Homburg hat black.

tbh this figure is about as useful as Hitler, I'd much rather have had another General. Who knows, I might run 'The Eagle has Landed' one day, but I find it unlikely. I could probably work him into a cameo appearance somewhere.

Anyway, into their various boxes they go.

Roco WW2 personalities - The Great Dictators

 With apologies to Charlie Chaplin and Adenoid Heinkel, I bring you the Great Dictators from the Roco WW2 personality set:

And what a charming bunch they are, Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin. They are just missing Tojo to complete the set. All monsters from the first part of the last century, blaming other people for their problems while promising simplistic solutions, initiating wars of aggression and leading their nations to disaster. I'm sure that wouldn't happen now.

tbh these aren't the greatest paint jobs in the world but they have been sitting in my painting box for ages looking at me accusingly, so I thought I'd get them done.

First up we have Mussolini. A surprisingly slim figure although quite squat around the middle. He does have a fairly determined looking chin and something of a bull neck. Unsurprisngly Mussolini had quite a range of uniforms, but I picked a fairly neutral mid grey one so he can stand in for a senior Italian officer if required. The colours etc are all based on photographs.

He has a black Sam Browne and jackboots, jazzy little black collar patches and an inverted chevron on the left sleeve with a design in the middle (which I did just as a tiny blob of gold). He maybe a fascist dictator, but he had very smart uniforms. 

Strictly speaking the hat should be black with red piping, but I went a more neutral grey army style one with a tiny blob of gold on the front. There is one photo of Mussolini with a cap adorned with an eagle design on the front, so it can be that one.

As I'm not planning on running the Gran Sasso raid any time soon, he will no doubt see service as an Italian officer.

Next up is Uncle Joe, a genuine psychopath who systematically murdered everyone around him and lots of other people besides. 

This figure is cast in a classic Stalin uniform, fairly plain and simple. He had a range of these in various shades of khaki, he also had a more dressy blue uniform which he reputedly hated. The figure itself is actually a pretty good likeness, and even has a very obvious moustache moulded on, although my clumsy brushwork doesn't do it justice.

I did him overall in VJ Russian uniform with some very light highlights and lowlights. There are various distinctions in red and gold. His cap usually had a red band but he only wore collar tabs and shoulder boards on some uniforms  - I added those anyway for a splash of colour along with red stripes on his trousers.

He ended up looking fairly smart and will no doubt be employed as a senior Russian officer.

And finally we have Adolf Hitler whose evil needs no introduction. Now I've already got a Hitler from the QRF WW2 German personality set, so I needed this one to look a bit different. My old one very clearly had an armband moulded on so I did it in Nazi Party (brown) uniform colours.

During the war he didn't wear the Party uniform much and tended to just wear a fairly plain grey army style jacket. According to his secretary he also generally wore black trousers, although sometimes grey.

So, I did Hitler in a grey jacket and black trousers. Hitler and Mussolini also got white shirts and black neckties, which necessitated rather fine 'inside out' painting ie a big line of white a round the neck, a thin vertical black slash, and then painting the jacket up and flesh down to just leave a thin white collar.

Hitler had a specially adapted cap with an extra large visor to protect his eyes after being gassed in WW1. I don't know if he had them in brown and grey, but I assumed it would just be brown so that is the colour I did it. Looking at the photo I've realised I've forgotten to do his gold sleeve eagle, so I need to add that at some point.

I did manage to get a decent approximation of his toothbrush moustache on, but I had do do it twice after a flesh highlighting catastrophe.

It is hard to imagine a use for this figure in a game as it is so distinctive (my other Hitler is more nondescript) , but I can mix the other two in easily enough. Into their respective boxes they go.

Another Unimog

 Along with the dodgy British truck conversion, Tim produced another Unimog command bus for me from his never ending box of 'high quality merchandise' .

A lovely Roco model in this rather fetching paint scheme. While levering it off its old base a spare wheel fell off, but fortunately no other damage was sustained. 

I couldn't for the life of me work out where it had come from, there wasn't an obvious locating lug. In the end I just stuck it back on between the rear wheels and tow bar in the end. Of course what I should have done was find out the location from my other Unimog, but it didn't occur to me at the time. 

I pondered very much what colour to paint it. Grey or sand? I've already got more sandy command vehicles than grey ones, but I've already got a grey Unimog, so sandy it was. I essentially just refreshed the original paintjob, using VJ Dark Ochre as a base with some red/brown disruptive.

The cab tilt I did in mid khaki. I was also very undecided whether to mark it up as an ambulance, but in the end I went with a plain vehicle as my need for command vehicles is greater than my need for ambulances.

If I need more ambulances I'll take a leaf from Graham Evans book and just make up a temporary Red Cross label to to stick on the roof.

Otherwise it just got a drybrush as it has such exquisite detail, a drybrush picks it up well. I didn't bother with an ink wash, but I was pleased that I'd managed to preserve Tims custom made  number plate decals (just visible in this and the preceding photo). 

Another Panzerjaeger 1 and another command bus

 I actually bought two Panzerjaeger 1s from BPM, I did one for DAK which I've already reported on. I wanted the other Panzerjaeger for early war stuff. At the same time I was painting this up, I also painted up a spare (post war) Mercedes Command Bus.

Here are the pair of them conquering the dining table.

Just like the other JgPz 1, this has very visible striations on the hull front despite being resin, although they aren't so visible on this one as the sand coloured one. It may be that the panzer grey hides them more.

As I usually do with panzer grey vehicles, I did loads and loads of mud around the wheels and running gear. Otherwise it was just overall grey and a light drybrush. There isn't much room inside so I just put one crewman in it.

This Mercedes Unimog is courtesy of Tims lightly used vehicle emporium. I guess it is Roco (maybe Roskopf?). It didn't need much doing to it, I just took it off its original base and touched up the paintwork. It already had jazzy white outlines on the mudguards so I highlighted those.

It also had what looks like a custom decal for the rear numberplate, so I left that. Otherwise it was just grey and a drybrush. Lots of raised detail which came out nicely. 

A pair of useful additions to my ever expanding pile of stuff. I've got a scenario already which needs a Panzerjaeger 1, so I'll get that set up at some point. 

Merry Christmas and some Heavy Artillery!

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you all had a great day yesterday. I didn't get any wargaming stuff this year, although I did get a fabulous pair of Dr Martens faux Monkey Boots. 

Back in the the late 1970s it was all very well for The Clash to stomp about in DMs, but us penniless teenagers had to make do with sneakers, old army boots or Monkey Boots, the poor man's Dr Marten, which cost about a tenner. Anyway, these are expensively luxurious, and hopefully will last a long time. 

Anyway, to spread a bit of seasonal high explosive cheer around, I have been on the hunt for some US Heavy Artillery for a very long time, specifically for a 155mm Long Tom. While there are various offerings of the tracked SP version, seemingly no-one makes the towed version in 1/100th scale, although you can get 1/72nd scale models. I've already got 155mm howitzers but I wanted something more suitable fir Corps artillery. 

In the end I resorted to trawling eBay for old Roco guns, as the model is long OOP, and they seem to be as rare as hens teeth (whereas back in the 1970s, they were everywhere).

Eventually I came across one listed as second hand, with no packaging, at a model shop in Germany. Vast sums of cash were transferred abroad, and after a while, a box turned up in the UK.

Here it is, and it isn't even a 155! It is even beefier 175mm, and what a massive great gun it is. At 1/87th it is obviously a bit overscale, but the real thing is so enormous anyway, that I don't think it matters. 

Although all the various folding and rotating parts still worked, and the gun locks back into travel mode, I lightly glued it with UHU to hold it all together, although some enterprising person in future can easily re-articulate it again. I even left the original mould lines on for nostalgias sake.

This is one of the better detailed Roco models, not as good as some, but certainly a step up from e.g. the primitive Panzer IVs and T34s so beloved of Charles Grant. As it is heavy artillery, it warranted four crew figures, all from the Peter Pig standing US gunners pack.

The PP gunners are really nice figures, the older style castings and so much slimmer than their modern 'michelin man' pals and they fit in well with my PSC US figures. The PP Russian gunners are similar, so I'd buy some now before they get remodelled. 

The gun I just painted in my usual variable OD scheme - Vallejo Russian Uniform with a wash of Bronze Green. Variations in the density of the wash produce guns and vehicles in a variety of tones, and the wash also works as a lowlight. It then got a drybrush of VJ Iraqi Sand.

As the gun is so vast, it goes on an  equally vast base, 40mm x 90mm. I deliberately left the trails closer together than they actually would be when deployed to avoid making it even bigger. I'm pleased to have finally got one of these, but I'm still faintly baffled by the apparently unavailablity of the towed 155, even from numerous 3D printers as well as the usual metal suppliers. Now I just need to work it into a game!

Roco 15cm Panzerwerfer 42 auf SWS

An armoured self propelled multiple rocket launcher, who doesn't need one of these?The Panzerwerfer 42 auf Maultier was rather more common but Roco went with the SWS version as they already made the SWS chassis and they look fairly similar. This was another Bring and Buy item from COW, and I thought it would be handy for all sorts of things in various levels of game.

Like its 37mm Flak pal, this is really nicely moulded, especially the definition on the external ammo bin lids. 

The nebelwerfer mount looks quite imposing too. You can see the engine deck moulding well.

Rear doors and ammo racks.

This one also took and inkwash well over the camo scheme, really bringing out the hatches and wheel detail. I used outline balkan crosses for this one, which I generally prefer on late war vehicles, but my stocks are getting a bit low.

Roco 3.7cm Flak auf SWS

The Germans mounted Flak guns on virtually anything with wheels or tracks, and the Schwerer Wehrmachtsschlepper (SWS) chassis was no exception. Yet another COW Bring and Buy purchase to add to my German flak resources.

This is a lovely model, although someone nameless (Mr Gow perhaps?) has glued the gun mount together at a jaunty angle. The 37mm gun is quite imposing.

As ever with Roco models, really crisp moulded detail. This SWS seems to have some applique armour on the front too. The tracks are very crude, but largely hidden by the folded down sides, and the wheels are very nicely done.

Nice breech detail on the gun, and the ammo rack lids are well moulded too. There is a fine mesh pattern on the folding sides but this has been obscured by decades worth of paint. At some point I may make some crew figures up, but I just wanted to get it painted and based.

I gave it a basic balkan cross on each side, otherwise the usual three tone camo, mud all over the running gear, then topped off with a brown ink wash (W&N Peat Brown) and a light overall drybrush. The ink ran really well into the deep mouldings, even on the wheels.

Roco Flakpanzer IV

The good old Mobelwagen (furniture van), who said the Germans don't have a sense of humour? According the Chamberlain and Doyle, this clunker was actually called Flakpanzer IV (2cm Flakvierling 38) auf Fgst PzKpfw IV, and entered service in 1943 along with the 37mm version in the Flak platoons of panzer battalions.

What a ridiculous vehicle, but better than a Flakpanzer 38(t) I guess. I never owned one of these before, but I did convert an Airfix Pz IV into one (using a spare Roco Flak Vierling mount). As I've been looking at higher level 15mm games I thought I'd better invest in some more Flak for the Germans and this was sitting on the COW Bring and Buy, so hard to resist.

It is a big old beast, the chassis looks a lot bigger than 1/87th, but it will be mainly floating around behind the panzers so I don't think the size discrepancy matters too much.

The engine rear is fairly crude as are the tracks and running gear, but these are ancient old models and good enough for wargaming. I could have painted up some crew, but given how unlikely it is to get used, I didn't bother. Maybe I'll make some if I plan a game using it.

Just the usual late war German three tone camo and basic balkan crosses. The real things seemed to be fairly plain generally and I'm sure it will see service at some point. Into the 'less used' box with the Elephants, Jagdpanthers, Pz Is and T35 it goes.

Roco Radio Truck conversion

Well, after the popularity of my Roco Dodge Radio Truck post, here is another one. Another truck I picked up at COW was a half converted crane lorry on a US chassis. The crane had been removed and a crude tarp made out of cardboard put around the truck bed. I toyed with converting it back to a crane again but in the end went with a larger radio/command truck.

I added a couple of radio antenna from brass and added some raised ventilation slits.

The cab and radiator are nicely detailed.

On this side I added a door, and filled in the rest of the back with some plasticard as well as adding more slits (they all help give it a bit more depth when drybrushed).

This got an overall OD paint job, with a brown inkwash over the cab and a pinwash around the raised bits on the rear as I didn't want to stain the vast expanses of flat surfaces. A drybrush tied it all together nicely and I'm pleased with how it came out.

I later discovered it is too tall to fit into my standard slimline A4 boxfiles without bending the aerials. Oh well, into the box with the King Tigers it went. 

Roco Dodge Radio Truck

I picked up a few bits and pieces on the Bring and Buy at COW earlier this year, once of which was that Charles Grant staple, the Dodge radio truck. I thought it would be handy for either my US or Russian forces, and although it is 1/87th, I do use some Roco things with my 15mm troops already and it looks OK.

It is a lovely little model, with well defined details and certainly a lot less clunky than the QRF metal ones. It is distinctly bigger than 15mm offerings, but not excessively so and as this is the only Dodge Radio Truck I'll own, I don't think it matters to much.

Lovely radiator detail. It has lots of raised lines and bumps which take a drybrush very well. I also like the empty windows which give it far more character than painted on glass/perspex.

And nice detailing on the rear truck body. I didn't add any antenna as the post bases are already there, and just did the whole thing OD without any markings so it can be used by Russian or US forces.

I first saw these in Charles Grants 'Battle', providing transport for the company HQs in his mechanised Russian infantry companies, and finally after almost 50 years, I actually own one!