15mm WW1 Austrians Part 2

 My second hand 15mm Austrians featured in an earlier post. I ordered some more bits from Minifugs and while I was waiting for them to arrive, I thought I'd better got on with touching up and re-basing what I'd already got.

Progress so far! In Great War Spearhead terms, an infantry brigade of six battalions and a cavalry brigade with three regiments. I've taken them all off their old 30x15 bases (infantry) and put them my standard 30x30 bases with a bit of magnetic strip on the back. They actually came off their old bases OK despite my concerns, only a little bit of levering and some tidying up.

The infantry brigade (or Corps, in OP14 terms). Six battalions of four companies each, plus two regimental HQs with two figures and an MG company each. Brigade HQ has a three figure stand including a flag bearer plus a separate mounted officer.

I touched the figures up a bit. I redid all their rifles with a much lighter wood colour (the originals were a dark grey), picked out bayonets in silver instead of the original gunmetal and went over the flesh, rifles and leather equipment with Agrax Earthshade. While I quite like the toy soldier style these are painted in, I wanted a bit more depth. My current pot of Windsor and Newton Peat Brown has dried up, and while I have two spares, I wanted to experiment with the Earthshade.

The original figures are all the same pose and colour, and I've no idea what colour Nick used so my new stuff will be a different colour. Hechtgrau/Pike Grey went through various iterations in the war and was very rapidly supplemented or replaced by field grey, so the additional figures will be in various different shades of grey.

Along with colour I like to differentiate units, quality and formations by pose. For each regiment I did two battalions with the figures in line abreast and one in a more irregular line. I'll get some more advancing figures in different colours and the more ragged formations can stand in for Honved/Militia types. Each Austrian Corps included a division of Honved.

I've also ordered some marching pose figures who can be based in a couple of different ways to give some variety. I need to be able to identify some jager and gebirgsjager troops, but more on those anon.

Infantry from the back. The Earthshade has nicely accented their packs and equipment. I'm very much in two minds as to whether to drybrush them. I usually give 15mm twentieth century figures a light drybrush to dirty them up and pick out the highlights. I'll leave that decision until I've painted the new lot I think. 

The HQ stuff is all fairly self explanatory. I rebased some of the officers into two figure 'lower HQ' bases and one three figure 'higher HQ' base. The mounted officer is so nice I left him separate although my 1914 French have a mounted officer included in one of theirs.

There were only a couple of MGs and I've ordered a couple more, enough for four Regimental MG companies. I've got more WW1 German MGs than I know what to do with so the can stand in for more Austrians if I need them. 

The cavalry brigade, three cavalry regiments and brigade HQ. I was originally a bit dubious about having so much cavalry, but I later realised that their uniforms are almost exactly the same colour as my 1914 French cavalry. My French only have one cavalry regiment, so at least one of these units my soon be learning French...

A regiment of Dragoons I think. I thought they were carrying thick swords, but on closer examination they turned  out to be carbines! I re-did the carbine stocks the same as for the infantry and washed the flesh and leather equipment. The horses are very plain and normally I'd wash them all over in dark brown ink. This time I just did the Earthshade on their manes and tails, which looked OK, but I might go over them again and do some contrasting mane/tail colours and add some socks etc.

These Hussars have their swords out which look so much better picked out in silver. They have carbines slung on their back which I didn't even notice so I'll have to do the stocks on those.

The errant carbines! That dark grey just blended right in. I did some Earthshade on the blanket rolls too.

I had a surplus of cavalry officers. I did a pair as a single HQ base and another single mounted officer, leaving a couple spare. I might allocate those to the French or even the Russians.

Meanwhile my Minifigs order had turned up, it is just possible I might have got a bit carried away..... In between re-basing etc I got them prepped and undercoated and tried a few different shades of grey on test figures. The mysterious 'marching pose' figures all turned out to be Gebirgsjager with big feathers in the their caps and carrying bergens, so I'll have to figure out what to do with those.

That lot is for another post though when I actually get them painted.

15mm WW1 Austrians pt. 1

 Regular readers may recall I've been trying to reduce the number of scales I have. I've got rid of all my 54mm stuff now (mainly to Tim G) but the big one is shifting much of my 20mm collection. After some years I have finally got shot of most of my 20mm WW2 stuff and replaced it by building up my 15mm collection. Next on the list is WW1, which I have in three scales..... again the aim is to get shot of the 20mm stuff (which is largely 1916+) and replace it with more 15mm. 

A few years ago at COW I picked up this second hand box of Minfigs 15mm Austrians from Nick Huband. I'd originally intended to use them to supplement my early WW1 15mm Eastern Front collection.

There are 48 line infantry, enough for six brigades in OP14 terms (or six battalions for Great War Spearhead/Square Bashing) plus various other bits and pieces including far too much cavalry - 24 line cavalry or three divisions for OP14!

You can still get Minifigs via Caliver Books, so the plan is rebase what there is here and buy some extra stuff to expand areas where I'm short and include some late war bits too, so this will be the first of my late war WW1 15mm stuff. 

The infantry are lovely figures, these are all in advancing pose in caps and Pike Grey uniforms, plus a marching officer with a sword. Later on these became standard field grey. Nick has done them in a very plain and simple style and they look really good. I'm not going to repaint them although I might give them a wash and a drybrush so they fit in with my other stuff.

The main thing is they will all need rebasing onto my standard 30x30 bases, and as they are based onto plasticard, getting them off the original bases is going to be fun.

I also need a lot more of them, so I'll get enough for another Corps and get some figures in different poses so they can be used as Honved. I'll also get some in Stahlhelms to use as stormtroops.

Some of the cavalry, Hussars resplendent in their early war uniforms. There are twelve of these and twelve dragoons plus various officers. In reality the cavalry soon adopted more drab uniforms and by mid war were almost entirely operating as infantry. The Austrians went to war with nine cavalry divisions and didnt raise any more. 

I've got plenty of cavalry with this lot and I'll just use normal infantry figures for dismounted cavalry so I don't need any more of these.

There are a couple of delightful shielded machineguns, not really enough for a proper army.

The plan is to buy some more MGs and get some proper Austrian artillery too, although I can use Germans as stand ins for now. Minifigs make Skoda field guns so I'll get some of those and look around for some heavy artillery from a 3D printer for which I'll order some extra Minifigs gunners.

There are also various single officers and this nice higher HQ stand with a super flag bearer. Everyone likes a flag don't they.

I've got a fair number of officer figures but I'll get an extra command pack anyway.

There is a spare rifleman in the box so my supposition is that the flag bearer is made from a cut down rifleman, the poses are virtually identical. I think one flag bearer is sufficient though, I'll use it as an army HQ or similar.

The whole thing comes in this fabulous Monte Cristo cigar box, straight from Havana. When it is rebased sadly it will take up more space and have to go into one of my standard A4 box files.

So, I'll crack on with re-basing the existing figures while I wait for the Minifigs stuff to arrive. If anyone else feels a desperate need for old style 15mm figures, the new Minifigs and Matchlock Miniatures site is here: http://www.miniaturefigurines.co.uk/Home.aspx

Casey Jones, a steamin' and a rollin'... 6mm ACW train

 Blimey, I've actually done some painting. Well I never. 

I'm sure readers of a certain vintage will recall the steam powered adventures of Casey Jones and the Cannonball Express in the Wild West. Never a week went by without some form of calamity, a dam collapsing, rampaging 'savages', and in one highly improbable episode some saboteurs putting dynamite inside the fuel logs of the train!

Anyway, I digress. Recently Nigel D noticed my renewed interest in the ACW and gifted me this magnificent 6mm 3D printed train, and immediately Casey and the Cannonball sprang to mind.

It is a single piece resin print, pre mounted on a section of railway atop a low embankment. I've no idea if it is a commercial model or just printed from an STL. Engine, tender, two passenger carriages and a caboose.

And as usual with modern 3D prints, the detail is just....stunning. A bit blurry but you can see daylight through the carriage windows as they are printed hollow.

Similarly the cab and even the spokes on the main drive wheels. Just amazing and beyond the dreams of metal manufacturers, and possibly even stretching some injection moulded plastic. Bear in mind this is a 1/300th scale model.

And much to my delight, it is actually 1/300th and not 1/240th like so much Baccus stuff. Here it is with my venerable Irregular 6mm (European) train which has attended many battles and even graces the cover of one of John Curry's republished wargaming books. You can see that they are virtually identical in dimensions, so the ideal opportunity for a bit of mix and match...

First job was to get the train off its huge plinth so it will stand at a similar height to my other rolling stock. My first attempt was to cut the train off the track, but the resin is too hard and brittle, so instead I cut, sawed and snapped the railway embankment off, which came away OK. The train is left balancing on a bit of track, but that is fine as my Irregular train and wagons are also on card bases as they fall over if put directly on the track. 

The only downside of this is that the interior of the embankment hadn't cured properly, so there is some stinky slightly sticky resin on the bottom. I'll sort that out later.

After that I chopped the train into sections. The overall model is over 5" long which is far too long for my hexon hexes. I separated the train and tender from the pair of carriages, which made two sections about 2" long, and split off the caboose which is such a distinctive bit of American kit.

I did this very carefully using a razor saw as there were very finely printed bumpers between each carriage.

My Irregular train is also based in similar groupings, engine/tender and pairs of good wagons of various types in 2" sections. So now I can use the passenger carriages with my European train and the goods wagons with my US train. Result!

OK, on to painting.

What a delightful modelling rabbit hole '1860s era American trains' was. Evidently a popular subject for colour postcards of the time, and of course well provided with actual railway models. I ended up basing my 'Cannonball Express' on a mixture of contemporary postcard images and some very neat modern model railway engines.

The engine is based on one actually used by the US Army military railroad and seems remarkably colourful with its blue boiler, red wheels, red cow catcher and white lining and polished brass. The real one had 'Clark' written in white letters between the lines on the cab, but I couldn't manage that in 6mm.

The tender is based on a commercial railroad, I cant recall which one. Red with a yellow rectangle, and obviously a big pile of logs in the middle.

Carriages seemed to come in a range of colours but I went with this yellowish tone which featured on a few of the postcards. I gather the caboose was always painted red (presumably as a marker of sorts) and I did all the roofs in a mid grey to blend them in together.

The red was a pig to get to cover the undercoat, as usual, three coats minimum. I should have undercoated the red bits brown first. The yellow is actually a GW ochre shade which covers well, unusually for a yellow.

The black parts on the engine and running gear got a wash of Nuln Oil and everything else got a wash of Agrax Earthshade (still experimenting with those). There was a  bit of staining, particularly on the caboose, the roofs and the lower sides of the carriages so I went over those again when the shade had dried. Finally I just did some gunmetal highlights on some of the metal bits, although in reality they would probably all have been painted black. I also drybrushed some dark earth on the remaining bits of track under the wheels so they will look the same as my existing 6mm train.

The Irregular flat car and goods wagon fits in nicely.

Equally my Irregular engine and tender can pull the carriages in Europe.

I'm very pleased with that, many thanks Nigel. I just need to run some more ACW games with railway lines in them! Naturally my thoughts are now turning to armoured trains....

Tarting up the Panzer Is

 As I was refreshing my early war German armour I thought I'd have a look at my old Panzer Is. Originally I thought I'd replace them with 3D prints like everything else, but actually they are quite decent models (some of the better QRF ones). They don't come out to play much, in fact they have seen more action in the SCW than WW2, so I thought I'd just re-paint them in line with my newer models.

One of the originals is on the right, it is quite a light grey and devoid of any markings. I did then that way so I could use them for both the SCW and WW2, but now I feel the need for some heraldry. The one on the left is that same as the one on the right, but I've given it a wash of Vallejo Panzer Grey which darkens it down a lot although it will lighten up again later in the process.

I went over all of them with a Panzer Grey wash, and as with the other vehicles I used various degrees of colour concentration so some came out a mid grey and others were proper Negrillos as the Spanish used to call them. I found that a bit of drybrushing lightens them considerably so better to start a bit dark.

And here are all six marching across the dining table. A sight to gladden the Fuhrers eye no doubt. Reputedly he was very keen on the Panzer I as they were cheap to make so he could have lots and lots of them. I've tried to do them in a variety of colour schemes and markings to represent the 1939 to 41 period.

This first pair are in early war grey and brown camo complete with the solid crosses the Polish anti-tank gunners so liked to shoot at. The one on the left has its crosses filled in yellow, which was more of a post Poland thing. Both have the large two digit numbers on the turret which were common in the early war period.

Unfortunately I had to paint the crosses by hand so they look a bit rough close up, but OK from a distance. Thank you Posca paint pens.

More handy aiming marks for rear shots. I did also put crosses all over the hulls but then painted them out later, for reasons which will be revealed. You can see how these two are still pretty dark but the dryrbushing has raised the colours a bit.

These two are in the slightly more subdued markings typical of the 1940 campaign. They still have the two digit turret numbers and are in grey and brown, but have hollow balkan crosses on the hull. These are quite small vehicles and being metal, there are various raised bits which make it hard to get decals on.

I ended up cutting the balkan crosses to get them behind that rail thingy, but they look OK I think. Mmmm, maybe need a bit more matt varnish on those turret numbers!

I managed to squeeze enough khaki out of my 'empty' Vallejo English Uniform bottle to do the tracks and running gear. I also painted the tyres on all the wheels, which gives me a certain sense of satisfaction, but is almost impossible to see under the mud and dust.

The last two are plain panzer grey, so more like 1941 Balkans/early Russia. Balkan crosses on the hull, but three digit numbers on the turrets, one red outlined in white the other black outlined in white..

I ended up putting the left hand side crosses a bit far back on the hulls but it doesn't look too goofy. I've got this vague idea of doing a series of games featuring our old pal 4th Panzer over the first three years of the war but swapping out the various types of vehicles, colour schemes and markings in the panzer battalions as time progresses. Well, we will see.

Finally, should the Nationalists feel like the need some support from the Condor Legion, I can swap the plain number turrets from the 1940 Panzer Is onto the unmarked hulls of the 1939 Panzer Is and add my temporary Nationalist crosses to them. That was why I painted out the hull crosses on the 1939 ones. On to Madrid! The camo patterns on the hull and turrets even match up, I might have planned that. 

Very pleased with that lot, and now I have yet another diversion from getting back to the serious business of fighting the American Civil War and the Battle of Gazala. I will write some games around the Panzer Is in due course.

That is pretty much it for modelling posts for some time to come I think. I've had some family stuff going on and not much time to do any painting, although I've been trying to keep playing some games. In times past I'd have done all these grey panzers in one post rather than four, but hey ho. My lead/plastic/resin pile  is virtually non existant so I'll mainly be doing gaming posts for a bit. I've got a medium project and a big project in the pipeline, but not right now, plus a couple of little bits which I will do at some point. 

Panzer Replacements - 2nd Company

The last of the replacement early war panzers, another light panzer company. More 3D resin print models from Battlefield 3D.

A couple of Panzer IIIs and a Panzer II.

We've seen a Panzer II F before. To mix things up a bit I did this one in grey and brown camo and just put an engimatic 'A' on the turret along with some tiny balkan crosses on the hull. 

A plain grey Panzer III H, numbered '6'. We've seen one of these before as well. 2nd Company have black turret numbers outlined in white. 

Just for a change I repeated the number on the turret bin too, and added a moderate amount of stowage - two jerrycans, a box and a tarp. They were were all washed after painting along with the vehicle tools and front mounted spare tracks.

The exciting vehicle in this lot is a Panzer III F. Essentially an upgunned E with a 50mm gun, but this one also has wider tracks, some spare track slung off the hull front, very jazzy criss-crossed pattern mudguards and supposedly a bit more armour on the hull front. The vision port arrangement on the turret looks slightly different too. It is very much a transitional vehicle between the E and the H and feels very business like.

This was a three part print, the tracks and hull/turret. In one of those 3D printing miracles, the turret is printed onto the hull, but still rotates! There is a sort of inverted plug holding it in place, so the turret can't be removed. Tbh it is a bit annoying, as I like to take turrets off for painting, and I'm sure I could have carved the plug back a bit, but it was buried in the depths of the hollow hull and hard to get at so I left it. I wonder if it is a design error in the STL as Ive never had a model like this before? 

I did the commander in an early war panzer beret (he is actually a Peter Pig british tank commander painted in a black uniform) but I did the vehicle in plain grey as when the older 37mm armed ones were upgunned prior to the Balkan or Greek campaigns they were often repainted.

 

I added a fair bit of stowage, including a fuel drum. This vehicle is likely to be driving a long way, down to Greece then off to Moscow.

2nd company has black numbers outlined in white, so this is 24. These all got the same basic scheme as the others, base coat of Sea Grey or Uniform Grey, washed with Vallejo Panzer Grey, followed by various layers of drybrushing. 

A fine looking vehicle which I can pretend is an E at times as well, as the two guns are almost indistinguishable. The lack of a turret bin is the main thing which stands out. 

I really enjoyed painting all of those, and the old metal vehicles they are replacing are safely stored in a different box now. 

Panzer Replacements - 3rd Company

 More replacement early war panzers, this time the 'medium' company of which most panzer battalions had one until 1943. Generally two or three platoons of Pz IV and a platoon of Pz II until the TOE was revised. 

Two Panzer IVs and a Panzer II. Models all from Battlefield 3D. 

A plain grey Panzer II F with the open hatch option and a PSC tank commander. I've decided 3rd company wil have plain white numbers and this is number 33.

A Panzer IV D with the very characteristic stepped hull front, short barrelled 75mm gun and the aerial deflector rod under it. A nice model with just two parts, hull and turret. Most of the stowage is moulded on already.

A fairly plain engine deck with spare wheels on either side.

Nice track droop moulded on, lovely tracks on all the models actually. The jerrycan rack is moulded on. Just number 3 on this one, and plain grey. I just couldn't bring myself to paint a Panzer IV in grey and brown. It was an absolute pig to get that balkan cross in, I had to cut it to fit around the stowage.

Yes, I did paint all the tyres on the road wheels. Although the effect is subtle, it does make a difference. At some point I'll go back and do all the desert German tanks tyres, which will be a big job. 

The other one is a Panzer IV E, which shares much with the D but is more heavily armoured. You can just see the plate clumsily welded across the drivers compartment which overhangs the hull front step to protect that section too. Unfortunately the model shares a lot of elements of the Pz IV D, particularly the very distinctive jerrycan rack, so at first glance they look very similar although it does have spare track on the lower front hull.

The engine deck is very different to the D though, with air grilles instead of plain hatches. Number 12 on the turret bin, perhaps the company CO has decided to number the tanks sequentially (typically they had three platoons of four Pz IV in the medium companies, plus a platoon of Pz II).

Slightly different arrangement of vision ports on the turret but otherwise looking very similar to the D. Same problem with the cross as on the D, thanks to that little box moulded onto the hull.

Both the Pz IV were two piece prints, just the hull and turret with the tracks moulded on, which is why the drive and idler wheels are a bit more clumsy than on the Pz IIIs. 

The vehicle on the left is what they are replacing, my old Peter Pig Panzer IVs, which I think is an F1 looking at the exhaust. A perfectly decent model and fine size-wise, just a bit crude compared to newer ones.