ISU-122 two

After doing my bodged-battery, I had the bit firmly between my teeth. Loyal readers may recall these PSC IS-IIs I did (four years ago, really?). Well, they normally come five to a box, but I only built four as I had in mind a conversion to match this:

I've had this old clunker for years. I think it is Roskopf (?) version of an ISU-122, even though the chassis is clearly a KV-1. It is pretty much 1/100th scale in terms of length and height, but the hull is  a few mm wider than my KVs.

I had in mind a conversion to make another one, based on my spare PSC IS-II hull.

I put the PSC IS-II chassis together,  but hedged my bets by not attaching the hull top. PSC provide two alternate hulls, so if it all went horribly wrong I could just build another IS-II.

I measured up and built a basic casemate out of 20 thou plasticard. I used the Roskopf model as a basis so they'd end up looking similar, but I had to adjust it as the PSC hull was narrower. I started with the top piece and adjusted the sides to fit.

It doesn't look too bad on the chassis, maybe a bit upright, but hey ho.

One thing I'd learned may decades ago while converting a couple of Airfix Pz IVs into Jagdpanzer IVs, was how hard it it is to model the chamfered angled armour cut in bits on sloping casemates. My preferred method then and now is to cut the final bits out of 10 thou card with a pair of scissors and just keep trimming it down to shape. 

After an awful lot of measuring and trimming, the wedge bits fitted OK in the end. I also had to cut bits out of the mudguard supports to get the tapered armour plates to fit.

The next scary bit was building the gun mount. In the end I made the main mount out of some trimmed bits sprue and wedged the gun barrel locating lug between the two halves. Then I made a couple of cheeks for the mount out of plasticard to hide the gaps.

It all ended up surprisingly square, solid and looked OK.  I like working with plastic, it is so easy.

Then it was on to detailing. Some hatches from the spares box, some grab rails, and other bits and piece like the drivers vision block

The superstructure just needed a little bit of filler where I hadn't quite managed to square it up properly. The amount of filling required was pleasingly little.

Here is the finishing thing, painted up and based.

It doesn't look too bad from a distance! In fact it compares very favourably with the similar conversion I did as a kid to turn to Airfix IS-IIIs into ISU-122s to go with my Airfix T34s. The superstructures on those were rather more boxy, and they ended up being used as vehicles captured by the Germans (!) as the school wargames club didn't do Russians. Oh well. The only place you could see ISU-122s fight alongside Roco Tiger IIs. Anyway, I digress.

Here it is with its pal. The most noticeable thing is the difference in the thickness of the gun barrels. I gave the older model a quick drybrush in the same green as the new so they'd look more similar, and also added a commander to the original IS-II rom the spares box. Otherwise they are just my standard Russian green with mud all over the tracks and running gear.

That was a very enjoyable foray back into the world of converting plastic kits. I must do some more. 

One in the eye for King George

We generally avoid skirmish gaming, but Tim came across an interesting set of card driven AWI rules on the interweb (Fistful of Lead - Horse and Musket) and thought they were worth a go . FFoL was originally designed as a western gunfight game, but seems to have been successfully ported to other periods.

Tim owns a fine collection of 54mm eighteenth century figures, so off to the colonies we went.

King Georges men, ten 54mm figures from various sources organised into two groups of five. The chap wielding a tomahawk is the NCO. The British very unfairly had bayonets, which gave them an edge in close combat.

The heroic rebels. Their leader bore a suspicious resemblance to Benjamin Franklin, and they also had one figure armed with a rifle, inevitably christened Dave Crockett.

The British task was to escort this supply wagon along the road. It rattled along at a fair old pace, 10" a turn! The figures were activated individually in card order, and some of the cards had special effects (e.g. a two allowed shooting dice to be rolled twice). Within each group you could choose which figure to lay a card on, which produced some interesting tactical decisions as some of the better special card actions had lower numbers.

One half of the rebels was lurking in the woods, they were placed on table as they activated.

Musketry broke out. Davy Crockett distinguished himself with a hit on his first shot, then looked at the rules for how long it took to reload a rifle. Yikes! Fortunately I'd cunningly played a six on him, so he reloaded in short order.

More of my chaps with conventional muskets opened up from the tree line. It was surprisingly easy to get sucked into long range ineffective firefights as each figure got two actions, so 'fire' and 'reload' seemed very obvious things to do. Never mind moving, or aiming,,,

The British also got a bit stuck blazing away as the wagon edged along. One of my chaps went down wounded, but most of the British escorts were no well behind the wagon. Wounds incapacitated a figure until they could roll to recover and operate at a penalty. Some cards allowed a wound to remove, but generally they hung around, three wounds being enough to permanently eliminate a figure

Some American musketry frightened away the horse holder, and one of our plucky rebs ran out to grab the reins. If a 'hit' was scored, there was a 50:50 chance it would just frighten the enemy, who would run away to cover and then have to recover.

Meanwhile some British troops who had earlier fallen back into the tree line were sorting themselves out. These figures had all been 'scared'. They also had unloaded musket so needed to reload.

A couple of my chaps seized their chance and grabbed the reins of the wagon, leading it off towards the woods.

Sadly the wagon got stuck in the mud, and a hail of British musketry forced one of my men to fall back, while the the fell wounded.

The British were busy sorting themselves out but by now two of their men had been killed and various others were wounded.

Our chaps were relatively unscathed, one killed and one wounded (we'd played a lot of Queens to remove wounds). Two of Jerrys men ('Hat Man' and 'Ben Franklin' respectively) were cowering in the wood line, but as the redcoats had firmly lost contact with their wagon with little chance of retaking it, we called it a day at that point.

The British would undoubtedly return to collect their wagon at some point, but for now it was victory to the rebels. A real pity that the wagon mainly contained wig powder and a painting of King George.

That was really good fun, and an interesting take on the card activation system which worked very well. I can see why the game system has been around for some years, and I'm sure we'll play it again.

I have been to... Uruguay

The final installment of our South American odessey was a brief visit to Uruguay. We called in at Montevideo and Punta Del Este.

Just outside the port area was a monument to the Graf Spee.

The Graf Spee is here (if you look very carefully you may spot the buoy). Until ten years ago, bits of it were still visible but sadly no longer.

This rather grand range finder is still around though. More on that later.

Montevideo was a real delight. Very low rise, stuffed with classical Spanish colonial buildings and very liberal and relaxed. The Amsterdam of Latin America.

Some beautiful 1930s buildings.

Jose Artigas, hero of Uruguayan independance. Garibaldi later helped a hand to keep Uruguay independant. He certainly got around.

We finally took the opportunity to try some Mate. Umm. An acquired taste I think.

The main square, with both the old and new presidential palaces.

Artigas tomb. This was built by the military dictatorship.

An old Spanish artillery bastion on the coast.

The Catedral Ingles. There was a large British community here in the nineteenth century.

And back to the Graf Spee.

This is one of the anchors. It looks just like the one on the Airfix kit!

The stereoscopic range finder with me alongside to give an idea of size. It was really huge huge. Laying hands upon it was also another addition to my coup counting of 'bits of old battleships'.   

There were other bits of dockyard equipment around, like this steam crane. 

And a rather larger crane.

A statue of a stevedore.

The Uruguayan navy was also much in evidence.

They seem to have rather more ships than the Royal Navy at the moment!

I've got no idea what types ships these are. I suspect some of them are quite old.

Over in Punta Del Este is this memorial to the Battle of the River Plate. The anchor is supposedly from HMS Ajax. The portaloo rather detracts from it. The battle was actually fought off the coast here.

This stone marks the boundary where the River Plate ends and the Atlantic begins.

We also went to the Ralli mjuseum, which was a  large private modern art collection, similar to the Guggenheim in Venice.

They had an extensive collection of Dali sculptures.

As well as various other modern artists.

Bizarrely there was a Beryl Cook special exhibition!

Other bits of Punta del Este were less salubrious.

I was rather taken with this vintage truck though.

Some of the coastline was pretty rugged, reminiscent of the west coast of the UK.

While other bits had a very tropical feel (there were lots of very, very expensive holiday homes over in this bit).

So, Uruguay was an unexpected delight. Highly recommended (apart from the horrific data roaming charges).