Thursday 11 July 2019

A15 Crusader in 15mm

I've uploaded some STLs for WWII British cruiser tanks for the desert war in North Africa to Wargaming3d



The Crusader II, with and without the MG sub-turret
https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/a15-crusader-ii/









... and the Crusader III





The models have been created at 1:100 scale for 15mm gaming, but I think they should scale up easily enough. Scaling down might be more problematic, as the 2pdr gun is a very slender item already. For 1:150 or smaller, I would probably just replace it with a short length of wire.

Test Prints and Things




The Crusader II test print was printed horizontally, with the tracks and the base of the turret right on the print-bed. As expected, the very gently sloping upper panels all show a lot of layer lines, but a bit of scraping and judicious painting will minimize those. At tabletop distances, I very much doubt they'd be noticeable in any case.

The Crusader III I split up, fore and aft, both the hull and turret, to print vertically.

This certainly ameliorates the issues with layer lines on the upper panels, though there is a bit of post-print assembly necessary.

The only real issue with this method is that the 6 pounder gun barrel, when printed vertically, was very fragile indeed, and it broke off almost immediately. I replaced it with a new one made from a length of bronze brazing rod. I've done this a lot with metal/resin models, so it's no big deal.

I've since modified the split-turret STL to remove the gun entirely, and to replace it with a socket. That should make adding a metal gun barrel a very simple matter in future.

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