Bristol Beaufort (1/144)

 This is a 1/200 model by PlanePrinter (on Patreon), up-scaled to 1/144 scale and printed on my elderly Ender 3.

It's intended for my WWII Desert Air Force, to support my 15mm WWII Brits in North Africa and the Mediterranean. 

Ambulance

 

Once upon a time I had an Airfix kit of the Austin K2 ambulance, from the RAF Emergency Set I think. I have no idea what happened to that model.

Now I'm taking Bergman's 1:100 model of the same vehicle and titivating it a bit for my own purposes.

The dark yellow bits are all the original model, all the other coloured bits are my replacements. 

It has a separate cab roof, to ease both printing and painting.

I think they more usually had a tin cab roof, but I like the look of slightly flappy canvas, so I've modelled it like that.

 

I'm painting it in all-over SCC2 (Service Brown), so it will fit in all over the place for mid-WWII service: Tunisia, Sicily, Italy. Later on the base colour changed to SCC15 (Olive Drab), but older vehicles weren't repainted unless they'd gone in for fairly major repairs.

SCC2 is a slightly tricky shade. There seems to be quite a lot of variance in what people think it should look like. The official description, of (I kid you not) "slightly milky tea" is pretty vague. This model is sprayed with Vallejo Leather Brown surface primer. 

I find I need a much better circle cutter for cutting my masks. My ad-hoc compass-and-craft-knife is only barely adequate. 

2026-01-11

Finished.

And I've about had a gutsful of painting crosses for the moment.

15mm Stuff for Italy

 

This is all the 15mm stuff I currently have that is suitably painted for a 15mm British force in Italy 1943-ish. It's not a lot, but it's a decent start. Now that my copy of Battlegroup: Italy has arrived, I've got them out and dusted them off.

At a pinch, I could draft in some of my North Africa kit as well, but they tend to be painted for the earlier pre-Tunisia campaigns. 

Somewhere I have some old BF "Mediterranean" British infantry, which I shall have to find and dig out. They're modelled in shirt-sleeves and BD trousers, so they look the part — in fact, if I recall correctly, they were some of BF's better offerings in metal, which were a bit.... shall we say, variable in quality. 

Staghound

Back

Front

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I've been occupying my insomnia the last couple of nights with this — it's a British armoured car, the Staghound Mk.I, from WWII, modelled in Blender in 1:100 scale.

It's not completely finished yet, as usual. There are bits that I've forgotten, like the headlights. I'll get around to it.

I've piled it up with a whole bunch of clutter, and there may well be more of that to come. 

 A bit later on...

I like to have human figures in my vehicles, both to give a sense of scale and to make them seem less like an army of autonomous robot vehicles when I'm playing at Toy Soldiers with them. 

To that end I've opened up one of the hatches and bunged a generic AFV commander in the hole. 

NOTE: I've put the STLs up online, and they are available at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/mojobob_hoochyman_staghound_mk_i 

 

An Indeterminate Number of Days Later...

Here is concrete evidence that I am in the process of printing this model. It's my Mars Pro, printing this model.

I would have got on to it sooner, except that I had to replace the FEP after a misprinting disaster about a week ago, and I'd been putting it off due to my Chronic Procrastination Syndrome (I hear that a cure is years away).

 ...and later that day

The test print went well. No issues at all to speak of.

We see it here with both turrets, closed and open, though I only printed one hull and set of wheels. 

I've given it a brown primer coat, and I'll be painting it in the Light Mud (SCC 5) and Black scheme for Italy.  I already have a Battlefront Daimler armoured car in those colours, so I might as well continue.

 

 

 These are the Vallejo paints I'm using:

• For SCC 5 Light Mud — VMA 71.028 Sand Yellow.
  VMC 70.987 Medium Grey is a good brushable match.
• For SCC 7 Dark Olive Green — VMC 70.888 Olive Grey 

I have, in the past, used VMC 70.988 Khaki for SCC 5, and it looks okay, but in scale I think it's a touch dark, especially when washes and what-not have gone over the top. 

 

 Xmas Day

Shiny! So shiny!

 We're at an intermediate stage of painting now.

All the various bits have their base colours on, along with a few washes here and there to accentuate detail, and now I've given everything a couple of coats of gloss varnish in preparation for some oil washing.

The gloss finish helps to stop the pin washes from discolouring the underlying paint, and it will be mitigated at the end of the painting process with an overspray of matte varnish. 

 Boxing Day

All finished (probably). 

I do have a tendency to discover things I've missed, but I don't think there's too much left undone on this one. 

Next day:
I sprayed on a bit of dust, which I think helps
to tie it all together.

 

Buffalo

I've been tinkering in Blender again, this time building a Brewster Buffalo, ostensibly for my theoretical 15mm WWII Burmese British army that I haven't really made a start on at all.

It's available at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/mojobob_hoochyman_brewster_buffalo_1_144 

The Buffalo in British service had a largely undeserved bad reputation, but its failures were mainly because the RAF overloaded and underpowered it. The Finns and Dutch both used lighter, more powerful versions of the same aircraft with considerable success.

This is a 1:144 scale model, intended for wargaming, not display, so I've included panel lines and ribs on the fabric-covered control surfaces on the upper sides only. It has a 3mm hole in the fuselage bottom for a flight stand. 

I've started painting an earlier iteration of the model, printed on my Ender 3. This one comes from a time before I added any panel detail at all, when I thought I could just paint in any panel lines I needed. Which I could do, I guess.

I doubt that I'll bother finishing it; I'll just print a new one and paint that instead. 

 Coupla days later....

I did eventually finish it to a usable state.

I haven't done any panel lining or weathering at all (yet). In truth, my heart sinks at the prospect of drawing on all those thin, straight lines.

 

 

 Next day....

 I've added some panel lines with a black 0.05mm Copic Multiliner.

I think a warm grey liner would have been a better option, but I don't have one to hand. 

M22 Locust

 

The M22 Locust was a tiny tank designed and manufactured to a British specification by Marmon-Herrington for a light air-landable tank to support airborne troops. It was intended to replace the Tetrarch, and to be carried to the landing zone in a Hamilcar glider.

It was only ever used in combat once, at the crossing of the Rhine, and it did not acquit itself very well. Only two vehicles survived both the landing and a couple of days of combat.

Its poor showing was perhaps inevitable; it had very light armour and a puny 37mm main gun, and it was totally outmatched on the battlefields of 1944-45. So dissatisfied was the Parachute Regiment with its performance that after the action they reverted to their old Tetrarchs.

These models are 1:100 scale (15mm), from a 3d design by Windham Graves. The figure is one of PSC's 15mm plastic paras. 

Crusader 3

 

This is another FDM print I did some time ago, but unlike the Crusader 2 in my last post, this one was split latitudinally, both hull and turret, and printed in pieces sitting vertically on the build plate.

That gave me much better print quality, with the down-side that the gun, when printed vertically, was extremely weak. So I replaced it with a piece of brass.

I have more Crusader models in the collection, but in my view you can never have too many of them. 

Once again, the scale is 1:100 (15mm).

Crusader 2

 

I found this FDM print I did some years ago and decided to do something with it.

The Crusader is maybe the worst possible choice for FDM printing, with all its gently sloping plates. The layer lines are pretty hideous, but from a distance on the table it looks okay. I guess.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Caunter scheme: I love to look at it, but I hate painting it.

The Crusader 2 only overlapped with the Caunter scheme by a few months, but there were a few — a very few — that were painted in it for Operation Crusader.

As usual, scale is 1:100 (15mm)

Dingo

 

Here's a spot of recce capability for my 15mm North Africa / Mediterranean WWII Brits, a cute little Daimler Dingo armoured car.

The base model, as is so often the case, is by Bergman. I've just added a couple of crewmen and some more detailed wheels. I don't think there would be much point in any further refinement than that for my purposes.

As always, all the 3d modelling has been done in Blender. 

Printing went well enough, though one of them had an incomplete starboard-front wheel for some reason — I have no idea why, because all three were identical on the build-plate. Hey-ho. I just printed some spare wheels and glued one into the space I chopped out of the incomplete model.

I'm not all that happy with the colour these have ended up; it's rather too dark for North Africa, and completely wrong for Normandy. Maybe they'll do for Italy.

Achilles

 

This 1:100 scale (15mm) M10 17 pounder Achilles has been sitting on my desk for quite a while, waiting for me to pull finger and finish it off.

The base model is by the estimable Mr. Bergman, with a set of running gear of my own.

I also did all the stowage cluttering up the sides of the turret; all the photos I saw of the original vehicle showed it covered in stuff, so I did the same. 

In addition, I gave it a couple of crewmen, also of my own design. There should have been three, but the commander didn't print properly. And in any case, I don't think there would have been room for him.

Handley-Page Hampton (1/144)

 

This is one of Roman Troyen's (PlanePrinter on Patreon) 1/200 scale designs, up-scaled to 1/144 and printed on my elderly Ender 3 in PLA.

It's a Handley-Page Hampden, a British medium bomber of the early years of World War II.

In truth, I have no real wargaming use for this model. I really only did it because I have a fondness for the Hampden because it looks so goofy. Apparently the fuselage was so narrow that once all the crew were in their stations, they couldn't really move around inside the aircraft at all, and there was no room for a co-pilot.

Churchill Mk.VII (again)

 

The state of the track sponsons nagged and nagged at me, so I girded my loins and redid them.

I also took the opportunity to separate the sponsons from the hull, both to ease modelling (so I could just do one and then mirror it), and also so that they could be printed separately from the hull, which often gives better results than printing everything in one piece.

Then, in a spasm of enthusiasm, I did another turret with the hatches open, for those who might want to add their own crew figures. And then another one with a couple of crewmen already in place, for those who don't.

Because all these modifications are on top of Bergman's original work, this is a freebie. I've put it up on Thingiverse at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6733584

Churchill Mk.VII (-ish)

 

I've been tinkering with the estimable Mr. Bergman's 1:100 scale (15mm) Churchill Mk.IV model to make a Mk.VII.... almost.

The front end of the track sponsons could do with some more work, but I think this will be good enough for tabletop use, especially as the amount of remodelling of the mesh that would be required is fairly substantial.

If challenged, I could always claim that it's an earlier model that had been upgraded to Mk.VII standards. A lot of them were.

Crocodile

 

When I was working on some Churchills recently, I realised that although I have a couple of examples of the Funnies (fascine, bridgelayer, AVRE) I didn't have a Crocodile. 

So I went hunting, and found that WindhamGraves had produced a nice 1:100 STL and placed it online on Thingiverse, so I nabbed it. He includes the actual Crocodile hull, but I decided to just print the trailer so that I can attach it to the back of any old Churchill to indicate that it's a flamethrower.

Bonus: I can also attach it to the back of one of my Sherman V and voila! I have a Sherman Crocodile as well.

The tank in this picture is a PSC plastic Churchill VII.

Edit: When I based this trailer, I canted it forward so that its beam would fit beneath the petrol tank on the back of the tank hull. In retrospect, I think that was an error of judgement. I could rebase this one, but all in all I think it would be easier just to print and paint another one.

Edit: I just remembered that the AVRE vehicles I have are all Centurions, for the Cold War NORTHAG game. Doh! I guess that just means I'll have to get on to doing some Churchill-based ones. 

 This is the FDM version of WindhamGraves Crocodile model. It prints up pretty well, with no supports required, but assembly requires a bit of care as there are no locating lugs or anything. My one will need a touch of filling here and there, as some of the pieces warped slightly coming off the warm print bed into the freezing air of my workroom.

Churchill NA75 - finished

 I've finally finished off one of my 3d printed 1:100 scale Churchill NA75 with some oil washes and a properly painted commander.

The other two are essentially the same except that they have different figures in their turrets.

I've painted them in SCC 2 Service Brown, for the Italian campaign. The NA in the name stands for North Africa, because that's where they were originally conceived and designed, using 75mm M3 guns taken from wrecked Shermans, and about 200 were eventually converted. However, I don't think they actually saw service until Italy.

Matilda 1 Update

 

An update to my 15mm Matilda 1 A11 at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/a11-matilda-1/

I’ve added files for separate hull and running gear, which should make printing a bit easier. There are two different track modules, one with link detail right round, and one with the bottom track detail flattened out, again to ease printing. The track modules are for the port side only, and will need to be mirrored in your slicer.

Churchill NA75 — under way at last

 

Here's a project I started quite some time ago, and then just left to gather dust on my painting desk -- a troop of 15mm Churchill NA75 for Italy.

I printed the models from a design by the prolific Mr Bergman, and opened up the top hatch and added some commanders. One of them I built in Blender and 3d printed, the other two are plastics from Battlefront.

The primer coat is a useful dark brown I mixed up from Vallejo surface primers German Red Brown and US Olive Drab. It makes a good base colour for almost anything.

I've panel-shaded that base dark brown with VMA 71.035 Camo Pale Brown, which makes a decent match for SCC2 Service Brown.

It's good to have these under way, after neglecting them for so long.

I've added some basic markings, and given them a light dry-brush to begin to bring out the detail.

Interestingly, the period photographs I've seen of this vehicle from Italy show minimal markings, at least from the front. There's this famous picture of one advancing through an Italian town, and about the only marking that can be clearly seen is the T number on the hull front; I can't make out any tactical markings at all, though that might just be a contrast issue — there might be something on the turret sides, but it's quite indistinct.

I've included the tactical markings simply because I think that British tanks look a bit naked without them.

2024-06-10

I've started the weathering by spraying and sponging on some light dust and mud — these tanks are not going to be excessively filthy — but I'm a bit stumped about how I'm going to handle the tracks. They're not very detailed, so there's only so far it's worth going.

Matilda 1 (15mm)

 

I've finally finished my 1:100 (15mm) A11 Matilda 1.

I abandoned it for a long time, but came back to finish it over the last couple of days.

It's online now at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/a11-matilda-1/

Churchill NA-75 (15mm)

 On the off-chance that we might get a Battlegroup campaign book for Italy before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I've been messing about with one of the estimable Mr Bergman's designs, a Churchill NA75.

I've done almost nothing to the model itself except to add some sockets to magnetize the turret, but I've added a commander figure based on the one I did for my Humber scout car.

I've got a troop of three printed and primed, and now I just have to remember how I painted the last Churchill I did.

I like the way it turned out, but I painted it some considerable time ago in 2018, and I didn't make any notes. So I'll have to work it out by guess and fading memory.

The commander figures in the left and centre vehicles came (I think) from Battlefront, while the one on the right is one I sculpted myself. It's a tad too small I think, but it'll do.

As a side-effect of this tinkering, I made some commander figures that I can insert into any future British vehicles. These are the first batch, in 15mm scale.

I've enlarged them slightly from the original design, so that they fit better with other commercial 15mm figures.

I'd like to make a version in a pixie suit as well, for 1944 onwards.

A Horde of Hurricanes

 

My latest Blender effort is a bunch of Hawker Hurricanes in 1/144 scale.

• The tan one is a Mk.II-D tankbuster, with two 40mm cannon under the wings. It only kept two .303 machine-guns for sighting the cannon. It has a tropical air cleaner/scoop under its chin.
• The blue one is a Mk.II-C, armed with four 20mm cannon, and sometimes six .303 machine-guns as well.
• The green one is a tropicalized version of the cannon-armed II-C.
• The pink one is the basic airframe, armed with eight or twelve .303 machine-guns.

They all have a 2.6mm diameter hole under the fuselage, for mounting on a flight stand.

The STLs are available at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/hawker-hurricane-1144/

The model on the left was printed in FDM on my Ender 3, the one on the right is resin from my Mars Pro.

The resin model is a bit crisper, but on the other hand it's less sturdy and more trouble to print. Also, it seems to have been compressed slightly longitudinally.

Both of these are destined to join my Desert Air Force.

2024-01-28

I’ve added optional STLs for aircraft with visible ribs on the fabric-covered fuselage rear. In truth, the ribs are hugely over-scale, and in this scale should be barely discernible, but I think they do make the aeroplanes look more Hurricane-ish.

2024-02-01

I figured you can't have a Hurribomber without Hurribombs, so I made some.

The bomb racks are contoured to the under-surfaces of the wings, so they're not really interchangeable. Though I doubt anybody would notice if you accidentally got them the wrong way round.

Just make sure the pointy end is to the front.