Pantherturm (15mm)

 This is a freebie STL of a WWII German Pantherturm, an emplaced Panther tank turret used extensively in the Italian campaign and during the fall of the Reich as a (relatively) cheap protected anti-tank bunker.

 https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/mojobob_hoochyman_pantherturm

The model is designed at 1:100 scale for 15mm, but it will scale up for 20mm without any issues, and even 28mm at a pinch. It'd also scale down to 1:150 or 1:144 for 10-12mm gaming, though the gun barrel might start getting a little fragile then.

Both the turret and the base have sockets to accommodate round magnets up to 10x1.5mm.

 It printed successfully on my Ender 3 FDM printer, but the print failed on my Mars Pro resin printer — I don't know why. That printer's been getting quite flaky in recent times, and the failure rate has increased markedly. 

The base will need to be embedded in an appropriate terrain diorama. For Italy, that would be most often rural terrain, but in the invasion of Germany they were often dug into city streets to overwatch important road junctions. 

 Here are a couple just sitting on top of a terrain sheet, and they look okay just like this. I'd still like to embed at least one of them in a scenic base though.

2026-03-13

I've now included a groundwork STL that the base piece can be pressed into, for those who don't want the trouble of making a scenic base the traditional way.

 2026-03-14

Here are my prints, now encapsulated with grass and dirt collars so they look more dug-in. 

These are 3d-printed bases, but really it would be a trivial matter to make the exact same thing out of air-drying clay or the like. 

 2026-03-16

Here's one in a base better suited for urban rubble, this time created from scratch using traditional modelling techniques and materials (polyfilla, kitty-litter and matchsticks). 

More Italian Artillery

 

Another Italian 75mm, this time painted up for Europe or Russia.

Exactly the same model and figures as last time, with just a different colour scheme. 

Italian 75mm Howitzer (15mm)

 

Finished (more or less) the Battlefront 15mm WWII Italian 75mm howitzer base I've been using as a learning exercise for myself.

Overall, I'm fairly happy with it. And I've figured out a few things that will make building future ones a bit smoother. 

Shells for bases

 

I made some artillery bits to populate some of my 15mm artillery bases, to give them a bit more of a lived-in look.

The STLs are available at 

https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/mojobob_hoochyman_howitzer_shells_15mm_ for a couple of bucks.

They're specifically modelled as WWII Italian 75m howitzer shells, but they're pretty generic and could stand in for a whole bunch of short-case one-piece ammunition variants.

There are three sizes of ready-ammo stacks in the set, plus an array of individual shells, plus one of expended empty cases.

The gun and 15mm minis shown here are from Battlefront. 

Flak 36-38 88mm (15mm)

 

This is the 3d printed 15mm Flak 36-38 88mm gun that I've been working on the last couple of days.

The crew are all Command Decision 15mm metals. 

Overall I'm reasonably happy with it, except that the groundwork is a bit garish. I might hit it with the airbrush and see if I can tone it down a bit. 

 A bit later...

The groundwork is now definitely less gaudy, but I don't know that it's really any improvement.

Ah well, never mind. 

88s In The Offing

 

This is a Flak 36-38 88mm in 15mm scale (1:100) that I FDM printed a few years ago. Dragged it out of the junk pile, since I want a couple of 88s for certain reasons.

From a distance, it looks roughly like a Flak 36, but any closer than about two metres away it looks like absolute rubbish. So I think I'll reprint it in resin, which should be less pants. I hope.

I'll take the opportunity to separate the gun shield off from the mesh and thin it down a bit.

 Next day...

To nobody's surprise, I'm sure, the resin print is a bajillion times better than the old FDM. The modified, thinned-down shield is much better, and looks a bit less like it's made from a chunk of armour plate from the Tirpitz.

At the moment the gun shield is just sitting in place. I'll glue it down permanently when it comes time for basing the thing. 

 A bit later...

The gun has its initial base paint applied, and I've glued the cruciform chassis to an MDF disc with a bit of basing dirt on it.

I've also added a Command Decision crewmen on one of the seats. 

I'll be giving the gun a 3-colour camo paint job. I was considering putting the crewman in an Italian motley of European and tropical uniform, but I think I'll probably just do him in overall field grey for maximum flexibility.

There are more crew figures yet to be painted and mounted on the base, and more ground flocking to do. 

Old Gun

 

This is a WWII German 105mm LeFH howitzer, 15mm (1:100), 3d printed quite a long time ago and finally finished off.

The crew are a mixture of Peter Pig metals and 3d printed, and the base is a honking great big fender washer. The big washer may have been a mistake; it adds a lot of weight to the group, and it may imperil the figures a bit under the mashing of great sausage-fingers.

The gun is a later model, with pressed-steel wheels and a muzzle brake, but painted in Dunkelgrau for pre-1943 service. After then they would have been in Dunkelgelb, and most likely in a three-colour camo scheme. 

As far as actual wargaming goes, it's largely pointless, as guns like this are almost always going to be off-table. Never mind though. 

British WWII 7.2" Howitzer (1:100)

 

I've been tinkering away at designing a 1:100 scale digital model of Britain's standard heavy gun of WWII, the 7.2" howitzer. It was derived from the WWI vintage 8" howitzer, with a new barrel to cater to heavier charges and new, better ammunition. It used huge chocks in an attempt to keep the gun roughly in place after firing; even so, it was not unknown for the most powerful charges to send the gun right up and over its chocks, presumably to the loud swearing (and peril) of the crew.

This model shows it on its original carriage. It was later put on the four-wheel split-trail carriage of the US 155mm "Long Tom", which was better able to handle the massive recoil generated by the gun's most powerful charges.

The STLs for the gun and its chocks can be found at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/british-7-2-howitzer/

Figures are Battlefront 15mm Mediterranean British infantry.

I finally got around to printing the huge chocks this thing used to keep it from bounding all over the landscape, and put it on a small base made from an off-cut of an old credit card.

Flak 36

Since my 3d printer crapped out, I've been painting some of the stuff I'd already printed and then put aside, in this case because it's really not a very good print.

The crew are 15mm German artillerymen from Peter Pig, and they too aren't the best. Peter Pig produce a wide array of figures, but their faces do all look like they've come straight out of Munch's The Scream, and in this case, they would be better suited to a smaller, lower gun than the 88. However, they're what I've got, so they're what I've used.

The base is 3mm MDF with a variety of home-made sawdust and foam flocks.

Big Gun

BL-20 203mm Tracked Howitzer model by M. Bergman
Figures are 15mm plastic Soviets from PSC

"Oy! There's a sniper in that city block! Just take care of him, will you comrades?"
"OK then, do you know just where he is?"
"No, does it matter?"
"Well, no....."


I've always liked the Soviet 203mm tracked howitzer. It just looks so.... mechanical. I don't know that I'm all that likely to need a model of one for the wargames table any time soon, but the way I see it, that's not an excuse not to print one anyway.

The print is going to need a bit of cleaning up, especially the muzzle which is a bit malformed. Still, it should be reasonably straightforward. And of course I'll need a crew... I'll see what Peter Pig has that I might be able to use. I already have a Voroshilovetz to tow it about the place.

Plastic Concrete Stuff for the Tabletop

STL came from Thingiverse, but I failed to take note of the author.
I found it with a search for "bunker"

This is an experimental print I did to examine the practicality of FDM 3d printing for simple battlefield emplacements and the like.

This is supposed to be a rooftop flak emplacement for a large dug-in bunker, like some of the ones found on the Atlantic Wall. It's sized for 15mm models. It would not be a very complex modeling task in traditional materials like foam and plaster; I'd say I could probably knock one out in two to four hours, not counting drying times.

The print, even at quite a low resolution (0.2mm layers), took about eleven hours to complete, plus another hour and a half or so for the gun (at a higher resolution). I could thus expect to have made two or three in foam and what-not in that time.

The advantage of printing is that it's pretty much fire-and-forget, as long as nothing goes wrong; I could put one on to print overnight and take it off the printer the next morning when I stumble out of bed, bleary and decrepit. Disadvantages include the fact that every one would be identical, including damage, and there are the visible printing artifacts from the low-rez printing.

I think, in the end, the ease and convenience of printing win out for me, as I'm primarily interested in what are essentially gaming tokens rather than diorama-quality models. I don't mind so much having to wait; after all, it's still quicker than ordering a resin model online and waiting for it to arrive.

Flak 36

 I printed this 1:100 scale (15mm) Flak 36 88mm AA gun to give my Blitzkrieg-era Germans some heavy anti-tank capability, to fend off those blasted Matildas.

The figures are 15mm German artillery crewmen from Peter Pig. They're not entirely suitable for this gun; they're intended more for something like the PaK 36 or PaK 38. However, they're what I've got so they'll just have to do.

The model is OK, but it's more an 88-lookalike than an accurate scale model. It will do for my wargaming purposes.

This is the model as it came straight off the printer. Those strings are proving to be my 3d printing nemesis; I can't seem to get rid of the bloody things.

PSC 15mm 25pdr & Quad

Click on the pictures for larger versions

The 15mm (1/100) 25 pounder gun-howitzer box set is a pretty useful and flexible purchase for anyone fielding a WWII force. The 25 pounder served, in one form or another, throughout WWII and after, and in every theatre of operations.

This set offers options to build an early or late model 25 pounder on either a Mk.I/II or Mk.IV carriage, or an 18/25 pounder on the Mk.I/II carriage, or the 17 pounder Pheasant anti-tank gun on the Mk.IV. The limber is included on the guns' sprue, while the CMP Quad tow vehicle is on a separate sprue, and can be built with or without a canvas top cover. Mine is intended for North Africa, so I've built it without. (Note: PSC also offer a set with the Morris Quad.)

There are crew figures supplied suitable for the African or European theatres, and they're reasonably well sculpted, if a little soft of detail. All of the helmeted ETO figures have hessian scraps in their helmet nets, so if you want an early-war crew in battledress, you'll have to do some head-swaps, or sand down the clutter on the helmet covers.

The Guns and Limber

There are four gun/crew sprues in the box.There are sufficient parts on each sprue to build one gun and a limber, or two guns, one on a Mk.I/II carriage and the other on the Mk.IV.

Or, you can do as I did, and cheat: I used InstaMold (like Blue Stuff) to make a two-sided press-mould of two of the wheels so that I could do both guns and a limber. I cast the new wheels in 5-minute epoxy.

To be honest, it seems a little parsimonious of PSC not to have just included a couple more wheels on the sprue. There's room enough for them.

The guns go together pretty easily, though I got some parts the wrong way around at first and had to re-do them. The instruction sheets aren't some of PSC's worst by any means, but they could definitely still be clearer.

As you can see from the photo, I built an early model 25pdr and a Pheasant. There's only one hanger supplied (the connecting frame between the gun carriage and the turntable), so I didn't bother with it on the Pheasant. It would be a fairly simple thing to scratch-build, but I didn't think the effort worth while for my purposes. And besides, I vaguely recall reading that it tended to be left uncoupled on the Pheasant in any case, as the massive recoil of the 17pdr had a tendency to rip it off!

The limber, like the guns, went together very easily. Regrettably, there's no option to model it with the doors open, as they would be in action, and it's also missing the canvas cover that shrouded the connection between the limber and towing-pole — that will have to be added from putty or whatever if you want it present.

The Quad

For the most part, the quad assembled as straightforwardly as everything else, but with one exception: the roof.

The locating rim around the edge of the rear portion of the roof piece does not fit with the sides and rear. To get the roof to sit flush on the sides, you have two options: either shave down the inside top edges of the sides and rear pieces, or shave down the roof piece itself. I chose the former as the easier option. The plastic is fairly soft, so it didn't take all that long, but it was an irritation nevertheless.

I built mine as the open-topped version. In the desert, you pretty much had to choose between letting the air in or trying to keep the dust out, and since the dust got everywhere in any case, the choice was generally pretty easy to make.

Unfortunately, there's no piece supplied for the rolled-up top cover tarpaulin, so that's another piece that will have to be scratch-built or sourced elsewhere.

Summary

This set is not without its faults, but they are very minor. The fitting of the quad roof might cause problems for someone quite new to plastic modelling, but not to anyone with any experience.

The faults, such as they are, are far outweighed in my view by the flexibility and usefulness of the options offered. As such, it's good value.

PSC 15mm leIG 18

Here's another lot from PSC's 15mm early-WWII German infantry heavy weapons box — the leIG 18 75mm infantry gun.

Everything is mounted on a 32mm fender washer, and I mounted them before painting, which was an error.The figures have no bases, which makes them problematic to hold while painting, but even so I think I would have been much better off trying it, because painting them in situ was a major pain in the Gentleman's Area.

More H&R Artillery

Heroics & Ros B102 4.5" Howitzer

Here's some more Heroics & Ros 1:300 scale WWII artillery, this time the venerable 4.5" howitzer. It was a British WWI model that served on into the early part of WWII, eventually being completely replaced by the 25 pounder.

I don't have any crew figures for these guns as yet, so I haven't finished off the base-work — the guns are just sitting on "dirt" made from MDF sawdust on 25 x 25mm magnetic strip.

H&R Big Guns (but very small)

B43 7.2" Howitzer

This is the British WWII 7.2" Howitzer from Heroics & Ros, with eight foot tall GHQ crewmen.

This artillery piece was a pretty massive piece of kit, so it's a pity that the figures are so tall — it makes the guns look a lot smaller by comparison. Next time I get a pack of H&R artillerymen, I'll swap them out I think.

They're based on 25x25mm pieces of magnetic strip, which makes storage and transportation a lot easier and safer. Plus, the strip is thick enough to give me something to handle without having to grab the models themselves — that's especially important for artillery, because it's the crew figures that bear the brunt of mishandling, and they're the most fragile part of each base.

Tiny 25 pounders

I've made a start on painting and basing my 3d-printed 25 pounder battery, c.1940.

The crew figures are from GHQ, and I suspect they're going to be too tall for the guns (as GHQ infantry are wont to be). I'd rather be using Heroics & Ros figures really, in spite of the lower level of detail, but they're taking a very long time about fulfilling orders these days and I don't want to wait another six weeks to get the bases done.

Something I realised when I was gluing the guns down is that there's no actual gunner. He should be sitting on the seat on the left of the gun, crouched over the sights — I think I might have to revisit the file and add one.

I'm using 25x25mm bases (cut down from old credit cards and the like), which would make the standard 8-man crew a bit crowded. However, the official "low establishment" crew was only four, so I've got a bit of leeway.

Couple of days later

I've finished painting and basing the guns and limbers. As I suspected, the GHQ crew are a bit too tall, but they'll just have to do. I'll probably glue some magnetic sheet underneath the plastic bases at some stage.

Considering the size of games we're usually playing, it's unlikely I'll ever need to field a whole twelve-gun battery, but if I need to, I now can. There's a comfort in that.

Long Tom Long Tom Long Tom Long Tom Long Tom Long Tom

I re-scaled my 1/100 model of the Boer War vintage "Long Tom" to 1/285 scale, and put it on a sprue of six.

I did it mainly to see how much it would cost for a battery of guns of this sort of size — in FUD it comes to $12.50, and in WSF $8.00 (though I strongly suspect the WSF would look pretty crap).

They're available at http://shpws.me/Mns5

Long Tom (15mm)

The latest of my digital models for 3d-printing is an artillery piece.

The 155 mm Creusot "Long Tom" was a French field gun manufactured by Schneider et Cie in Le Creusot, France and used by the Boers in the Second Boer War.

Shapeways' render

The gun barrel and trail are separate pieces (sprued together), so that the gun can be assembled at any elevation, or even in travel mode.

This model is 1/100 scale, for use with 15mm figures. It's available at http://shpws.me/MhXb