Achtung, Aufklarungs!

Back to tanks... no to armoured vehicles, it is not a tank, it has no turret, and it is not even completely tracked. But I am sure the CNN or the RAI, or even some of my colleagues would call it a tank nevertheless...

So today we have a 1/56 (28mm) Rubicon Models SDKFZ 250/1 Neu.  The 250/1 was one of the ubiquitous halftrack designed and produced by the Third Reich to cover an infinity of roles. Halftracks are a cool (nice to look at in model form) and seducing concept (cheaper than full tracked, better than wheeled vehicles off road) that... never lived to their promise. Basically because the bulk of halftrack ended up being based on civilian truck chassis and engines they often were largely under-powered, and the off road maneuverability was not that improved. Okay, better than civilian truck in mud, but not that good. It was a concept largely discarded after the end of the war.  The 250 was a sort of smaller cousin to the 251. The 250 was based on the Sdfkz 10 light artillery tractor. It was developed in 1939 to answer a request from the army for a light APC to carry an half squad, usually in reconnaissance units. The same army's request involved two other similar vehicles, all based on the 10 chassis, an ammunition carrier and a forward observer vehicle.  The 250 was quickly designed and production started in 1940. Around 7,500 Sdkfz 250 of various mark were produced until the end of the war. It was not a successful vehicles, despite the numbers. The interior was cramped, and its off road ability was limited, more limited than the larger 251. It was also expensive to produce so a new armored superstructure was introduced in 1943, the Neu version I have built, with the more boxy shape. You can see some 'alte' models in 15mm in previous posts. Alte and Neu soldiered on on almost every front Germany fought, despite their shortcomings. They were adapted to countless roles too. Usually the APCs, the /1 version, were found in reconnaissance units, yet some panzergrenadier abteilungen replaced their 251 with them (on 2 250 per each 251 basis, due to the smaller transport capacity). 

Despite its limitation in real life, it is an iconic model, and indispensable asset in reconnaissance (aufklarung) units, and a nice looking little vehicle. 

I bought the kit  from Will at PSC in person sometime ago, built last year and painted quite recently. Yes sometime I have a disconnection between building 28mm kits and painting them. Building an painting queues are separate things here. Do not ask why... just assume there are deep reasons for it (there are!).  Done with the ramblings, back to the kit. As a matter of information Rubicon has both the alte and neu base versions, and accessory bos to produce several variants. At the moment you can buy:

250 alte box (/1 and Sdkfz 253 forward observer vehicle)

250 neu box (with crew, the crew fits in the alte too)

250/11 (anti-tank rifle) conversion for the Alte kit

240/9 (20mm gun in turret) for alte or neu

250/7 (mortar) conversion for alte or neu

250/3 (radio, Rommel's Greif to make it clear!) for alte or neu

Quite an impressive array!

It is a really nice little model with plenty of details, including interior details that will pretty much be invisible. It comes with a driver and two crews. I confess the crew is the reason why I opted for the Neu rather than the alte. I am planning to get at least one /9 but it will be an alte, I cannot really stand the 250/9 neu's look! The building was pretty much straightforward with very good instructions. I did not paint the interior before, despite what the instructions suggest. Why? If I cannot paint it when it is done... 99% no one will see it anyway, I am lazy!

For the final livery (and the uniforms of the crew) I ended up with a late war scheme and SS camo, it will be part of an SS force (I know I hate these guys, but the camo is cool to paint, and they are useful for several scenarios) based on the KG Knittel during the battle of the Bulge. An appropriate opponent for my winter/fall US troops. 

It has the usual base of dunkelgelb (my own recipe: base of vallejo middlestone, wash with dark brown, then drybrush of iraqi sand) and splinter stripes in brown, in this case vallejo chocolate brown.  I apply the camo before the wash and the drybrush. One of the Rubicon heads had been replaced by a warlord helmeted one, I wanted both crew in helmet. Decals are Rubicon and included in the box.

Roma, Aeterna, Victrix!!!

Okay,

I am leaving tanks for at least one post... and diving back in ancient wargaming. The title post is supposed to be an hint... no I am not talking about Ben Hur in its 2016 version (but the Roman march is quite nice), but I am talking of Victrix Early Imperial Romans. In my last excursion to the money blackhole that is Salute (in my case 2017) I bought a bag of Marching Legionaries. Just after Xmas I took advantage of the free postage sale from Victrix to grab some Auxiliaries. 22.95£ per bag, 25 legionaries, 24 auxiliaries. Plenty of options (more on that later), excellent detail. Also Victrix sells you shields. So far so good.

Okay, the hawkeyed among the readers will already have spotted something... there are only 47 figures... 25+24 must be 49... well because I have organized the legionaries in two units of 12, one legionnaire has been given as a gift, and he is now in Japan. Another auxilia will join him, why? Well beside the obivious (making a gift!), it is because I will add the 4 figures command set  from Aventine to my second auxilia unit, and the other auxilia have become a skirmish group of Germanic auxilia with wolfskin as in Trajan column. I am planning to mainly use the troops with the ancient version of Lion Rampant with half-size units (I am lazy, I am a cheapskate, I do not want ot buy and paint too much) so 3 figures per skirmish unit are okay. The other rules I plan to use are Broken Legions (with some modifications to army lists) so the numbers fit.

Another group shot of my force. The two legionary vexillatio in the center, the Auxilia on the wings. They are based singly, but I have movenent trays from warbases for them...

The Skirmishers. Victrix auxilia bag gives you plenty of options, including the wolfskins. Now, I could have simply built them as standard auxilia, but it is a shame to not try the wolfskins. IIT is a problem with too much options. You end up discarding a lot. The Legionaries could be built as regular troops or Praetorians.  Again you end up discarding stuff. Okay they are cheap compared ot metal, and the options are part of the appeal of plastic, but too many options could push the price up and leave you with a mass of spares you do not really need. I have eyed Victrix elephant, but I realized I will pay for so many options I will never use (too many different crews, but you end up using only one set...). Sometime there could be too much of a good thing.

The legions' block. Not a great shot, I need to improve my skills...

I dislike, usually, flash effect on colours, but in this case they turned out all right, and the definition is much better.

The German skirmishers.

The detail on the skins is really good.

Well, until I get the command set and some mounted auxilia from Aventine, I am done. Even considering the additions, it is an almost complete project! Yeaaaah!!!

I hope you enjoy them.

Abrams!!!

Okay,  a new post. Recently I grabbed the new Tamiya 1/48 M1A2 Abrams for my 28mm modern US troops. It was on the shelf of my local hobby store, so it was one of those rare impulse buy. Of course being a Tamiya model it is a quite safe impulse buy.

 To make a long story short, it was a nice build and an impressive model. Much more detailed than the former Imprint, now Empress, M1A2. Of course you expect this from a collector model. There are a lot of nice detail, like the anti-slipping surface on the hull and turret ,the APU in the turret bustle rack, and the opportunity to position the shutter of the range finder open or closed.  Interestingly enough Tamiya gives you decals for the periscope windows, CITW visor, and the laser range finder. I decided to simply paint them my usual way.

Even more interestingly, while building it I found plenty of closed holes on the sideskirts and the turret sides making me thinking they are planning a TUSK version too... 

Anyway too much writing... too little images...

 You can see the rear mounted APU.

 Side by side with the Empress.

 Nice thing, while there are two points of scale difference, they look compatible together.

Mounted Samurai

I have an huge collection of 15mm Peter Pig Samurai (and Ashigarus)... that I have to paint. I painted some as a test years a go and then gave all but two of the painted ones as gift to Japanese friends (yes the testbeds were intended as gifts). Of the testbeds I had done, a single base of mounted ones was left.  It was time to add some friends. In January Museum had its yearly sale. In the past I have painted some Museum Mongols for a customer (one of my former professors in Bologna University!) and I was quite pleased. I decided to pick one of their Han Chinese army packs (I watched the first season of Advisors Alliance... now if they subtitled the second...), and some some extras, namely some landsknecht arquebus and some mounted samurai, I am intrigued by their Kawankajima range. I painted the little fellas... and put them together with the PP ones.

Museum one are undoubtedly taller, but once based they do not tower unreasonably over their PP brethren.

I really like the detail on the Museum ones. They have no sashimonos and are sold in single pose packs, but they are well sculpted and reasonably clean cast. Also once painted in different liveries the single pose is not that obvious.   Of course I need better lighting...

M60 Platoon (+)

Okay finally I got around taking the pictures of the whole box of Pattons. Five MBTs give be or a pre-division 86 5 tank platoon, or a division 86 platoon (4 tanks) plus one tank going to the Company HQ section. Not a lot of text this time, just pictures.  Here we go...

PSC M60, Part 2

As I promised here is a follow on post on the PSC M60. I painted the first two, so I will post some quick images of the first one, with some comments.

I have gone for an US MRDC Summer (US and Europe) camo. I think it suits the M60 pretty well.  Painting was easy and peasy, with no real issues.

As I said two days ago, the mantlet cover is really well done. The turret looks nice and spot on to me. Its distinctive shape is well reproduced. The smoke launchers... well they are not perfect, but workable once painted. The strange band on the muzzle is not too visible, too. Overall the tank deserves a 8.5 or even a 9 out of 10. The only missing part that immediately come to my mind is the pipe on the right side of the hull (look at the real photo in the previous post. It should have been modeled on the upper hull without any problem.  That it what prevents an higher score. The BF model has it... :(

Now after having painted some, and looked at them my final verdict is still positive, for 4£ a tank (from Caliver) it is a must buy if you are looking for M60A3 TTS.

Now, if you are interested to my camo recipe...

Base Forest Green: Vallejo US Dark Green  893
'Jungle' Green: Vallejo USA Uniform Green 922
Khaki: Vallejo Khaki 988 (surprise!!!)
Black: Vallejo Black 950 (again what surprise...)

I gave a drybrush with Vallejo Iraqi Sand 819 that really helps bringing out the detail (sharply molded on the kit).

Black-lining... well of black ink.

PSC M60A3

Whaaaaa....

months without a post. Let's roll with something new. Thursday I received a couple of boxes (two actually...) of the newest PSC cold war tank the M60A3. 5 tank per box, at around 21£, 20£ from Caliver Books.

Now, I love the Patton, and I could not resist assembling a couple as soon as possible. So I took cutters and glue... and here is the result:

15mm, plastic, it looks a little neat kit. I am pleased with the results but...

well before rambling and ranting let me discuss the positive elements of the kit. Beside the price, that is not bad at all, the shape of the tank is well rendered. The turret basked is both well done and sufficiently fine, but also easy to build and sturdy.  The canvas cover over the mantlet is well done, looking suitably canvas. The MG turret/cupola is also quite nice. The two turret hatches are clean and easily to position, either open or closed. I also like the two crewmen. Overall build was quite easy and pleasant, with pieces fitting well. For 4£ at tank this is a good model no ifs or buts.

One the other side of the coin... well there are some issues. Minor issues I would say, at least the majority. First of all there are no aligning marks on the two halves of the hull or the turret, it is not impossible to line them properly (the turret especially), but you need to be careful. I found that gluing the rear grill to the upper part of the hull before putting the bottom hull into position is helpful (changing the order from the instruction sheet). More annoying is the fact that the instructions place the smoke dischargers in a completely wrong position, both on the specific panel and one overall render. The box art has them in the proper position... my suggestion is double check pictures of the real tank. The dischargers were the most annoying thing in my first build. I had to scrounge the shelves for pictures. Also they are a bit crude and badly angled.

Another issue is the barrel, while the fume extractor and the thermal sleeve are well done, the muzzle is not.  There is no ringed brake on the the real thing.

Look at this picture of a Taiwanese (ROC) M60A3 TTS:

you see the difference? You can also see the dischargers... and other missing items on the right fender.

The final issue is the fact that you can build only an M60A3 TTS from the box. There is no searchlight for a vanilla A3 or the non sleeved barrel of the A1. Used to the panoply of options from PSC this is a let down. It also means you cannot do an Israeli A1 for the October War...  of course I would have also loved an original round turret (for IDF tanks) or an A2 one... but these were fancy things, the missing barrel and searchlight were minor addition, not even taking too much space on the sprue, that would have increased the value of the kit.

In summary it is a good model, well priced, but is just an A3 TTS and has a couple of mistakes.

Stay tuned for painted beasts!