Finnish air force on it's way!

This is a bit of an ice-breaking diversion as I struggle to get back into modelling again. I bought a couple of really cheap and simple 1/144 aircraft just to get used to putting paint to plastic once again.

However, they are connected with my big Finnish Army project as the Me109G and JU88 were both used by the Finnish Air Force (very successfully) during the later part of World War 2. In fact I was quite stunned to find out just how skilled the Finnish fighter pilots were as they scored a huge number of kills compared to their losses...

"The Finnish Air Force achieved 663 victories with the Messerschmitt Bf 109Gs during 1943 and 1944, while losing 32 fighters in combat or to anti-aircraft fire.16 aircraft were lost in accidents and 8 were destroyed on ground. 23 pilots were lost - an impressive exchange ratio of 25 : 1." [kurfurst.org - Finnish Air Force Performance Trials on Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-2, WNr. 14 783 'MT-215']

The models I picked up were the Minicraft Ju88 and the Eduard Me109G. I chose 1/144 over 1/72 for two reasons, first - as I said - I just want a quick and easy project to do but also I wanted to 'scale' my air component of my Rapid Fire! army. What I mean is that if one imagines a 1/72 army on a table top, then imagines the scale height that an aircraft would be flying over your table I guess it would look more 1/144 than 1/72! This is just my dodgy theory - a lot of war gamers simply seem to use 1/72 planes if they are using 1/72 figures.

Anyway, I'm quite excited as these will make a nice change from vehicles.

Edit: Wow! I don't feel so stupid about my 1/144 scale planes theory now as I just found this post over on the Megablitz blog that expresses the same idea..1/144 scale aircraft - Messerschmitt Bf 109

Building a Rapid Fire! Finnish Army HQ - Part 4

Designing the HQ formation
I am a visual sort of guy, so I sketched out this unit organisational chart to help me get my head around exactly what I need to do to build my Finnish HQ...

This isn't a complete inventory of what you could collect to make a Finnish HQ under the Rapid Fire! rule set, simply my preference for this unit.

Building a Rapid Fire! Finnish Army HQ - Part 3

Supply truck conversion - cheap Ford-Werke V3000 (Pt.2)
OK, got the basic surgery done! It’s a bit rough and ready and so some filing and filling will have to be done, but I expected that…

The good news is that the Pegasus cab fits the Valiant bonnet (or hood if you are one of our colonial friends) quite well. I am going to have to shorten the doors just a bit and I may still have to work on the underneath of the resin front end to allow the Pegasus chassis to fit.

Worth mentioning is a new web resource I have found called Pala Suomen Historiaa, it is a Finnish web site so you may need Google’s translation feature to navigate it but it have loads of original photos showing the Finn’s endeavours during the war.

There are lots of nice shots of the V3000 "Hävittäjä" (or the ‘fighter’ as it was nicknamed by the Finns) that show just how important this truck was.

Photo source: www.palasuomenhistoriaa.net

NEXT: FITTING THE CAB, INSTALLING THE INTERIOR

Feature dilema - a medley of models

Usually I feature just one particular work, but there's a lot of fantastic stuff out there are at the moment so I've decided to do a medley of featured models today.

Let's start with Özgür Aydın from MiniAFV - I do feature MiniAFV work a lot I know, but that's because these guys make a lot of the same models that interest me and they do go through thier build process in detail so you learn a lot from reading thier posts (great for a noob like myself). Today they have posted up a very nice Zvezda T-34 (1943)...

MiniAFV - Zvezda 1/72 T-34/76 / Mod.1943 (by Özgür Aydın)

One of the things I like about this is Özgür's Russian Green. Something I found out recently is that the original WW2 Soviet green paint - 4BO - had a a fair amount of yellow in it and Özgür's paint mix reflects this nicely. I wish I had an airbrush as my 'green out a can' approach is never quite right.

Next is Darkbirk's 'what if' Sturmhaubitze StuH 45. I like Pegasus Model's series of paper panzers - well, some are paper (drawing board) designs and some are late war prototypes. Once again, aside from the nice model making, it is Darkbirk's diorama and photographic skills that I enjoy...

Are We Not Men blog - Battlegroup Oder #3 (StuH 45)

Finally, I couldn't resist featuring this wonderful competition piece from Rob Ferreira. Rob's 'Egyptian JS-3 Stalin' really recreates the desolate scene of carnage that followed one of the Middle East wars. I believe the Israeli's had a hard time with the Egyptian JS-3s at first, finding that the thick frontal armour bounced many of their standard weapons. But the Israelis persevered and eventually the Egyptians lost a large proportion of their JS-3s...

Scale Model Addicts 2011 Spring Contest

The weathering on this model is just amazing and I would love to recreate a 'dead tank' like this at some point. The bare metal with it's slight sheen of surface rust to the burned engine deck are realistically done. Simply amazing.

Building a Rapid Fire! Finnish Army HQ - Part 2

Supply truck conversion - cheap Ford-Werke V3000 (Pt.1)
I know this is a bit of a complex post, being as it is documenting my HQ build and detailing the construction of each model in this unit, but I wanted to keep everything together. Today I am starting my cheap and cheerful V3000 truck build.

To recap, the idea here is to produce a cheap(ish) German Ford 3 ton truck suitable for wargaming. But wanting something that would match the rest of my plastic kits I have chosen to chop up a resin V3000 and stick the cab onto the chassis of a Pegasus truck model.

First off (in case you decide to try this yourself) please ensure you work in a well ventilated area and wear a dust mask. I am not sure about the chemical make up of resin, but cutting and sanding it produced a very fine dust which can't be healthy!

I used my trusty Dremmel and it's cutting wheel to, first of all, chop the resin cab off the rest of the truck model and then to sand down the remaining base and wheels.

In the above picture you can see my chopped down resin cab and placed it next to the two likely chassis donors  On the left is the Pegasus 'US Army Truck' and on the right is their 'German Army Truck', although I had planned to mate the cab to the Opel Blitz look-alike I now think the US truck is a better size and shape. Remember, I am using the cab roof of the plastic kit and mating it to the resin lower cab - the German cab is a bit too large and square-shaped.

The real challenge is where to cut the resin cab roof off. Obviously if I can find a convenient natural join - like the door seam - that would hide my hack'n'slash surgery.

Again, I think the Pegasus US Army Truck has the most compatible cab and I think I see where I shall make my cut - down the door seam and up through the roof supports.

The down side of using the US Army Truck kit is that it is a 6x2 (3 axle) chassis and the flat bed is the wrong shape, so a little bit of scratch building will be needed at the back. But as I wanted a specific shape of flat bed anyway - what's called a 'stake bed' - I knew I would be getting the plastic card out eventually anyway.

Sorry if this is a lot of post for not much action, but the cutting and sanding of the resin cab was enough for today (and it took me ages to dust down the kitchen)!

NEXT: I WILL CUT THE RESIN CAB TO SHAPE AND MATE THE PLASTIC CAB ROOF TO  IT...

Featured work - Erhan's desert Stalin

While I wait for some upgrade parts to arrive for my Airfix JS3 Stalin project I am keeping an eye out for good examples of this tank in Braille Scale to motivate me. Erhan - from the enjoyable MiniAFV blog - has put together a Trumpeter JS-3 in Egyptian colours and it looks great...

The Egyptians used the Stalin 3 from 1956-67 and this is a period and theatre of war that is increasingly gaining my interest. Whenever I finally do manage to get my Finnish WW2 army completed I would like to start working on models from the Middle East wars, particularly ex-Soviet AFVs.

Check out Erhan's desert Stalin here: MiniAFV - Trumpeter 1/72 Egyptian JS-3 Tank (by Erhan)

Lucky day! Academy Opel Blitz bargain

It must have been my lucky day today. Having posted my intention to put together my 'cut and shut' V3000 truck model I found a very nice 1/72 Academy Opel Blitz model at my local discount store for just £4.25!

I had a quick look over the components and it looks pretty slick, it should match my Model Trans V3000 resin cab upgrade really well.

Additionally, the same store was selling off it's Armourfast models at just £3.95 each! So I couldn't resist picking up some T-34s at the same time.