Wespe Models Opel Kapitan & Citroen 45

The postman has just just dropped off a parcel from Romania. Sadly it isn't a dragon egg, but happily it's a couple of Wespe resin models. They are a Opel Kapitan staff car and Citroen 45 3 ton truck.

These are wonderfully done resin models in 1/72 scale, but they aren't like any of the budget war gaming resin models I have bought so far. These are premium display quality moulds with a huge amount of fine detail.

Above: Inside the box, protected by a layer of bubble-wrap, is a bag of
components - a lot of components! Here are the parts for the Citroen 45,
nothing like any of the resin models I have had so far.

These models were bought for my Finnish army HQ Battalion and represent my commanders staff car and my Engineer Company's truck. Finland received a large quantity of Citroen 45 trucks from their German allies (OK, we have all made bad friend choices at one time!) and the Opel will be converted into the similar looking 1940 4-door Sedan as the Finns made use of a large number of American cars of the pre and early war period (mainly Plymouth and Fords).

Above: The lovely 1940 Ford Sedan, suspiciously similar in design to the German
1939 Opel Kapitan. Handy for me as it means just some minor cosmetic
modifications to my Wespe model to turn it into this American classic car.

Above: The 1939 Opel Kapitan. Photo source: Wikipedia

A quick look through the boxes and their contents is enough to impress me. There are a large number of finely made components in each box along with a photocopied inventory of parts and a sheet of 'instructions' (just a diagram of the orientation of parts really).

One thing I liked was that each instruction sheet was hand signed by a Wespe staff member to show that the kit contents had been checked before dispatch.

I can't see any downsides, other than perhaps hat there are no colour scheme suggestions except the one that's on the box, decals of windscreens cut to size (you get a rectangular sheet of transparent plastic instead). But I guess, if like me, you want to buy these niche vehicles you have a pretty good idea about how you want to paint them. Though I guess war-gamers might wince at the price of these models (I did try the SHQ Citroen 45, but this white metal model was so bad that I immediately assigned it to my scrap box).

Above: Each kit comes with an inventory sheet, this being the sheet for the
Citroen. As you can see, some of the parts are quite delicate but there is
an welcome absence of flash.

Interestingly the Citroen 45 has quite a wide variety of possible uses, from 1940 French army to North African Vichy or French colonial and also Wehrmacht (for which an estimated 15,000 vehicles were produced during the occupation), captured Soviet as well as Finnish.

Above: The Citroen 45 3 ton truck. Photo source: Denis Orlov, Moscow.

The delivery time to the UK from Romania took two weeks, but that was during the Christmas period, and I was supplied a tracking code by Wespe. So overall I am very pleased with this purchase

Link: Wespe Models - www.wespemodels.ro

Featured work - Chris Steadman's 1941 Chevy truck

Being into trucks at the moment I was delighted to find this wonderful model of a early war Chevorolet truck. This seem to be a US lend-lease export for the Soviet theatre, but the Chevy stake trucks were also exported commercially during the immediate war period to countries like Finland.

Chris has done a great job with this 20mm resin war game model from Dave Reasoner's Moonlite Modelwerks range. I particularly like the weathering and the slightly rusty/muddy cargo bed...

Above: One of three photos of this nicely done model from over at The Society
of Gentleman Gamers forum. Source link.

Unfortunately I can't find out much about Moonlite Modelworks, they don't appear to have a web site and the only way to get their stuff is by emailing them directly for a catalogue. But I am going to give this a go as this Chevy is a beauty and depending on the price may be another potencial victim of my 'cut'n'shut' technique (poor thing)!

Once again I am left cursing myself for not planning my Finnish army in 20mm instead of 1/72 - this would have made a terrific addition (and I am so god damn pernickerty that I can't stand to mix scales and ready to roll models with plastic kits)!

If you would like a copy of Dave Reasoner's Moonlite Modelwerkes catalogue you can email him at this address: EMAIL MOONLITE

Also, you can view some more of Moonlite's models on this post by Peabody over at the 'Peabody Here!' blog: Radio! Radio!...

Building a Rapid Fire! Finnish Army HQ - Part 5

Supply truck conversion - cheap Ford-Werke V3000 (Pt.4)
I said that I was going to finish off the cab conversion next...I lied! I love working with plasticard and couldn't resist building the new truck flatbed instead.

Basically the Pegasus US Army Truck model has a completely different flatbed arrangement than the Ford V3000. It's slightly longer, has a different design for the sides of the cargo bed and doesn't have the additional wooden side-planks that are indicative of a 'stake truck' design.

Luckily it's a very simple build to convert the GMC type truck to a stake truck type, I simply sanded down the original flat-bed side detail so the sides were flat and then added four plasticard strips on each side. I next added the four vertical side supports and then added three wider spaced strips at the top for the stake sides.

Above: One side of the stake truck design complete, here you can see
my mark up for the next side.

The stake truck feature seem to be mostly a design that is indicative of commercial trucks of the time. Pre-war designs by Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge, etc were pressed into military service by the Finns and these seemed to be identifiable from specialist military trucks because of their lack of 'tilt covers' (canvas covered cargo beds).

My stake truck build is - like everything in this build - a bit of a fudge, but bears a passable resemblance to the real thing hopefully. As said one of the main differences is the length of the GMC cargo bed and also the inclusion in the Pegasus kit of troop benches on either side of the cargo area. I thought about cutting these out as my truck is supposed to be a cargo truck and not a troop carrier, but these benches are integral to the design of the GMC kit design and would result in my having to completely rebuilding the sides of the flat bed.

Above: Here you can see the original Pegasus troop benches (with holes for the
original side struts). I decided to leave these but I added some floor planking and
am using the original tail gate (but may add plank cladding to this).

Finally, to give a bit of character to the flat bed floor, I added some plastic strips to resemble floor planking. Easy. To roughen up all of the plasticard strips used in order to give them a 'wood' texture I coated them all with some thin coats of liquid poly cement, this slightly melted the surface plastic to give it a mottled effect.

Down memory lane - Brian Sherriff's shop from the 1960s.

Making models is one of those 'bloke hobbies' that takes you back to when you were just a nipper. I am no different and I willingly admit that my taking up of scale plastic model making is probably some sort of mid-life crisis thing, it does bring back some very fond memories.

Well, I just happened to be doing some Friday afternoon surfing and I stumbled across a photo of the very first toy shop that I ever knew - it's Brian Sherriff's shop on Victoria Road, Dundee...

Photo source: Retro Dundee blog

One of my earliest memories of the early 1960s was standing outside these windows with my Dad, both of us staring longingly at the hoard of goodies contained inside. I was mesmerised by the Corgi and Dinky military vehicles and my Dad loved HO/OO railways.

Sherriff's later moved to the Cowgate in Dundee and had some great success for a time marketing it's own range of paper/card model rail-side building sheets. They also claimed to have the biggest working N Gauge layout display in Scotland.

I remember buying my very first Airfix kit from this store - the obligatory 1/72 Spitfire in the old style plastic bags. But later I bought Matchbox and Airfix military vehicles to populate a table-top 'battlefield' that my Dad built me. The two kits I can distinctly making myself - my Dad took over, as Dad's do, most of the time - were the Airfix US M3A1 Half Track and later the 1974 Matchbox Humber Mk. II (though I was probably starting to grow out of kits by this time).

The earliest kit I can remember making was Frog's Vultee Vengeance Mk. II in 1/72.

Even today, when I visit the old home town I cast a nostalgic eye at the place where Brian Sherriff's used to be.

Building a Rapid Fire! Finnish Army HQ - Part 4

Supply truck conversion - cheap Ford-Werke V3000 (Pt.3)
Just a little update so I can convince myself that I am making some headway with this model. Short story, as usual my idea that this would be 'quick and easy' was way off the mark as the chassis of the Pegasus GMC needs lots of shaping to fit the V3000 cab...

The 'GMC' American truck sits quite high on it's chassis and has a suspension that has to be modified so my mock V3000 looks realistic. So it hasn't been the straight forward conversion I imagined - when are they ever?

Still, I'm slowly getting there as you can see, the next stage is to fit out the cab with a dashboard, steering wheel, seats and driver (all from the Pegasus American Truck kit). These will all have to be painted before fixing permanently inside and - perhaps hardest of all - I will have to make some windscreens out of some spare clear plastic. Never done this before.

Featured work - Tim Gow's Pegasus BA-6s

Over at the Megablitz blog Tim has posted up a couple of nicely done 1/72 Pegasus BA-6 Soviet armoured cars...

I'm very interested in these particular models as I intend to add a pair of these to my Finnish army project. Finland captured a plethora of Soviet armoured cars and apparently put them to good use. They knew the BA-6 as the BAF B, they used about 10 of the dozens they captured and also had the later BA-10 (BAF C) heavy armoured car.

Useful reference: Jaeger Platoon Net - Finnish Army 1918-1945

Nip over to Megablitz and take a gander.

Valiant resin ready-to-roll models

I was very pleased with the Valiant V3000 resin model I received over Christmas and so I ordered a couple more to play about with. I bought the Fiat 626 truck and the Citroen light truck...

As with the V3000 one-piece resin model I intend to chop these models up in order to combine them with some plastic kits so that they fit in with my current project. While it does seem a shame to hack up these lovely models they do offer me a relatively cheap way to make some hard to get hold of vehicles that I need for my Finnish army.

If I make another war game army I would be very happy to use these Valiant ready-to-roll models, they are not only nice looking but they are an easy way to put together a fleet of vehicles quickly.

I particularly like the Fiat 626, it's a pretty hefty block of resin! The detail is really nice considering it's a one-piece moulding...

This will be the basis of my Volvo B12 radio truck build...Hopefully. I will use the cab of the Fiat and build the chassis and back of the bus from plasticard. The Citroen is not quite as nicely done as the Fiat but still isn't bad for just £5.95...

In this case I simply want to add the bonnet to a cheap plastic kit of the Soviet Gaz 5 to add a bit of variety to my Finnish army vehicle fleet. Again, it might seem a bit of a waste but what can I say...I like to tinker!

As with the V3000 I bought these from the Rapid Fire! UK store, but they were marked as being from Valiant Miniatures.