12 January 2015

British 105mm L118 Light Field Gun and Crew

Second post of the day... what's happening to me!!!  Crazy times indeed...

Anyway - I've just finished 2 lovely little Airfix 105mm L118 Light Field Guns along with some Elhiem crew and I thought you might like a look see:

Number One Gun




Number Two Gun



Gun Battery








So there you have it.  Pretty happy with that actually.  A nice little unit to support either my Royal Marines, Para's or even some UKMF infantry.

Thanks and have fun

Richard













Mountain & Arctic Warfare Cadre: 1985 Documentary

In my swanning about on the internet recently looking for stuff about fighting in Norway, I stumbled across this set of 30 odd minutes documentaries from 1985, following a bunch of blokes as they try to become Mountain Leaders in the Royal Marine Mountain & Arctic Warfare Cadre.  I've watched several already and have found them very enjoyable - and I've even changed how I was painting my Royal Marines as a result - so I thought I would share:















Hope you enjoy!

Richard



 


08 January 2015

The beginnings of yet another little side project... Airfix Saracen!

A few years back I bought a stash of Cold War model goodness from a mate of mine - some of it made up and painted - some of it unbuilt kits.  There were a few odds and sods in it that didn't really fit with my plans at the time and they were basically left in a box and largely forgotten about.

Over the last year or so I've had this little idea formenting in my mind, and over the Christmas break I dug out the box and found this old Airfix kit - and for a change of pace I put it together and painted it.





Obviously I fiddled with the lighting or the camera half way through shooting those pics.

Dynamo little kit - goes together like a dream, options to make 3 variants (from memory) and it paints up very nicely.  I wanted it to look old and a bit un-loved so decided to try a bit of "chipping" with make-up sponges to see how it looked and am quite happy with what I achieved.

The idea behind this is that with the increasing tensions the British Government has begun activating its Territorial units and has decided that it needs to increase security around some critical infrastructure.  In order to beef up that security, and provide a bit more mobility to UKLF territorial units defending these sites, they have taken a few old "armoured" vehicles out of storage.

This Saracen will be patrolling the perimeter of RAF Fylingdales, a long range radar station on the North York Moors in England, along with some military police and armed police.  Who knows... that base might be the target of a Spetsnaz cell on (or even before) hostilities commence.

This project is actually going somewhere (as in progressing) so more soon

Thanks and take care

Richard



02 January 2015

Soviet Naval Infantry Vehicles - Work-in-Progress

First of what I hope will be many posts in 2015... Happy New Year everyone!

I had hoped to have had these vehicles finished for this post, but things have been pretty humid in Sydney lately and so I've had some issues with gloss and matt varnish sprays - so I'm not real happy with the state of these models, so I still consider them a work-in-progress rather than finished.

Anyway - this is where the BTR-60Pbs are up to:








I'm pretty sure I have the flags on backwards!  Oh well... Decals are from various ACE kits.

As a little surprise I also have this:




The PT-76 is a PST Models kit, which initially I found very frustrating (to an ACE Models level)...


... but once I got past the hull issues it was actaully a pretty straight forward build and looks pretty nice in my book.  Just need a few more now and some T-55s!

Once these all have had a decent couple of coats of a "good" matt varnish, I'll weather them and then they'll be finished.

So that's it for now - plenty of more Soviet stuff, plus more to come.

Happy Cold War gaming.

Richard