Danish Centurions - Work-In-Progress - Part 5

Well my plan to have these finished about a week ago got interrupted by real life, Battlegroup: NORTHAG and plain old end-of-financial-year exhaustion.  So things have not progressed as quickly as I hoped, but over the weekend I made some progress.

First thing you'll notice is that I'm back to 3 tanks.  I followed the advice of Rolf from a week or two back, and covered the tacky tracks with undiluted PVA glue (and then threw away the brush!).  I left it to dry for 24 hours and lo and behold, it was no longer sticky!  Yah!  So the Centurion on the left is the one I put to one side previously, but is now returned to the fold.

The central tank is the Britannia one.  It comes with the driver hatch open and crew figure molded in as part of the resin tank.  The driver was missing most of his head so I loped it off long ago.  I decided to replaced it with a AB Figures head (to match the rest of the crew), but after chopping up the AB figure and cleaning up the head it just didn't look right.  So I decided that I needed to clean out the whole driver and put in a new Britannia 1/2 figure.  So I did that, then decided he would look out of place and decided to do another AB half figure.

So long story short, once I stopped dithering I started work on all the crew figures, which should be ready for the next photo.  Before I add them I have to decide on decals, then do the weathering, and then add the crew.

So maybe next week... who knows... obviously not me!

Thanks

Richard

Best News Ever

Best news ever!!!!  Battlegroup NORTHAG is coming!!!

This was announced last night (my time) on the PSC Facebook site along with PSC's standard website.  On the website is says this:

I have given the go ahead to finish off Battlegroup Northag - a cold war version of our popular Battlegroup WW2 rules system. We have a "work in progress" set of rules and army lists, the basis of which has very kindly provided  by some Battlegroup enthusiasts.


I don't want to brag, but I'm relatively sure the "work-in-progress" set of rules and army lists mentioned here by Will Townsend are the ones I've been working on for a while now and supplied to Warwick Kinrade and Piers Brand earlier this year (and the rules again on Friday my time - houre before the announcement when another copy was requested).  At the very least, my rules and lists have contributed to their WIP set of rules and lists.  Apart from the rules I've supplied them over a dozen army lists.  Anyway I'm more than a little chuffed by that and hope to be involved into the future.

Again in super positive news PSC have decided to release this:

3 x T-55 in a box! I believe it's up for pre-order now and as soon as they get 200 orders they'll start producing it.  PSC have also announced they are working on a plastic 15mm Leopard 1 kit that you'.. be able to make a huge variety of kits from.  It the 20mm T-55 kits sell well, they'll produce the Leopard 1 in 20mm as well.

So enough gushing from me... Go order your 20mm T-55 box sets now!!!

Thanks

Richard

Danish Centurions - Work-In-Progress - Part 4

Another quick update as we are closing in on the finish line with these 2 Centurions.  Last night I was able to get a fair bit of work done (not that you can really tell in the photos...) with several dry-brush coats over the light green:

Then I had a little time left so started to paint the first colour on the cam nets on both, and the ammo cans and Jerry cans on the Britannia Centurion.

So hopefully these two will be finished over the weekend and ten I just have to deal with the "Tacky Tracked Beast from Hell" to finish off the platoon.

Thanks

Richard

Danish Centurions - Work-In-Progress - Part 3

Very quick update today.  Last night I black-lined 2 of the Centurions and took a quick pic:

I was trying to have these finished by Friday, but very much doubt that will be the case!

Anyhow - that's it for now.

Richard

Danish Centurions - Work-In-Progress - Part 2

Back in May 2015 I posted Part One of a Work-In-Progress for my Danish Centurions.  At the time I had made two Airfix Centurions and needed another one to make up a Platoon.  Finding a third Airfix one proved essentially impossible, so I got a Britannia Centurion instead.

I needed to adjust the Britannia Centurion slightly as it is representing an Aussie Cent in Vietnam and has two spare wheels on the front glacis.  They were carefully removed and some camo netting placed there to cover any mistakes.  The head of the driver was severely miscast and had to be loped off!  Poor chap.  Apart from that I added some S&S Centurion smoke dischargers and filled in as many holes as I could before it drove me insane.  (Still missed plenty).

I sprayed all 3 of them black a month ago or so and that's when I hit my first major (and still not resolved) problem.  One Airfix Centurion took the spray perfectly, while the tracks on the second one turned extremely tacky and went glossy and remain so to this day.  It makes it really tough to handle the tank and I'm not 100% sure what to do at this point.  So after this WIP I'll concentrate on finishing the other 2 and then turn my attention to the one that's not playing nice.

Anyway - so rather than taking my normal route of masking off some black areas and spraying, I decided to simply brush paint on the light green cam colour.  Here is how they turned out:

So that's looking OK - ready of the next few steps...  You can see the Centurion in the middle is sitting on an old Itunes card.  I didn't want it sticking to my desk and if you look closely you can see track marks on the card!  It leaves marks on you finger when you pick it up wrong as well.

So let's ignore that one for now and over the next few days, I hope we'll see progress in the other two.

Onwards and upwards

Richard

Danish M150 or Danish M113 with TOW ATGM

There appears to be some debate at present as to whether or not there was any such vehicle as the M150 or was it simply a M113 with TOW ATGM.  I don't have an opinion, although everytime I decide it's an M150, I find further evidence that it wasn't, and then more evidence that it was.

Anyway - the Danes had them and I decided to make one!  I used a S-Model M113 as the basis (as I had one spare from the rest of the platoon (2 boxes of two).  I used a Dragon TOW system (from the spectacularly useful HMMWV box sets) and both AB Figures and Elhiem for the crew.  I also used some ValueGear stowage - pretty much the same as in my previous post.

Onto the pics:

Originally I had planned on having the TOW face forwards, but once the drive and the .50 cal were in place I thought it made the front of the vehicle look to "crowded" so I decided to have it firing off to the side.  Hopefully you can see the TOW tripod legs, folded up on the rear deck.

Finally - here is a pic of the M113 Platoon and the M150 (or not):

That's it for today.

Thanks

Richard

The Mechanised Bit - Danish M113 Platoon

OK - so on with the show and onto the transports for the troops shown last week.  The Armoured Personnel Carrier of choice for the Danes was the ubiquitous M113A1.  I've chosen to use the excellent S-Models M113 and have added some bits and pieces of stowage primarily from Value Gear and other model kits.  Figures are all AB Figures - British Tank Crew in Pixie Suits.

Here is the Platoon Commanders track:

1st Squad's Track:

2nd Squad's Track:

Now the whole platoon:

So there they are.  Ready to roll out and take on some Soviets...

Thanks for looking

Richard