Sd.Kfz.10 tows for German Anti-tank Guns

Having bought the Plastic Soldier box of 15mm German Pak 40 with Raupenschlepper tractor, I belatedly discovered that the appealingly eccentric looking tracked tow vehicles were predominantly used on the Eastern Front. Although a few seem to have appeared in Normandy. I thought it would be better to have the more common Sd.Kfz.10 half tracks as my tow vehicles. 

At that time, the only option was from Skytrex so I bought two of these. The body, wheels and tracks are cast in one piece so there are inevitable compromises with undercuts. Perhaps the moulds are getting a bit tired because my copies suffered a bit from rough excess metal between the track wheels and some mismatch along the mould join. Overall though I think it gives a reasonable representation of the vehicle.

One of the issues with Wargames open-topped vehicles is whether to make them empty, with only the driver, fully-occupied or double up and do a set of both. Another option, where applicable, would be to have the canvas roof up but that seems odd in action and suggests the weather is one thing whilst everything else on the table suggests something else. 

For A/T tows, I tend to think they are mostly there as 'set-dressing' for deployed guns so empty or with just the driver is OK - maybe best with a driver so they don't look like ghost vehicles on the rare occasions they do need to move the guns. For variety, one of the drivers is from the kit, whilst the other is from Peter Pig. I also added a roll of canvas to one vehicle to break things up a bit - I wish now that I'd added more stowage and removed the moulded on roll of barbed wire from the back, having read that these were not fitted to later vehicles.

These are the first German vehicles I have painted using Mig Jimenez Ammo paint. I'm impressed so far - I like that they come ready-thinned to use with brush or airbrush and also that my local model shop in Coventry, The Paint Rack, stocks them. I'm also really impressed that common colours, like Dunkelgelb, come with a full range of colour-modulating shades, saving me the trouble of mixing up all the varieties and finding empty dropper bottles to store them in.

These are also the first models where I have tried to free-hand airbrush a soft-edged camouflage. Although I have a fine 0.2mm nozzle and needle on my airbrush, it all looks a bit fuzzy and oversized but the general effect is OK. I'm not sure whether the answer is more practice or to go for hard-edged masks in future.

A third first is that I applied some dust and mud effects to the lower parts of the model. Again I used Mig Jimenez Ammo, trying to follow the how-to guides from Heresy Brush. I don't think this is entirely successful. It is easy when camouflaging and weathering these small models to lose definition and make everything blend in too much. Again more practice is probably the answer but I might dial it back a bit in future.

German battalion HQ

 

For a variety of reasons, I've not managed to make much progress on my Wargames projects for some time. However, back on the horse now and here is the first thing to actually complete - an HQ base for my German infantry battalion in Normandy. 

This uses the field kitchen that I made last summer, along with some Peter Pig figures arranged around a table and Torn.Fu.d2 radio, both scratch-built.

I've always been impressed by the way some Wargames modellers try to tell a story through these vignette-type bases and have tried to do this a little of that with this base. I'm not sure whether the three officers are arguing over why their map has a river whilst the table they are fighting over clearly doesn't or the poor quality of their ersatz coffee but I'm certain the radio operator wishes they'd do it with their indoor voices so he could hear what the forward company commander is trying to say.

'O' Group has a concept of HQ orders that can be saved to improve your chance of gaining the initiative at the start of the next turn or spent as additional actions within the current turn. This requires the use of a die on or beside each side's battalion HQ to keep track of them. I don't really like having a rather artificial looking square die holder on bases, and didn't include one for the British, but I must admit to having sometimes forgotten that it was a special die, picked it up and rolled it then not being 100% sure how many HQ orders I had in hand! 

After some thought, I've made a couple of extra die-holder bases that I will* magnetically attach to my HQ bases. It looks a bit awkward and I'm not 100% convinced but I'll give this a try. 

* When I can remember where I've put some offcuts of steel paper to create the link - the underneath of the bases are already magnetised.