HMGS / Pacific Southwest

Archive for the ‘Miniatures’ Category

That’s right, with these five newest models, I have increased my small scale armor collection to 579 completed models.

Here they are for your perusal:

This first one is Dragon’s 1/72 scale US Marine AAV7R recovery vehicle. I did it in 3-tone camo, and used some extra decals from another AAV kit to give it something extra. That makes this inaccurate, but hey; it’s mine and it looks good!

This next one is another 1/72 scale Dragon AAV. I made this one in Italian markings for my Italian Army:

Now on to some more trucks I built. I’ve been building all these trucks because I found a whole mess of them in my stash; at least 25 or so of various makes, models and countries. I decided it was time to get them built. So, here is the first one I got completed in this last week. This is my 1/72 scale IBG Bedford QLT Troop Transport:

These next two are from Revell of Germany. These are two 1/72 scale modern German General Purpose transport trucks. This first one is the MAN 7-ton GP truck:

This last one is the MAN 10-ton GP truck:

As you can see from the two pics, the crane does rise and lower. I also added the black thread to simulate cable too.

So, those are my latest models finished so far. I think now I’m going to go back and see what I started at the beginning of the year and haven’t finished yet and get them all done. It’s time to start clearing the bench for the coming New Year….

Meanwhile, thanks all for looking in, comments are always welcome.

Last Monday we were all sitting around admiring RJ’s excellent little gunboat that he had made for the Khartoum battle:

Meanwhile we were trying to decide how to get the Nile to look like the Nile and be worthy of the tabletop battle for Khartoum. What we were using was a brown tape that; while pretty accurate in color, looked too much like a road. Suddenly, RJ himself came up with a brilliant idea.

We got some rope and laid it out on the underside of the tabletop terrain cloth:

Once we’d shifted the rope around to get the best representation of what we wanted, we taped it into place and then flipped the terrain cloth. The Nile was now a channel passing down the battlefield:

Yes, it is a little hard to see in this pic, but the effect was excellent.

Now what to do….

Blue carpet was then purchased and cut into long sections that fit right into the two banks on each side of the channel. Then we shot some green and brown paint over the carpet in a light spray, simulating a green-brown river.

And the Nile was flowing free!

We continued to work on the tabletop, getting it ready for the opening of the Muzeo exhibit. Khartoum got a ‘paved’ section that was cut from the carpet as well, allowing us to keep the city in the same size and shape we wanted for maximum effect:

Frank Patterson also finished up a couple of his paddlesteamers that will be used by Her Majesty’s troops on the Nile:

Forgive the use of Civil War troops here; we were using them as templates to insure that the stands of the Mahdi’s force and Her Majesty’s troops would fit on the boats properly. Both the Mahdi’s forces and Her Majesty’s troops are based the same as these Civil War troops.

Here is a barge he also did, simply by leaving the upper cabin and deck off the boat. It’s all loaded with more troops for the besieged city of Khartoum:

So now you all have a sneak preview of what the Khartoum battlefield will look like:

So, now that you’ve seen all this, we at St. Crispin’s do hope to see all of you stopping buy to see the battle. Who knows? You may even make or re-make History should you decide to take command of one or the other of the forces vying for control of the lower Nile….

For those who don’t know, The St. Crispin’s Irregulars will be putting on a Campaign at the Anaheim Muzeo in support of the Muzeo’s Victorian Era exhibit. The battle will be Khartoum in the late 1800′s and the game will be a strategic one to see if this time the British get their reinforcements to Khartoum on time.

What will be instrumental in getting Her Majesty’s troops to the city of Khartoum will be some steam-powered river paddle wheelers at Medina. Yesterday, Frank Patterson brought in his materials and continued construction on the first of four paddle steamers that will be used in the game. Here they are:

Frank Patterson's Ingenious Steam Engine.

Frank Patterson's First Paddle steamer with Three More Awaiting Completion