General Wargaming

Yesteryear...

Posted by Minuteman on 20 Feb 2021, 17:13

Harry Faversham wrote:Next up is the Panther and Universal Carrier and 6pdr. It's the happy memories these kits are conjuring up that's the best part of this project at the moment. Last time I built these two, Granny's nail scissors plus these were the tools of the trade!

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:yeah:


Wow, is that an original tube of Airfix poly cement I see before me there?!! In my day half of it used to end up on my fingers and then on the surfaces of the model! This was partly down to my lack of skill and partly down to the tube having a rather unpredictable flow rate.

I didn't have the little paint bottles there, but do remember the Airfix paint tinlets that always seemed to dry up a lot faster than the (better) Humbrol tins....but my local toyshop only stocked the Airfix paints, so Airfix it was.

Incidentally, the Universal Carrier and 6pdr kit still has a place in my Western Desert armies, which are purposefully 'small scale' (1/76) and still use quite a lot of Airfix and Matchbox models as the backbone of the armour (Airfix Matilda, Crusader, Grant and Matchbox 'Honey' tank kits).
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Posted by Harry Faversham on 03 Mar 2021, 13:09

'Yesteryear' project is coming along nicely, all the British Infantry are now based and finished...
disaster has struck with the Germans though!
There's a bunch of 'em in light grey plastic that are very bendy with a lot of flash to clean off. Another bunch in dark grey who are flash free and much more solid. Being bone idle these are the lads I selected, and away we went, to catastrophe. The 'hard' Germans are disintegrating under the brush, heads dropping off, torsos snapping in half, a couple have crumbled away to dust like Drac does on a summer's day!
Good job I have a decent reserve of 'bendy' Germans... weird though, the effects of age on plastic, innit?

:(
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Harry Faversham  England
 
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Posted by Pocho Azul on 04 Mar 2021, 23:23

That sucks! I have never heard of that happening before, sorry to hear about your decaying troops.
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Posted by Harry Faversham on 05 Mar 2021, 02:38

They're a bit like the old fart painting, bits dropping off every day!

:oops:
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Harry Faversham  England
 
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Posted by Minuteman on 05 Mar 2021, 09:13

Harry Faversham wrote:They're a bit like the old fart painting, bits dropping off every day!

:oops:


Sorry to hear of your crumbling Germans, Harry. You can't prevent the onwards march of age, even if you're a first generation Airfix OO/HO infantryman in dark grey plastic and armed with a dodgy panzerfaust.

I discovered recently two old Matchbox 1/76 Churchill AVRE/Bridgelayer kits that had a similar 'brittle' problem and are no longer fit for purpose: with track idlers falling off, brittle tracks and so on they now have severe 'mobility' issues...and the least said about their saggy and less-than-erect bridges the better!
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Posted by Harry Faversham on 15 Mar 2021, 12:54

When we were kids the bloke at the back was always the gun commander because of his stick. We thought he was Sergeant Major Saab from 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum'.
I've stuck with this tradition of 'Yesteryear', so he's got his tapes up and is still in charge of proceedings!

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:wink:
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Posted by Harry Faversham on 15 Mar 2021, 12:57

But when it comes of the two most iconic images to conjure up our battles of 'Yesteryear'...
it must be these two sinister looking contraptions, still lurking in the shrubbery, to nobble the unwary advancing on 'Twin Farms'!

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Posted by Beano Boy on 15 Mar 2021, 14:20

A very complete neat table top.BB
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Posted by Minuteman on 15 Mar 2021, 14:30

Rarely has the venerable Airfix 25pdr gun and tractor kit looked as good as this. A tribute to the Royal Artillary (note the spelling, gunner Graham). Yes, the chap with the cane is definitely the BSM.

For some time I always thought the diminutive 28mm cone bore in the first generation Airfix German Infantry set was a heavy machine gun. I was surprised when I first learnt that it had an anti-tank capability! A throw of a 4, 5 or 6 against the side armour of that Sherman at that close range should be enough to achieve a complete KO.
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Posted by Fire at Will on 15 Mar 2021, 16:11

The other fun is the character armed with a Panzerfaust, which everyone assumed was the loader for the Panzershreck

I gave my DAK 28mm squeeze bores wheels made from those little metal poppers
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9G-56t4HqhM/Uhmcd2tTNQI/AAAAAAAAIqQ/7mc1r6wk97w/s2400/DSC00780.JPG

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Posted by Minuteman on 15 Mar 2021, 16:51

Fire at Will wrote:The other fun is the character armed with a Panzerfaust, which everyone assumed was the loader for the Panzershreck

I gave my DAK 28mm squeeze bores wheels made from those little metal poppers
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9G-56t4HqhM/Uhmcd2tTNQI/AAAAAAAAIqQ/7mc1r6wk97w/s2400/DSC00780.JPG
Image


Nice conversions and paint job on these DAK cone bores and other light artillery/heavy weapons Will. Plenty of desert firepower here.

Reverting back to the Sherman-in-peril: with a panzerfaust and a panzerschreck stalking the tank in addition to the cone bore lying in ambush, did an Airfix M4 ever need close infantry support like this one does?? Where's Captain Storm and a couple of tommy-gunners Harry?? :P
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Posted by PaulRPetri on 15 Mar 2021, 17:02

Harry your table is a thing of beauty!! What a trip back in time. Those first generation german infantry manned many of my sandbox castles back in the sixties. I was very young and unknowing and I thought the one german fellow was holding a torch across his chest!
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Posted by Harry Faversham on 15 Mar 2021, 18:06

Fire at Will wrote:The other fun is the character armed with a Panzerfaust, which everyone assumed was the loader for the Panzershreck

I gave my DAK 28mm squeeze bores wheels made from those little metal poppers
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9G-56t4HqhM/Uhmcd2tTNQI/AAAAAAAAIqQ/7mc1r6wk97w/s2400/DSC00780.JPG
Image


They look tozzing Will... stick 'em in the post, you know the address!

:P
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Harry Faversham  England
 
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Posted by MABO on 15 Mar 2021, 20:32

I like the officer on the Sherman. Is he from the old Matchbox LRDC Set?
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Posted by Fire at Will on 15 Mar 2021, 21:51

Harry Faversham wrote:
They look tozzing Will... stick 'em in the post, you know the address!

:P


I'll see if I can find any more, they were in my Mother in Laws old sewing tin. :-D :-D
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Posted by Harry Faversham on 16 Mar 2021, 00:54

Thanks for the kind comments chaps, most appreciated. The hardest part is to resist dicking about with the models. My 'proper' wargame vehicles are festooned with baggage, bent and missing mudguards, figures and wotnot. To just build these Airfix models and bung 'em on a base was harder to do than I thought!
The Sherman commander is indeed from Matchbox's LRDG set, so a slight cheat there. Will, it's OK I was kidding, you've contributed, you've contributed more to this project so far than I have!
One more German Infantry Platoon and an 88 to finish and battle will be joined this coming Saturday.

:-D
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Posted by Harry Faversham on 16 Mar 2021, 13:57

Talking of gun crews the 88mm flak is nearly finished. We're talking the wacky world of 60s Airfix remember, so it came without a crew to shoot it. Wot we did back in the day was cabbage a few bods from the German Infantry set. I've stayed with tradition and done the same...
producing the worst looking, but accurate, rendering of 'yesteryear' so far!

:oops:
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Harry Faversham  England
 
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Posted by MABO on 16 Mar 2021, 18:49

I am curious about it!
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Posted by Minuteman on 16 Mar 2021, 20:20

88mm crew, this will be worth seeing!! The Mark 1 German set has two or three suitable standing figures, but for my money the one figure from this set that made it to 'Mark 2' was the kneeling gunner with the shell...which is too large for the 28mm cone bore, too small for an 88mm Flak, but about 'right' for a 50mm Pak 38.

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Inevitably, since boys will be boys, we wondered about the casualty pose and where it hurt most.

It might be a bit too advanced, but one of those awful seated passenger figures from the Sdkfz 7 88mm tractor might serve as the seated gun aimer on the 88.
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Posted by Harry Faversham on 19 Mar 2021, 01:53

MABO wrote:I am curious about it!


Absolutely dreadful, the gun didn't look too bad till the crew turned up!

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:(
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