Anti-Tank Guns

German anti-tank company.

Four guns per platoon.

Three platoons for a company.

Mixed unit, late war.

Heavy machine guns for close defense.

WOTW

I am trying to compile a few troops for the US Army in 1898.

They can fight the Martian Invasion as per War of the Worlds.

More miscellaneous troops that have been brought back into service.

The horses are from Eagle Games.

These guys will also work for civilian hunters  and State Militia for the First World War.

Civilians

More bits and pieces of troops going back together in some way.

These guys are becoming civilians of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

WWII British pants, and upper body from a pioneer!

The upper body is a violin player, I use that guy's upper body frequently.  This lower body is one of several surplus!

New hats, new heads, new bodies!

German Allies

I am trying to put together small units of all the Allies the Germans had in WWII.

Sometimes it's easy to simply buy a box of Italian troops, or Hungarian troops.

Frequently these small units would operate mostly in their own countries.

Sometimes they would operate on the Eastern Front.

Sometimes they would operate in other places, such as Berlin at the end.

Hobby News

Randy at Fidelis Models tells me he has a big crop of Roco in and that it is selling off fast. If you are interested in Roco HO scale plastic military vehicles, then this could be a bargain for you. He also has a massive collection of Trident civilian HO scale trucks. No two trucks are the same. Most are police and fire department, but many are FEDEX and other civilian companies. He is offering them at a huge discount too.

Fidelis Models has been around for over 10 years, and does a great job. Randy makes his own line of resin HO scale vehicles and sells a huge selection of HO military and civilian vehicles. He tells me he has big plans for expansion in the coming months.

http://www.fidelismodels.com/mm5/

Randy has also upgraded his website to include "content." He has had several noted authors write short articles and reviews for his customers. You may what to check that out when you visit his website.

Larry Pegasus has told me that his new KV tank kits not only have two tanks per box but two different turrets per tank kit. The KV I and II tanks went through several modifications and rather than make two kits of each, he simply gives you both turrets. This is super good news because the KV turrets were also used on railway trains as mobile artillery. So you can build your tank and then scratch build and armored train with little additional work.

The sort version would be to take a gondola car, plate it over with a thick sheet of styrene, and then put a KV turret at each end. Not exactly prototypical, but it would work in a wargame. I think these turrets were also used on river monitors. I know they used T-34 turrets and I think KV turrets too, maybe someone can confirm or deny that rumor on the comments section.

HaT Industrie has announced 15 mm plastic figures. This will be a first for them in that scale and follows on the heels of their recent announcement to make 28 mm figures too. HaT is trying to be innovative despite poor economic conditions. I wish them well in these new plans.

German PAK 40 by HaT

You can see the little troops huddled up against the bottom of the box waiting for a Roco T-34/76 to come around the corner no doubt. HaT makes a series of four WWII German artillery pieces. I have three of them so far and will discuss this one now.

The other recent PAK 75 kit is this yellow one from Italeri. The Italeri one is rather chunky in comparison, but it's detail is more fine and more subtle. The Italeri one has a wheel hub that is closed unlike the HaT one that has an open wheel hub. The Italeri one looks better close up, but the HaT one looks better from a distance.

Seen from the side, you can see the HaT gun is a bit lower in silhouette.

Here is the HaT WWII German Pak36(r) ATG alongside the PAK 40. Both of these are pretty big guns.

The HaT PAK 40 comes in a set of four, with four crewmen per gun. Here seen with a couple extra HaT military police for a pointing guy and a man with binoculars. These are IMEX trees. The muzzle break on the HaT gun is not fully open, but it would not be too hard to clear out. The Italeri one has an open muzzle break. The main differences are this: Italeri has a six man crew per gun and two guns in a set that costs about $10. The Hat Set has four guns with crews for about $8.50. This is a very common gun for WWII Germans, and both sets are good. The HaT set is perfectly fine for wargaming, the Italeri set has a slightly better gun, but costs over twice as much. If I wanted a really nice gun, I would not get the Italeri gun, I would buy a real styrene kit of a PAK 40, they are pretty common.

HaT PAK 40 75mm ATG

HaT PAK 40 75mm gun lurking inside an anti-tank gun position made by Bresica Miniatures.

Bigtoons, not just Pontoons

HaT makes this nice model of a Napoleonic Pontoon Bridge set. This is a pre-production one in purple. The real ones should be in stores any second now.

This HaT WWII German soldier in the pontoon and next to the HO scale Opel Blitz truck shows the size of these. I have been using Imex Conestoga Wagons wheels and undercarriages and horses for other wagons, but that has left me with the wagon boxes and canopy.

I figure the HaT pontoon is a bit small for running Tiger tanks over, so I think I may use the Conestoga Wagon boxes to make giant size pontoons for my WWII German heavy tank units.

Other than some simple planning I have done nothing to forward this project, but it has been added to the list of things to do. I also have to wait until the HaT pontoon bridges are available.

I try not to throw anything away that is left over after a conversion project, the best ones are those were everything from all the kits involved is used up. I am thinking the extra HaT pontoons will be used as boats, barges, rafts and such.

Still More Cossack Wagons Again

This is a HaT Napoleonic Cossack with a head swap, and new weapon. Rather than a lance he has an MP 40 machine pistol. Quite an upgrade in weaponry. He is on a HaT French Napoleonic horse from their Limber set.

This horse rider is the same figure as before, but no head swap and he has a panzerfaust anti-tank rocket launcher. No wonder Napoleon had such a hard time in Russia!

These are more of the wagons that started off as baby cribs. I got them 12 for a dollar at a bridal party store. When shopping, think about other uses you can have for ordinary things you see every day. Some items like the columns used to hold up cakes are obvious for making buildings but others like this crib are a pretty good start for a traditional wagon. Wheels are from HaT wagons. I did two of these in gray with gold trim and two in green with steel trim.

I chose steel rather than silver because it makes it appear a bit more tarnished and subdued. These are my platoon wagons for my Christian and Muslim Cossack companies. Each company has a small wagon and a large wagon. I wanted to use traditional looking wagons for the platoon wagon because it gives more flavor to the unit. I could have just used regular German supply wagons but it would not have made the unit as interesting visually as these do for it. I painted the one set of horses black and the other set brown to further differentiate these two units from each other. One will be flocked on a green base and the second on a brown base.

I like to use different ways to denote wargame units without having to resort to simply writing a tag and putting it on the base. The use of color of animals, troops, vehicles and accessories makes an easy and attractive method of bringing units together. If I was more interested in painting details it would be even easier.

Cossack Field Forge

Ingo Germany constructed a conversion of the HaT Napoleonic French Field Forge into a smaller version. I liked his conversion so much that I made a similar one for my WWII German Cossacks.

I used the Field Forge and cut down the chassis to make it shorter. I removed the front axle and made it a one horse wagon. I put a HaT Cossack on the back of the horse. This wagon will allow this unit to repair damaged wagons. Part of my wargaming rules require maintenance equipment to repair vehicles.

For the smithy, I cut off his head and used a head from a HaT Cossack mounted figure. The assistant I left the same.

The HaT WWII German military police officers makes a nice horse holder. I mounted the entire wagon and horse on a bit to Evergreen Plastic sheet styrene.

My WWII Germans are getting two different Cossacks hosts, one is Orthodox Christian and the second host is Muslim. Since the Soviet Union was an atheist nation they oppressed all religious persons but the Germans allowed both Christian and Muslim groups to join their armies. These gray troops will join my Islam host. These two hosts will form my Cossack regiment.