April 24, 2022
When the week opened, I actually thought I was going to be turning my attention to painting the Italians for my 15mm WW2 North Africa collection. I went out to the shed to begin organizing the Italians in preparation for painting them, and I discovered that I still had several packs of Flames of War German motorcyclists that I had forgotten about. By mid- week I had those done and decided to paint the one remaining Kubelwagen that I hadn’t yet gotten around to. I decided to do it empty with the passenger door open. That meant that I had to carve out the existing passenger door and replace it with an Evergreen plastic door. I also added a steering wheel made of Evergreen plastic. With all of the above complete, only 12 German prime movers remained… six SdKfz 10s and six SdKfz 11s, but I’m still waiting to get their Peter Pig drivers… Brookhurst Hobbies has them on order.
I ended the workbench week painting four Lancia Italian trucks for my 15mm North Africa collection. Two of these are Flames of War resin from the days when Flames of War was doing resin (rather than plastic) and the vehicles were sold in blister packs not box sets. Since I only had 8 of these (two per pack), I was going to supplement them with Lancia trucks by Peter Pig, but to my surprise the Peter Pig are significantly bigger than the Flames of War Lancia trucks and they cost about $11 each which is about twice what the Flames of War versions cost, so I decided to try the Lancia trucks by Gaming Models. They are resin. They are not of the quality of either the Flames of War or the Peter Pig, but they are $5 each and the same size as the Flames of War. With a little work they can be made to look very compatible with the Flames of War versions, and they are available. In the attached picture the Gaming Models are on the left and the Flames of War are on the right. In size the only noticeable difference comes from the fact that the Flames of War versions are on bases and the Gaming Models are not.
April 17, 2022
I began the week building and painting the last of my Plastic Soldier Company quads. Unlike last week’s, these will not be in the service of the Germans.
I followed those with a second pack of Peter Pig Germans surrendering.
I next did a battery of four British 25 pdr. field guns in use by the Germans. By the time of the Gazala battle in 1942 the Germans were actually using more captured 25 pdr. field guns than they were their own 105mm field guns.
I’ve seen photos of North African civilians mounted on camels and donkeys amidst the comings and goings of the British, Germans, and Italians so I decided to paint six camel-mounted North African civilians that I’ll probably use as casual observers of German, British, and Italian supply convoys.
On Saturday at the swap meet I found a resin paper weight in the form of a sailboat. It was a dollar, and it was perfectly sized for 28mm. I added a plastic O scale figure at the tiller and gave it a new paint job.
April 10, 2022
This workbench week was completely devoted to painting 15mm Germans for my North Africa collection. I began with German mortar teams and moved on to painting German command figures including several HQ vignettes. With those done I did a team of Peter Pig German engineers with mines and mine detection equipment, a German medical unit, and German infantry surrendering. The medical unit required the use of Peter Pig WW1 figures as wounded on stretchers and stretcher bearers. I used Peter Pig German WW2 heads to give the stretcher bearers and medic a German WW2 appearance.
April 3, 2022
The workbench week opened with adding German crosses (decals) to four Morris Quads that will be used in German service during the Gazala Battle of 1942.
I then turned my attention to painting German infantry. By midweek I had 63 figures completed (60 Command Decision and 3 Peter Pig/lunching).
It is likely that anyone who has done any reading about the early phase of the war in North Africa during WW2 is aware of the Australian use of captured Italian 11/39 tanks during the British assault on Tobruk. And General O’Conner relied on captured Italian trucks to keep his campaign supplied. The Afrika Korps made extensive use of captured British equipment during the fighting in North Africa. Given that, it seemed likely to me that the Italians would have made use of captured British equipment as well, though I have found little or no information about that beyond a picture here or there of a captured British truck. Consequently, I was happy to find a picture/drawing of a British Mk VIb painted for use by the Italian army. It retained its caunter painter scheme, but the turret was dramatically painted in the colors of the Italian flag. Since I did not have a Mk VIb to spare, I decided to do two British A9s in that paint scheme and put them into Italian service. I have also come across a photo of an A10 done in that same scheme.
With those done, I returned to painting German infantry. This was a remarkable figure-painting week. I believe it is the first time I have ever painted more than 100 figures in a single week… 115.
