Pete's Place

[PolishGI]

Love the Admiral Hipper class cruisers! They look great!

The LCS-2 is an interesting looking vessel for sure. I think I’ve seen that one in San Diego once on Holiday.

Who doesn’t like an Arleigh Burke ship? Is that the USS Mustin (DDG-89) boat?

Well done!

[pmskaar]

Thank you very much, Polish GI! I did paint the USS Mustin for the Arleigh Burke II class. It is Hull Number 89 which does correspond to that particular ship.

[pmskaar]

I recently finished basing some vehicles for use with the Fistful of TOWs 3 rules set. I am getting ready to run a simple solo game soon using these rules. I am working on both Cold War era and Arab-Israeli Wars forces. I have decided to start with Arab-Israeli since I am further along in having the armies and terrain ready.

One thing I do not have, terrain wise, is paved roads for my desert. I have decided to rectify this. Here are some pictures of actual roads in Libya and the Sinai that I used as a reference.

[redleg]

Great photos! Very basic looking roads without a lot of paint on them. It's not professional quality, but for quick games I often use black masking tape for paved roads. It's easy to put down and pick up.

[pmskaar]

Thank you, Redleg! I got into the Terrain Maker system just over 30 years ago and currently have a Europe Summer set, a Europe Winter set, and a Middle East-North Africa Desert set. I built my basic sets in the 1990s and into the 2000s but still occasionally add some pieces that I feel are needed. This week I am working to get paved roads for my desert terrain to represent those paved roads in the Sinai-Egypt for my Arab-Israeli War games and that can also be used for the Coast Road in Egypt-Libya-Tunisia for my WWII North Africa games.

I have plans to add some more paved roads, streams and rivers, and some bridges for my Western European terrain at some point and maybe some additional pieces for Eastern Europe-Russia as well. It seems nothing is ever totally done.

[pmskaar]

Here are some of my paved roads for my desert terrain in progress.

I used 600 Grit Wet and Dry Sandpaper glued to .020 Thickness Plastic Card as the base. I carefully measured each piece and glued the road to the hex with Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement. These pictures were taken the other day. I have add more road pieces and have muted the stark black to make it more of a dark gray using craft paint. I also need to do the terrain texturing on either side of the road so that it will look more like the dirt road in the last picture.

[Beagle]

Nicely done Pete. That’s similar to how I make roads, minus the sand paper. I don’t use hexes for my gaming, so I cut .020 styrene in lengths from 12” to 2” long, in inch wide, varying curves, paint them accordingly, and texture with either ground foam, fine ballast, or whatever is appropriate. I just make new pieces as the need arises, the lay end to end like a slot car track.

[redleg]

Hell yes! Great looking roads Pete!

[pmskaar]

Thanks very much to both of you, Bill and Redleg.

This road building is a bit of an experiment for me but so far I am happy with the results. I used 600 fine grit sandpaper which is pretty fine. I glued this to the .020 sheet styrene with 3M spray adhesive. In the future, I may delete the styrene and glue the sandpaper directly to the hex. I will try this with my Western European Roads to see how it works. I think the paper backing on the sandpaper is thick enough to allow me to glue directly to the hex.

I used a couple of dark gray craft paints to mute the color from stark black to more of a dark gray asphalt. There is lots of latitude in coloration.

I have spent a lot of time and effort on my hex terrain over the last 30 years. I know it may not be for everyone but overall I am very happy with the way it looks. I am always ready to learn new tricks and maybe occasionally invent a few of my own. It is always great to see what others are doing.

[pmskaar]

I have flocked all 22 road sections that I have built so far. I have added a thin layer of Ligonier Tan paint to the flock on 8 of them. It will take 2 to 3 more coats to get the hexes to look very close to the dirt road hexes in the picture. I am pretty happy so far.









I will need to dust off the excess flock from the hexes when I am done.

[chrisswim]

Great roads Pete. Look great with your tanks.
I gotta bomb them or shoot ‘em up.

[pmskaar]

Thanks very much, Chris! Of course I would totally expect you to bomb them and blow them up. LOL!

[pmskaar]

Here are a couple pictures of some Russian WWII vehicles I painted a few years ago. The first is a Zis-5 Fuel Truck and the second is an M4A2 Sherman in Russian markings.

[PolishGI]

Hi Pete,

The roads look great! I imagine a bit of work went into those with measurements, cuts and tacking down to the hex. Very nice.

The fuel truck and M4A2 looks sharp!

[pmskaar]

Thanks very much, Polish GI!. I did do some measuring to get these to line up properly.