Show us yer stuff!

[jb]

Thanks ,Ritter.
Thanks MkI ( I think 12 inches tall,no wonder I thought those GI Joes were store manicans!) Nice job on the Russkies

[ferret701]

I have just updated my website (www.microarmormayhem.com) with a bunch of new models. Here are some -- 130mm M46 guns from GHQ, along with GHQ Soviet WWII artillerymen, who do just fine with modern guns:



Here is the towed version of the gun with its prime mover:



I tried to make the bases more interesting by coating them with texturing medium (which has the advantage of costing $1.59). I consider the bases works in progress.

This update also includes a slew of USMC vehicles, some Dutch, Belgians, UK, and Soviets (plus other I no doubt have forgotten about).

Pat Callahan

[Ben]

Hi there!

As I am mainly after moderns, have to say these models look very cool!!

Cheers Ben

[Vorster]

Pat that is some collection you have going. Your site also serves as a bit of a buying refernce and lets not forget the super models. Great work.

[ferret701]

Thanks, guys. I am always trying to add new models. Up next are: GHQ's HEMTT, FV432 w/Cymbeline radar, M198 howitzers towed and deployed, an F-4 in FRG markings, a bunch of differnt GHQ LAV variants to complement the CinC ones already there, Leo 1A3s converted to Danish Leo 1DKs, plus (hopefully) an in-depth piece on the now-defunct company In Service Miniatures.

[Mk 1]

As I am mainly after moderns, have to say these models look very cool!!

Moderns? Why didn't you say so?


Some of my modern French forces. Leclercs are GHQ. Various trucks are "brand-X", as GHQ doesn't make any ...

Oh, and how can you have "moderns" without a traffic jam?


Showed these in a thread some time back on civvies. But that thread is long gone. Thought I might tuck 'em in here for those who want to consider some of the complexities of fighting in modern urban scenarios.

[Ben]

Cool!!

Thanks a lot Mk.1!!
I remember the nice civilians, you have shown them before didn't you?

Cheers Ben

[HMSDiomede]

Lovely shade of baby blue on that GHQ Bedford QLR radio van in the lower right of the bottom picture. Do I detect a couple of GAZ-AA in the shot as well? But where did the rest of the lot come from? Especially the cute little Sikorsky S-55 helicopter.

David

[Mk 1]

Lovely shade of baby blue on that GHQ Bedford QLR radio van in the lower right of the bottom picture.

Shhhh! Don't say that's a Bedford QLR! I tell all my gaming buddies it's an Israeli Egged Bus!

...the cute little Sikorsky S-55 helicopter.

SHHHH! Don't say that's a Sikorsky S-55! I tell all my gaming buddies it's a Mil Mi-4 ... in Aeroflot colors! After all, the S-55 had a 3-blade prop, and a fillet under the tailboom. (Such SIMPLE mods!)

And as to where it came from ... it came from a 1/350 scale warship model I acquired about 20 years ago. Couldn't really help anyone find another ...

Do I detect a couple of GAZ-AA in the shot as well? But where did the rest of the lot come from?

Among the items in the picture ...

GAZ-AAs. Several. Skytrex trucks acquired in the late '70s. Quality is so poor that I keep them in a zip-lock bag and consider them to be "trucks by the pound". I have since replaced them with GHQ GAZ and ZIS trucks for my actual WW2 Soviet forces. But I painted a few up as civvies to start the whole collection off.

(Added on edit: The GAZ-AA truck is one of the best to chose for any WW2 civvies one wants to make. It was a license-built Ford Model A truck, which was one of the most common trucks in civilian service around the world in the 1930s)

I have also used several other vehicles as the basis for civvy conversions:

Trucks in general: Almost every time I buy military trucks, I take one out of the set and paint it up as a civvy. I find this works well with all but the MOST recognizable military trucks (like the US GMC "deuce-and-a-half"). If the model makes it possible, I'll leave off the canvas covers, and often fill the cargo bed with something. When that's not possible, I'll often file the top and sides of the canvas cover to be smooth and flat, and fill the opening in the back (if it's there) with putty, so that it resembles a civvy panel truck. So you'll see a variety of GAZ and ZIL trucks, as well as more Bedfords of various makes.

UAZ-469s: Several. Makes a good starting point for civvy conversions. Cut off the spare tire, and with a little different painting you have a civvy hatchback (like the Police car near the 'copter). Add some putty and you have a compact sedan. All that I bought were from UK vendors, as GHQ didn't yet offer them when I was buying.

Brand-C jeeps: The other major U.S. vendor makes jeeps that have such an ugly canvas top that, with it, they are unusable. So again, razor off the spare wheel, hit it with putty (to fill in the open doors and to extend the hood over the front fenders) and you have a hatchback. Add putty on the back to make a sedan. An almost-orange taxi made this way is just about the enter the round-about.

UAZ van: Several. From a UK supplier, not yet in the GHQ catalog. Useful as a civvy van as-is, with a different paint job.

BA-10: Back to some of my old "oy, they're too ugly to use" Skytrex models. Razored / filed off the turrets, and the third axle/roadwheels, applied generous amounts of putty, and wound up with several diffrerent civvy vehicles. For example the blue SUV with the white roof in the round-about, and the red and white van that has just exited the round-about.

Bofors Quad: Another Skytrex "too ugly" model of the Quad chassis mounting a 40mm Bofors. Snipped off the guns and used as the basis for early kit-bashed M6 TDs (since replaced by "Brand-C"), and puttied up the chassis for a variety of one-off vehicles.

Pick-up trucks were ... I think from a UK vendor? Part of their modern US Army collection. Could also be done with GHQ pick-up "Technicals", but they weren't yet available when I bought these.

Finally ... one of the UK vendors does offer a set of civvy cars. You get a couple Mercedes, a couple Volvos, and somebody's station-wagon in the set. Mostly late-70s models.

[HMSDiomede]

Shhhh! Don't say that's a Bedford QLR! I tell all my gaming buddies it's an Israeli Egged Bus!
SHHHH! Don't say that's a Sikorsky S-55! I tell all my gaming buddies it's a Mil Mi-4 ... in Aeroflot colors! After all, the S-55 had a 3-blade prop, and a fillet under the tailboom. (Such SIMPLE mods!)

Sorry man, didn't mean to make you lose face or anything

Trucks in general: Almost every time I buy military trucks, I take one out of the set and paint it up as a civvy. I find this works well with all but the MOST recognizable military trucks (like the US GMC "deuce-and-a-half"). If the model makes it possible, I'll leave off the canvas covers, and often fill the cargo bed with something. When that's not possible, I'll often file the sides of the canvas cover to be smooth and flat, and fill the opening in the back (if it's there) with putty, so that it resembles a civvy panel truck. So you'll see a variety of GAZ and ZIL trucks, as well as more Bedfords.

A very reasonable practice. Ex-military vehicles in civvy paint were a very common sight in post-war Europe. Lots of surplus vehicles were provided to civilian users as foreign aid. I kind of wonder how common ex-Soviet trucks are today with Eastern European civilian users. Cheap and readily available?

UAZ-469s: Several. Makes a good starting point for civvy conversions. Cut off the spare tire, and with a little different painting you have a civvy hatchback (like the Police car near the 'copter). Add some putty and you have a compact sedan. All that I bought were from UK vendors, as GHQ didn't yet offer them when I was buying.

Brand-C jeeps: The other major U.S. vendor makes jeeps that have such an ugly canvas top that, with it, they are unusable. So again, razor off the spare wheel, hit it with putty (to fill in the open doors and to extend the hood over the front fenders) and you have a hatchback. Add putty on the back to make a sedan. An almost-orange taxi made this way is just about the enter the round-about.

Neat conversions. And here I was wondering where you had gotten those Citroen sedans from!

BA-10: Back to some of my old "oy, they're too ugly to use" Skytrex models. Razored / filed off the turrets, and the third axle/roadwheels, applied generous amounts of putty, and wound up with several diffrerent civvy vehicles. For example the blue SUV with the white roof in the round-about, and the red and white van that has just exited the round-about.

Wow, I'm impressed. I never would have guessed they started life as BA-10's.

Bofors Quad: Another Skytrex "too ugly" model of the Quad chassis mounting a 40mm Bofors. Snipped off the guns and used as the basis for early kit-bashed M6 TDs (since replaced by "Brand-C"), and puttied up the chassis for a variety of one-off vehicles.

As per my earlier remark about postwar surplus vehicles. Cool!!!!!
Thanks, Mk.1

David

[Mk 1]

Well, it IS fun to post after all. And I do so love seeing everyone else's work ... so I dragged out the camera this morning and took a few more pics.
First: There has been an interesting discussion on T19 halftrack SPHs on Thomas' TO&E group, so I took some pictures of my T19s for US forces in Tunisia:





While I had 'em out, I put 'em into my artillery emplacements for a shot or two:


(You can see and read about the emplacements in the scratch-building thread.)

As I was playing with the emplacements, I remembered that I had traded a couple to Thunder for, among other things, some VT-34 recovery vehicles. So ... here is a Soviet recovery section:





Also while shooting this I recalled how tough it was to get the crew figure into the BA-64. Between that and the T19s, I got to pondering my current fetish for putting crewmen in my open-toped vehicles. That brought back to mind the first units I did that with ... my M20 Scout Cars.

So here you see a scouting section of a US TD unit:





Hope you enjoy!

[ShortRound70]

Mk 1:

Great pics. & great work. I especially appreciate the T-19's. My father served in them in North Africa. About the emplacement, is it laid out to any particular ground scale for gaming? It has a lot of possibilities.

[jb]

Come on MK1..who are you trying to fool? That guys wrist watch is digital! They of course were not out then

[Mk 1]

Great pics. & great work.

You flatter me.

I especially appreciate the T-19's. My father served in them in North Africa.

Tunisia is one of the areas I focus on. Such an interesting campaign in so many ways ... so many forces involved (US, Brit, French, Italian and German), and such an amazing variety of unit types: On the US side, not just T-19s, but T-30s, M3 and M6 TDs, M3 Scout Cars, M3 Lee Mediums, as well as the more mundane M4 Shermans and M5 Stuarts; and then one finds French S-35s, Italian M13/40s and Semoventes, British Crusader MkIIIs, Valentines, Churchills, and of course German Mk IIIs, Mk IVs (D, F1, F2, and G) and even the occasional TIGER! How could an armored collector NOT love it?

And yet it is so often ignored in favor of ETO.

About the emplacement, is it laid out to any particular ground scale for gaming? It has a lot of possibilities.

Not done to any particular ground scale. I was really trying to make it both visually appealing and "tight" enough for condensed scales. I had to work really hard to keep it under 5 inches wide. So if a 1:2000 scale is used, it winds up being almost a Km wide. My preferred ground scale, 1:1000, makes it about 450m wide.

Condensed ground scales make entrenchments and other forms of emplacements particularly difficult to implement. I wind up making trenches that are impossibly small compared to the size of a based squad, and yet are also too big for a platoon's frontage.

Witness this trenchwork defended by Italian infantry, from a Tunisia game last summer:

The trenchwork was new at that time. I have since painted and flocked it, and it looks reasonably nice. But I'm left fealing the trenches and firing positions are too small, yet the total is too big!

I have another trenchwork I did, with a design derived from a lecture I attended on infantry combat on the eastern front. I really like it, but again the trenches look too small for the model scale, yet the total covers too large of a frontage for a platoon. Arrgh!

[jtompk99]

Some east front stuff. Just wanted to give posting a try. Seem a bit yellow. I definetly need photography lessons of some sort. Hope you like.

StuG III E and Kubelwagon




T34/85 Company



Toodles, -JT