WWII US Tank Destroyer Company - Priming and First Coat

I didn't get much done on Sunday except get the jeeps assembled, after that I went out to help a friend cut and lay tile in a bathroom. Or rather I cut and layed the tile and they watched!

Today I made a bit more progress. I mounted the passengers and drivers on blocks of wood to prime them and the rest I just set on the lazy susan in my airbrush booth. 

I'll probably go ahead and paint them right on these blocks as well. Although some of them are a bit closer together than I would like.

I used Vallejo's Grey airbrush primer and layed on a nice even coat.

I let that dry, something I can get away with here, with the first color from the example in the Painting Wargame Tanks book. In this case matt black (A.MIG-046) from Ammo. I gave it a couple of good shakes (it has its own agitator) and was able to pour straight into the cup of my airbrush. This stuff was ready for my airbrush straight out of the bottle and gave a nice smooth layer. The black gave excellent coverage, but that's not usually an issue. I'm letting everything set tonight and I hope to have time to lay the next color on tomorrow (maybe two).

I decided to mount everything on bottle caps to make them easier to handle. I also mounted the turrets separately from the hull.

Third Saturday - Death from Above and 15mm WWII

The CMPA is currently meeting on the third Saturday of the month at Total Escape Games so I packed up my painting bag and head north. I was a bit concerned when I got to the store and there was a line outside. I didn't know it was free RPG day. Fortunately I didn't have to wait in line to get in and was able to go straight in and setup. From our perspective the RPG players are our crowd, they are the group most likely to be considering getting into painting as they have already been introduced to miniatures, either through friends that paint, or the pre-painted miniatures produced by WoTC and Reaper. We gave out some of the club business cards and talked to a number of people who wandered by and I think we will be seeing some of them next month.

At the store I worked on the flesh tones for 54mm Death from Above piece from Hanger 18. After about 3 hours I was totally unsatisfied with the results and I'm going to strip her back down to the resin. I did manage to take a picture before I got started though. She will be displayed on one of my three sided displays although not the one she is pictured in. I'll have to build one slightly larger to really accommodate her.

I have decided that my distraction work will be done in 15mm WWII so I can try out the techniques in the "Painting Wargame Tanks" books that I received from Ammo on Friday. Rather than just pull out some tanks I decided that I would start work on my US Army and just to be different I thought it would be fun to work on a Tank Destroyer Company. I'm moving away from Flames of War though, I just find way to many things that irritate me about that game, so I'll be basing these for Test of Battle which is the 4th Edition of Command Decision. That means that I'm going to be missing some vehicles that are included in the Command Decision version of that organization that aren't included in the FOW organization.

Working from the second edition Armies of the World the TD Battalion is broken into an HQ Company, a Recon Company and three Tank Destroyer (SP) Companies.

For the HQ I need:
Command Stand
Jeep
Light Truck
Support Stand w/ Bazooka
Medium Ammo truck w/trailer and AAMG
ARV

Recon Company
Bazooka Stand
M20 Armored Car (CMD)
M8 Armored Car (RCN)
3 Jeeps w/ MG (RCN)
Jeep w/ AAMG (RCN)
Light Truck

Tank Destroyer Company (x3)
M20 Armored Car (CMD)
M8 Armored Car (RCN)
3 SP 76mm Guns (M10 or M18)

I have most of the components for the Tank Destroyer Company. I'm missing M8 (which I don't think had been released at the time I was accumulating vehicles for this). I'm also missing an M10 as I only have 2. If I wanted to build the full battalion I would use either M10s or M18s they weren't mixed within the battalion as far as I know. I'm modeling the 4th Armored Division so I'll have to figure out which vehicles they had in their TD battalion. But in the meantime I think I'll go ahead and try and acquire one more M10, 3 M8s and a Lt Truck to round out the TD Companies and the Recon Company.

I was able to get most of the assembly done last night. I still need to do the jeeps, which appear to be the most complicated models of the bunch, and then I'll get them primed. After that I can move on to seeing how well the book is actually written.

Elements of the Tank Destroyer and Recon Companies washed, scrubbed, dried and ready for assembly.

Parts for the M18 Hellcats. I was missing a piece, but was able to form a replacement for it from wire. Its the odd bar that extends across the top of the hull from front to back over the gun.

I must have got these in transition from one resin to another. I think the darker hulls are older. You can see the replacement wire on the turret of the light grey resin M18.

M10 Wolverines ready to go. At the time these were the new versions with the plastic tracks and gun barrels. Hopefully the current version will still match in size. Battlefront has a nasty habit of changing the size of the models when they make a new version.

M20s ready to go. I add the crews and MGs after the bulk of the paint work is finished. Its easier to paint the crews outside of the vehicle and it avoids breaking the MGs.

It was late and I called a halt to assembly when I got to the jeeps. I'm not sure why the smallest vehicle seems to have the most parts but I was to tired to finish them last night. They will be first on the list to do today.