World War II Project, STuG Project - Two down, two to go

I'm calling these finished and I'm taking them to Reaper Con just to get some feedback on them. I'm pretty happy with them but I see some flaws too. I also wanted to get them looked at before I start throwing stowage on them.

I picked a specific unit for my Stugs; Sturmgeschutz-Brigade 341. Ut had a couple of unusual characteristics that I wanted to try and model and it would make them stand out on the game table from all the other Stugs out there.

First the maintenance crews modified the front skirt to make maintenance a little easier on the front drive sprocket. Second they welded plate over the gun mount to help keep debris from falling in and possibly fowling the movement of the gun. The third, which doesn't make much sense, is they bent the top of the skirts over towards the upper hull. Not sure what they were attempting to accomplish but its clearly visible in the pictures. My main reference for this was "STUG III & IV, German Army, Waffen-SS and Luftwaffe, Western Front, 1944-45" by Dennis Oliver and published by Tank Craft. The Tank Craft books are excellent. I found a number of other photos of Stugs from this unit which provided some other angles, most from "Sturmgeschutz on the Battlefield" I just don't remember which volume those picture were in.

Sturmgeschutz III ausf G, 2 battery, Sturmgeschutz-Brigade 341, France, summer 1944. 
Rats, I just noticed that I swapped the two interior skirts. I'll have to see if I can fix that.

Sturmgeschutz III ausf G, 3 battery, Sturmgeschutz-Brigade 341

WWII Project - Another Sherman

A shipment from Rubicon Models arrived over the weekend. Another addition to the Sherman collection. If you have kept up with the posts on my Reaper Con Sherman entry I have been having issues with the Company B decals. I really ordered this one to snag the decal set as they are not yet available separately from Rubicon.

I am quite impressed with this kit though, it is one of the most current and its a very complete model. You can build either the M4A3 76mm or the M4A3E8 or "Easy Eight" version also armed with the 76mm gun but in this case with the a muzzle break. That means that there are a whole host of extra parts with this one. Two turrets (but unfortunately only one turret base so there is no way to make use of both of them), two 76mm guns (one with and one without the muzzle break, and a 75mm gun would have been a nice option as well)and two full sets of suspension components. There are even crewman with this one, although I'm not terribly impressed with them, they definitely lack a bit of animation. There are a few stowage components but not in any serious quantity so if you want to deck it out you will need to find a couple of other sources for those. Rubicon makes an Allied Stowage "kit" but it still doesn't provide enough options or that gypsy look that many US tanks tended to have.

Value Gear Model Building Details has some sets that they claim can be mixed with 1/48th and 1/56th scale vehicles. Debris of War has sets that are specifically designed for 1/56th scale and I find those intriguing. I'll think about getting something after the bank account has recovered from the latest round of house renovation.

The bonus side is that the kit actually came with two sets of decals so I can use them on the Trenchworx M4A1 and still have a full set for this M4A3! I'm seriously thinking about whether I can build this one fast enough to enter it as well.

Rubicon really does a great job with their instructions.

World War II Project - Terrain - Buildings

As can be seen from previous posts I'm currently focused on the WWII project. I have no idea how long that will last as I also managed to order some more western miniatures from Knuckleduster and Brigade Games, and there is a Black Scorpion Kickstarter out there for their Tombstone game. In the meantime I remain distracted with WWII. Since I have no buildings I decided that I would need something a little bit more modern and European than my collection of western stuff.

I spent a lot of time going over websites and trying to decide what I wanted. I made lists and agonized over each selection for this project. I wanted a good sized town plus some more rural buildings for a farm like setting. Of course nobody has all of that covered or at least not with buildings that I wanted to make. I ended up with orders going to Charlie Foxtrot Models, Sarissa Precision and Sally 4th. The Sally 4th buildings intrigued me because of the use of the photo realistic paper to cover the outside. This is not a unique idea by any means, model railroaders have been doing it for years. It is a quick way to get a very good looking building on the table though and that's what I'm really after. I have "textures" for exterior brick and stone already from Clever Models which specialize in paper models.

I decided that I would apply the same concept to buildings from the other manufacturers. Charlie Foxtrot buildings were selected primarily because they have a nice solid look and feel to them and they have a very wide range of out buildings for the more rural settings including a nice stone barn. I bought two different houses from them along with barns, stables, tool sheds and those arrived over the weekend.

At the same time the order from Sarissa Precision arrived. This is more in town buildings, a railroad station, a church, a chateau and I decided to try some of their railroad stuff as well. Track for the railway station and a passenger car to go on the track. Nothing to elaborate, unlike Calamity's railroad (which still needs at least one 2-8-0 locomotive).

The buildings from Sally 4th have shipped but its hard to say how long that will take from the UK via courier.

So here is what the first three boxes yielded:
First up is are the buildings from Charlie Foxtrot Models

The houses. Note that all the kits from Charlie Foxtrot are already punched out of their sprues. The disadvantage to me is that I don't really know what is an actual part and what is just fallout from the windows and other openings.

I didn't actually order the Pigsty and Pen, I think they were just kind enough to toss that in the box for me.

Here is the contents of one of the two Dormer houses. Lots of pieces! The ones at the bottom of the picture, I think, are window and door cutouts.

The order from Sarissa Precision came in two boxes because of the different sizes of the buildings.

The larger Norman church, probably not appropriate for France but I like it, so I'm going to use it. As you can see from the packaging Sarissa Precision packs their kits still on the sprue or frame. I had some bad kits from Sarissa for some small houses that I was going to use for Calamity. The MDF they were using at the time wasn't always the same width which meant that sometimes tabs wouldn't fit into the designated slots. I'll dry fit all of these before gluing them together.

The Chateau and the Railway station. 

A look at the tracks and passenger car. I took a look at the tracks from the back and I'm not thrilled with them. I'll have to measure but I'm fairly certain that the rails are to far apart and the rails are definitely to "light" for mainline or even branchline operation.