From JamesM: 15mm De-frocked Priests, passengers and RE trucks [Limbo] (250 points)

Hi folks,

This entry represents the culmination of years of planning, collecting, and stalled effort - and several months' worth of distracted painting.

The original focus of my 15mm WW2 collection was the 1st Canadian Army's Operation Totalize in August 1944, so these early 'Kangaroos' or 'De-frocked Priests' have been on my to-do list for a long time. Unfortunately, I painted my first few when I started my collection, and they took ages - a feature of my inexperience at that time. The vehicles were fine; the issue was the passengers. 

This then tainted my thoughts about painting more of the bloody things. To make matters worse, my collection grew from a mere infantry company to an entire battalion. Which meant I needed to collect and paint more of the buggers. 

Earlier last year, before being distracted by 40k models, I dug out my selection of FoW blister packs and started on this clergy, hoping to have them done by summer. The plans of mice and men, eh? 

Thankfully, the challenge gave me the impetus to push on and get these all done. 

In total, I've painted 14 of these early tracked APCs. These are Battlefront resin and metal 15mm kits. 

And two passenger stands per vehicle. 

For those not in the know, these vehicles were American M7 Priests, operated by the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division as part of its D-Day assault division organisation. Instead of towed 25-pdr guns, the division was equipped with self-propelled M7s, which fired American 105mm rounds. 

Eventually, in July 1944, the Canadian and British units equipped with the M7s were requested to stop using them and return to British equipment due to ammunition supply issues. 

At the same time, the various allied armies in Normandy were struggling to find a way to advance infantry under armour in a battle dominated by machine guns and mortar fire. A Canadian engineering officer proposed stripping the gun from the M7, welding some steel over the gap, removing the ammo storage and other irrelevant internal fixtures, and using these hulls as armoured personnel carriers. They were used with some success, and later - when the M7s were returned to the Americans, Canadian surplus Ram tanks, with turrets removed, were used in the same role - going on to equip one Canadian and one British regiment. 

As such, my vehicles have been split into groups bearing the markings of 3CID artillery units. 

Alongside these, as a belated part of my preparation for the D-Day games played last year, I painted a pair of cut-down Morris gun tractors. These were primarily used by British airborne forces as tractors for their 17-pdr anti-tank guns, but my research showed they were also used by Royal Engineer units on D-Day as transport off the beaches. 

I've more passengers to paint for these, but they count as painted now!

And because I forget that not everyone is familiar with the scale (and the effects of mobile phone macro photography)... here's a reference for how small those decals are. 

18 x 15mm vehicles = 144 points

2 x drivers = 2 points

28 x passengers = 84 points (counting each strip of three men as 3 points)

'Limbo' = 20 points

Total = 250 points

TeemuL: Just counting my fingers, but your logic on the passengers seems valid and the spreadsheet approves, so I'm quite sure it is okay. That is quite a lot of vehicles, quite a lot passengers and quite a lot of green! Some history lessons, too. I understand that they might have felt overwhelming, especially when more and more is added to the initial project, but these are all done now and lots of points are coming your way!