I only had a few days off of work and with the passing of of my stepfather and my mothers hospitalization, I have been burning the candle at both ends in tending to issues and their home and animals. Looking at the delightful chaos on my desk, I was surprisingly able to maintain focus for a few days and mainly kept to a limited palette of olive drabs, browns and blacks mostly Vallejo paints.
Every model that follows is a 3D print from Windham Graves and sourced from his profile on thingiverse. His files are for both FDM and Resin prints. I wish I had a resin printer as he also has files for wine bottles and wine crates among other things. I liked rather much the rabbit hole of all the most splendid and unusual and very odd trucks and machines from WW2 and the cold war. A bonus is all the models print on the build plate like a more magical summon of old airfix model kits. I was able to just fill my wet palette with paint and blast through a small foothill of models. I still hate painting vicks and these still need final weathering, but I need some decals from adepticon first.This has also reduced some, not all, of the haphazard stacking on the desk and cabinets.
Up first is my favorite armored car ever. Some people want the luxurious Rolls Royce of any era and the most discriminating wish for the ever classic Silver Ghost. I have always wanted the olive drab machine with the turret and pickup bed! Now I have two from the inter to early war era and the upgraded one with the extra wide tires to slice through sand and mud.
I was looking for another scheme to paint as there was a lot of olive vicks on the paint desk. I found the blue grey scheme i thought was a desert camouflage, but was a dazzle pattern from late WW1 and interwar period. with speed and agility, this is quite a respectful scout vick but had no anti armour munitions. It did have a decent production, but the British built far more AC than this with better multirole abilities. Now this one is as rare as the silver ghost....until I print more.
The humble matador is the British prime mover and has a lot of torque for a 4x4 truck. I like the matador far more than the bren carrier and do have a few more printed models with cover and like this one without.
These are still on the road today, although more as this one in a repaint and hauling salvage or working on farms.
WW2 shifted the world into industry and forced skilled British carpenters into other trades. There was enough skilled carpenters to make the cargo boxes for these trucks and the mosquito! I should have painted the box green, but I had more fun painting natural wood and painting another color than olive drab.
The British motor pool for now.
The Stuart is my favorite tank of all time because of GI Combat comic books and the haunted tank. The Renault f17 is a close second. although it is a small tankette with a two man crew, The French made it, I am certain, thinking of glorious cavalry charges. There are pictures of crew smiling around their machines coated in soot and mud with toothy grins on their faces. Although a horse can run faster, from a grunts perspective it would be exhilarating to jump ditches and splash through pastures and fields with this little machine.
This little machine could easily rip through small European towns and follow narrow goat paths in the wilds.
without looking, it seems its top speed was something like 15MPH which isn't too quick, but its engine was also pushing an armored machine and is still quite fast for the technology of the time and what renault could do. More surprising is this tank served in militaries up to this century although I am sure that those machines had better guns and engines.
They were used by many nations and quite a few ended up serving the Axis powers as well. I can equip these three with the standard machine gun, or upgrade to command turret and small field gun...very small field gun.
Now the Green Tide is rolling. Five halftracks to begin the green Tsunami. Tulane University in Louisiana started the Roll Tide as their school mascot is the green Tsunami. Tsunami is a suitable word to describe the flood of industry and logistics that prove the Axis powers could not prevail. British and French forces held out long enough for America to arrive. American military was not large for the start of the war, but as industry and training began in earnest, those soldiers went abroad in vicks as fresh as themselves. Good designs got upgrades and were shared with allies. Logistics works a whole lot better if only parts for a few models of trucks and tanks are needed. likewise fuel and ammunition. Most forget that the Germans invaded France and Belgium with splashy, impressive machines, yet the bulk of troops and supplies were moved by horse, cart, wagon, and even bicycles. I have loads of files for the Axis forces, but the sheer multitude of trucks and armor from many nations made their logistical chain an unwieldy nightmare.
These are going to be a rifle platoon rides for an Old Ironsides mechanized infantry unit.
to shepherd the convoy they have a half track with anti air flak and twin 50 cal.
I was using them to do an on the fly test for olive drab, so the paint does vary among them. It does show the difference in paint from batches of paint and wear in the war though!
a Diamond T deuce and a half with a jeep representing the platoons HQ.
I will print more Diamond T and even jeeps, but I do plan a few vick purchases to find some crew hence the jeep is a covered file as no crew is currently in my collection.
I will also print up more of both for terrain and other purposes. After WW2 a lot of the old military trucks were used to revitalize industry and replace horses on farms. I will reprint many of the trucks and use them as civilian vicks in other games
People do wonder why halftracks are no longer around. the M4 is perfect for moving a squad of men around, but is small for cargo capacity and complicated in repair and maintenance. The Matador' which is my mental picture everytime I hear the word Lorry, is powerful, maneuverable but very compact and top heavy. Although a beast, it was easily mired in mud and snow especially in convoys. the 6x6 Diamond T was powerful, fast, and if mired in mud, the morass would also stop infantry in waist deep muddy molasses. It's only limits were the small roads in European towns. The Red Ball highway was dominated by these trucks.
Now my favorite tank the M3 and M5 Stuart. These will be the scout arm of my Old Ironsides force. I already have a warlord games Stuart painted in an earlier AHPC as the haunted tank. these match totally fine with that model. I added stowage on the tanks mainly for visual interest and cover some of the limitations on FDM printing...the stowage is from a lot of different 3D files I used to fill my stowage bit box.
such a tiny little tank and it did quickly excel in recon units replacing AC use in the US military.
I do have the deerhound and greyhound AC files, but although printed I haven't assembled them yet.
The M5 has improved engines and stowage internal than the M3
A squadron of Shermans with a bog standard, a firefly, then an easy 8 variants making the troop.
I spent the most time building and painting these tanks the last two days.
I will make more and perhaps spend a little more time in placement of the stowage and improvised armor on the hulls.
So this is the start of my Old Ironsides and friends. I wanted to get them done before adepticon and where I will acquire troops to play WW2 games. I have seen Bolt Action tournaments there and they do not hate on the 3D prints and are more interested in force lists, sportsmanship, and painting. This is a lot of vicks( I still hate painting them) but now I just need infantry and a few other bits to make a force. A lot cheaper than GW stuff too. I am going to focus from Kasserine Pass to the Italian Campaign. This will let me collect not only the Old Ironsides, but also add the French Foreign legion, Devils Brigade, Thunderbirds, but also Italian and German troops. Although the rule of cool means several illustrious units will be added even if they fought in other theatres.
for now though I can buy several packs of infantry without regret and a few WW2 rulesets!
18 allied tanks and trucks for 360 points
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Sorry to hear about your family woes David- I trust things look up soon
- Paul
