From FrederickC - Elements of the British 8th Army in North Africa (471 points)

The deadline is approaching like an oncoming train, so this last week has been a mad scramble to get my last big project completed before the bell rings. It consists of elements of the British 8th Army in North Africa. Again, I was inspired to delve into that arena by fellow Fawcett Avenue Conscript, DallasE, who had recently painted up some 8th Army and DAK troops. Like my Italians that I painted earlier in this challenge, I wanted to do something a little different, so I went with earlier models of tanks, and infantry units of the 4th Indian Division. The four tanks are by Blitzkrieg Miniatures, while all the rest are from Warlord Games.

I have always been interested in the early years of the North African campaign so I acquired two Vickers Mk VI light tanks, one of which is the B version, mounting .303 and .50 Vickers machine guns, while the other is the C model with co-axial 15 mm (0.59 in) and 7.92 mm (0.312 in) Besa machine guns. Of course, you have to have an Infantry Tank Mark II, better known as the Matilda. Finally I have a Valentine tank that I got in a trade with DaveV, another member of the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts. The Matilda and Valentine tanks were resin castings, while the two Vickers light tanks were 3D prints. Both methods have their pros and cons. The details are much crisper on the 3D prints, but a lot of cleanup of supports was needed around the road wheels. Keeping with the early war theme, I painted all of them using the Caunter Camouflage pattern, although that introduced a slight historical anachronism. The Caunter scheme was phased out in October 1941, but the Valentines didn't become operational in North Africa until December of that year. The method and colours used closely followed those outlined in a video by Sonic Sledgehammer.

British armour in the desert

Valentine and Matilda (front)

Valentine and Matilda (back)

Vickers Light Tanks Mk VIC and Mk VIB (front)

Vickers Light Tanks Mk VIC and Mk VIB (back)

Next up is the 8th Army Carrier Patrol from Warlord Games, to which I added a third Universal Carrier that I had in one of my storage boxes. The Carrier Patrol box comes with four metal figures wearing shorts to ride in the back, and some heads with helmets without the later war scrim, and two 8th Army infantry sprues to make 12 figures on foot. I decided to assemble them as members of the 4th Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment of the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade, and swapped out a few heads for the carrier crew to give them Punjabi turbans. The carriers were painted in the same manner as the tanks, while I used another Sonic Sledgehammer video for the infantry, with a few minor modifications. All the figures were primed with Vallejo Desert Yellow, and I used the Cork Brown option suggested for the skin colour. I also used Army Painter Strong Tone Quickshade instead of the special mixture shown in the video.

Carrier patrol of the 4th Bn 16th Punjab Regiment

3 Universal carriers in Caunter scheme camo (back)

3 Univeral carriers in Caunter scheme camo (front)

In a similar fashion to my Italian force, I bought a Warlord Games 8th Army Support Group boxed set consisting a Headquarters, a Vickers medium machine gun team, and a 3" medium mortar team. The Headquarters group has some nice sculpts depicting a senior officer smoking his pipe and having a cuppa, a medic with a stretcher, a company havildar-major (sergeant-major) carrying a Thompson with a drum magazine, and a radioman feeding a monkey some bisquit. 

8th Army Support Group

Next is the mainstay of my infantry, a 36-man platoon of the 2nd (Royal) Battalion, 11th Sikh Regiment of the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade. It consists of a headquarters with a British officer with Enfield revolver and whistle, a havildar (sergeant) with a Thompson, a Boyes anti-tank rifle team, and a 2" mortar team, and three 10-man sections each with a Thompson-armed naik (corporal), a Bren gun team, and seven sepoys armed with SMLE No. 1 Mk III* rifles. The miniatures are from the Warlords Brtish 8th Army infantry box, to which I added an additional sprue of 6 figures. I have a love-hate relationship with multi-part figures. I like the ability to customize the miniatures, but I find assembly is sometimes frustrating due to the fiddly small parts (not helped by have a finger in a splint), and not all arms fit well on all torsos. I also found that the arm options were a bit lacking, and a few figures were assembled after cutting off whatever the soldier was carrying in that hand to just leave a closed fist. I opted to make rectangular bases out of plastic card for all the prone weapons teams, rather than mount the figures individually. They were painted using the same method as the Punjabis.

Platoon of the 2nd Bn 11th Sikh Regiment

Boyes A/T rifle, officer, havildar, 2" mortar

No. 1 Section

No. 2 Section

No. 3 Section

As a final bit, I have a few pieces of terrain that got painted up during periods of contemplation that occurred during the challenge - a set of light smoke/heavy smoke/flame markers, and three scaling ladders made from a plastic piece to which a set of Christmas lights were clipped. It was heavily trimmed to remove all the slots for the lights, primed with dark brown, and then dry brushed with lighter shades of brown. My Uruk-hai with make good used of these when assaulting Helm's Deep.

A point's worth of miscellaneous terrain(?)

The points being claimed are as follows

 

64 x 28mm foot figures @ 5 points each = 320 points

 

1 x 28mm artillery @ 10 points each = 10 points

 

7 x 28mm vehicles @ 20 points each = 140 points

 

.05 x cubes of terrain @ 20 points = 1 point

 

Thus concludes my third year of participation in the AHPC.. We will see you all at the afterparty.

 

"Chocks away!"

***

 

Congratulations Frederick on another tremendous Painting Challenge. While I may have moved away, I will always consider myself a "Fawcett Avenue Conscript", and as a member of that extended gaming clan I am confident to say I know all of us are glad to see you running up spectacular points totals on some great projects. Need to keep the Conscripts up at the top of the scoring table! These figures you have shared here will all provide fantastic service on the gaming tables in Winnipeg (I mean, after they get their "newly painted figures" game out of the way). They will particularly be welcome in the middle of a prairie winter, which I find is always an even better time to stage some Western Desert WW2 games. 

 

Seeing Caunter camouflage appear is always a treat too, and I think you have achieved some excellent results here. 

 

A fine "points bomb" to conclude your participation in AHPC XIV. Well done!

 

GregB 

From FrederickC - "Avanti Italia!" - Italian Army in North Africa (515 points)

 This week's submission is a force of the Regio Esercito or Royal Italian Army in North Africa consisting of a mix of Perry and Warlord Games miniatures, tanks and assault guns from Blitzkrieg Miniatures, an armoured car from Tamiya, and five 'toy soldier' trucks. While the North African campaign has always interested me, I didn't think I could justify painting up more Germans and Brits since I already had a sizeable force of each of those for Northwest Europe. Then fellow Fawcett Avenue Conscript, Dallas E, painted up some DAK and 8th Army, which was the tipping point. However, not wanting to just duplicate armies he had, I opted for Italians. I now have a force of a 43 man platoon of four sections and a platoon headquarters, a company headquarters, two machine gun teams, two mortar teams, an anti-tank gun, two tanks, two assault guns, an armoured car, and five trucks.

First up are the tanks and armoured cars. The armoured car is a 1/48 scale Tamiya kit, and the rest are from Blitzkrieg Miniatures. The M13/40 is a resin casting, while the rest of the tracked vehicles are 3D prints. The latter are much crisper in terms of the detail compared to the resin casting, but they had a lot of supports to clean away, especially around the road wheels. After all the vehicles had been assembled, they were primed with Army Painter Desert Yellow from a rattle can. They were then painted with various sand coloured acrylics and given a wash of Citadel Seraphim Sepia. Tracks were painted using Vallejo German Camo Black Brown, followed by a dry brush of Gun Metal. Finally everything got liberal washes of Vallejo Wash FX Desert Dust.

 

 

Built on the chassis developed for the L6/40, the Semovente 47/32 was an easy-to-produce tank hunter built as a stopgap measure to combat enemy armour. Mounting the excellent Elefantino anti-tank gun in an open-topped chassis gave the Italian forces some much-needed mobility in their anti-tank assets. The tank hunter initially fared well in the western desert, but lack of an armoured crew compartment became a glaring drawback in the system's design.

 

After witnessing the success of the German StuG in Europe, the Italians decided a tank of comparable design was needed. By 1942, the Semovente 75/18 was fighting for the Italians in North Africa, where it would distinguish itself as one of the nation's best tank designs. The 75/18 had a relatively modern gun, thicker armour than any of the M-series tanks, and it proved quite successful in service, capable of destroying all but the heaviest Allied armoured vehicles.

 

Italy's AB41 was the most-produced armoured car of the Italian armed forces. The Autoblindo 41 was produced by Fiat-Ansldo and saw service in several theatres, most notably in Africa. It was armed with a 20 mm Breda 35 autocannon and a coaxial 8 mm machine gun in a turret similar to the one fitted to the Fiat L6/40, and another hull mounted rear-facing 8 mm machine gun. It also featured two driving positions, allowing the vehicle to travel effectively in either direction.

 

The Carro Armato M13/40 was designed to replace the M11/39 in the Royal Italian Army at the start of the Second World War. It was the primary tank used by the Italians it their armoured divisions. The design was influenced by the British Vickers 6-Ton and was based on the modified chassis of the earlier M11/39. Its 47mm gun was superior to the British 2-pdr, but easily outmatched with the introduction of heavier tank guns such as the 6-pdr and US 75mm.

 

The L6/40 was a light tank used by the Italian army from 1940 through the Second World War. It was designed by Ansaldo as an export product, and was adopted by the Italian Army when officials learned of the design and expressed interest. It was the main tank employed by the Italian forces fighting on the Eastern Front alongside the L6/40-based Semovente 47/32 self-propelled gun. L6/40s were also used in the North African campaign. Its main armament was the 20 mm Breda 35 autocannon.

 

Next up are five trucks to transport my troops through the desert. These were part of a joint purchase with Dallas E, who found a source of these 'cheap' plastic trucks on line. In the end, they didn't turn out to be as cheap as expected/hoped. I have since found a source for them at Walmart. They are generic 'army trucks' that have a bit of a 'Chevrolet 30cwt' vibe to them. I didn't paint any national markings on them as I thought they could be used for either side in North Africa. They were painted with the same method I used for the armoured vehicles.

Finally we come to the troops. These are primarily Perry Miniatures Italians with sun helmets, plus a Italian Support Group boxed set consisting of a headquarters, machine gun team, and mortar team from Warlord Games. When I ordered the Perry Miniatures I was having some trouble with their website when I wanted to order multiples of the same figure pack. It kept increasing the number of packs of the previous choice. I thought I have corrected everything, but when the shipment arrived, instead of three packs of riflemen and one command pack, I got the reverse. (D'0h!). In addition, the Warlords support group all had steel helmets on, and I wanted all my troops in sun helmets. Dallas E had some left over helmets from his Perry DAK figures, and I had extra arms, pouches, and rifles left over from my Warlord Soviets and Blitzkrieg Germans. A bit of slicing, dicing, and gluing converted extra officers and NCOs to riflemen, and all but three officers to sun helmets. For painting I followed Sonic Sledgehammer's method for desert Italians, with some variation here and there on the order of painting, and the choice of colours. I used a lot of Citadel Seraphim Sepia wash on this project.

Warlord HQ group of two officers, a medic and a radioman

Support Weapons

Perry 47/32 Elefantino anti-tank gun

Perry and Warlords Breda 5C 6.5mm medium machine guns

Perry and Warlords 81/14 Model 35 medium mortars

 Last up is a 43 man platoon consisting of a 3-man headquarters, and four 10-man sections each with a section commander equipped with a Beretta 9mm submachine gun, a two-man team with a Breda 30 6.5mm light machine gun, and seven riflemen with either a Carcano M1891/28 or Carcano M1938 carbine. Some of the riflemen that were converted from officer figures are carrying either Moisin-Nagant carbines or Mauser rifles that were left over from my boxes of Warlord Games Soviet Winter Infantry or German Blitzkrieg Infantry. (See if you can pick out all the conversions in the rifle sections.)

Italian infantry platoon of four sections and a headquarters

Platoon HQ. The man on the right originally had a Beretta SMG

No. 1 Section

No. 2 Section

No. 3 Section

No. 4 Section

The points being claimed are as follows

 

57 x 28mm foot figures @ 5 points each = 285 points

 

10 x 28mm vehicles @ 20 points each = 200 points

 

3 x 28mm artillery pieces @ 10 points each = 30 points

 

Sylvain: Another point bomb this week. You just throw them at us and we love them! Again, your description is A+, as well as your miniatures. The army you are presenting this week is so neat and includes all the important equipment for that theater. Another great achievement for you!

From AlanD - Parsnips and Partisans (95 points)

First up this week, I've been working on another long-running project, painting figures for Partisan warfare in the Balkans in WWII.  After my last contribution of inter-war armoured cars, this Italian AB41/40 from Blitzkrieg Miniatures looks positively futuristic. Since the model came with two turrets, I cunningly made it with two options.

First, this AB41 is from a German Schutzpolizei unit, with a commander converted from Warlord Games figures. I've seen a photo of one with the Schutzpolizei badge painted on the front, which I've tried to replicate here. Paul O'G has criticised the commander's shortsightedness for the way he's holding the map, but really he is shielding his eyes from the bright Bosnian sunlight.

The Partisans also made use of a number of AB40/41s, which they either captured after the Italian surrender or from the Germans in 1944-5. I gave the second turret a Partisan commander, but also made a Partisan flag from the foil off a wine bottle to drape over the Polizei insignia at the front. It isn't a perfect solution - you can still see the German Balkankreuze - but the idea is this has been so recently captured that they haven't had a change to paint over the German markings yet... 

My second entry for the week is another unit of miserable Fodder for Turnip28, which I now realise I forgot to spray with a bit more filth. Squelchy.

As for points,  that should be 60 for the Parsnip People, 5 for the two commanders, 20 for the armoured car and maybe 10 for the additional turret, if we call it a crew-served weapon? If that sounds right, then 95 points please Tamsin!

I must confess to still being bemused by the appeal to some people of root-vegetable corrupted soldiers for gaming. Still, whatever floats your boat.

As for the turret as a crew-served weapon...oh, go on then!

Tamsin