Armour

First post of the year... I hoped it would have been sooner, but there is this weird bionic flu making the rounds in Athens. It went through our home like Genghis Khan through Samarkand. As soon as I got better I tried to limit the number of vehicles in the stash, with some success.

First of all, the old Matchbox M-40 GMC. It's not a typical WWII subject, but since I can't find the Hasegawa Long Tom (plus associated crew) it will have to do. Not a hard kit to build, I had trouble with the painting. I used black acrylic spray as primer, let it dry for a couple of days and then masked with bluetac. Put two layers of Lifecolour Olive Drab and then removed the bluetac. The primer promptly was removed with the bluetac in most places. I brushed some black back on, washed, painted the details, dusted with British Dark Earth and then used mat varnish. Yet another disaster. For some reason the clear frosted. It should suffice that I swore in most of the languages I can speak (there were some choice bits in Hungarian). I followed what has worked in the past, namely a coat of Pronto. Didn't work too well, so I added tons of mud with an old brush and then used a different bottle of flat. Worked well enough. It should be noted that this can only be built with the gun at rest/travel position. Anything else and you'll need to do some surgery on the recoil springs.

Another old friend; the Matchbox Chaffee. Nice little kit, with some useful extras (an MG-42, a signpost, and a tripod mounted .50cal). I used the kit stars and a random serial number from another kit. I plan to build 3 of those to boost my recon forces. I had the same problems with the flat clear here as well, but the problem was mostly solved after I sprayed Pronto. I omitted the rear decking star, as it would not possibly settle down. These looked like older, stiffer Revell decals.
The lovely Pegasus T-34/85s. Untill now, the best bet for these were the old Airfix kits. Sure, Revell had an excellent T-34 but who wants to build kits with a gazillion pieces for wargaming (some people obviously do). The kits fall together by themselves. I used some Tamiya Extra-Thin glue and an old brush to roughen up the surface of the turrets. The only real problem I had is that the plastic is too hard and not so prone to melting if the glue is not "hot" enough, so that some pieces got unglued and had to be reattached. In the last Pegasus kits I build I used ModelMaster cement with no problems, but these were assembled with Humbrol and I think its not "hot" enough to handle Pegasus plastic. Or I might have screwed up somewhere. I glued some crates on the rear decking as I've seen tons of pictures of T-34s carrying supplies on them. After a coat of Humbrol 30 (gives the slightly bluer look of Russian Armour Green), wash and drybrushing, I used some flat with the above mentioned results. Thankfully, the tanks recovered. If anyone has built these, let me know if you had any gluing issues.
Finally the HaT Sdkfz 251. A lot of people have build this so there isn't much to say. I added some stowage in the form of tools and crates. I plan to build 4 of these, one with a 37mm doorknocker liberated from an Esci German Gun Set, to be used as the platoon commander's vehicle.

That's all for now. I'm off to take care of the mrs. who is coming down with yet another bout of the flu. The hazards of working in education I guess. Next up, figures. I have about 50 based, primed and ready for some paint. I'll probably do some fantasy first, to detox myself from all the guns and armour.