I haven't been to town for weeks, as there's nothing worth going for these days, apart from the local Oxfam charity bookshop. Today I was pleased to find a copy of this illustrated chronological history of the Vietnam War air campaign, which is a great resource for This Ridge. It's got loads of black and white photos, as well as a detailed text which clearly explains in overview the various stages of the campaign. Excellent!
I'm still struggling a bit with my illness but feeling better than I did at the weekend, so sat down an occupied my time today with the three cruisers for the Battle of the River Plate. These are now painted but the bases need to be finished off once the models have been glued down. I've also cleaned up and undercoated the Bismarck and Emden, so may well paint them alongside the pre-dreadnought stuff over the next week or so.
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As I was ordering stuff from Navwar I bundled in two extra models for my early war Kriegsmarine fleet, most of which is Davco, just to tie up a few loose ends. The big extra is the Bismarck which is a much better model than the Davco one, the latter having been binned as too badly cast to be presentable. The second extra is the light cruiser Emden, which is a lovely model and fills a gap in my Norwegian Campaign line up. I'll try to get both of these painted before the holidays kick off.
As I've been a bit unwell over the weekend, my plan to start on the South American pre-dreadnought painting has had to be postponed. I have decided to cut this back to just the Argentinian and Chilean leftover bits, rather than add the US warships, so that it actually gets finished in the time I have available, illness not withstanding.
The models to paint include the Chilean cruiser Chacabuco and ironclad Almirante Cochrane, together with two Argentinian El Plata class river monitors, two coastal battleships, Libertad and Independencia, and finally four Corrientes class destroyers. I also need to finish off the models for the River Plate, which are almost done but need some highlighting and basing to be fully wrapped up.
I was ill yesterday so spent most of the day in bed feeling rubbish. However, to cheer me up a bit, the Navwar Brazilian and Argentinian fleets arrived in the post. These will bridge the gap between my pre-dreadnought and modern South American projects. The only addition I'll need to make is to add some Para class destroyers, as the vast majority of destroyers in the Brazilian pack are post 1939. I will add them to my list of things to do for 2024!
Tumbling Dice have just released a 1/600th scale Neptune, so I have dug out my Republic of China Air Force where it will be sent as a reinforcement. The sidewinder armed RB-69A Neptunes were used for ultra low level CIA backed intelligence gathering flights over mainland China, with some very close shaves against Mig-17 and MiG-19 air defence interceptors. These flights were made by the 34th 'Black Bat' squadron, which was highly trained and experienced, although officially it didn't exist. Very cool! While I was about it, I also took some photos of the rest of the RoCAF line up, which covers the late 1950's to the 1980"s.
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| United States Cruiser Squadron |
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| Chilean and Argentinian coastal flotillas |
I've decided that the last effort of the year will be to complete my South American pre-dreadnought project, with the Chilean and Argentinian coastal warships, together with the cruiser Chacabuco. I might also include a United States cruiser squadron to give me some interesting scenarios to play around with, something I intended to do all along but didn't get round to. I have a couple of weeks to get these painted up, so I'm hoping to get them done, at least to a point where I can easily wrap them up at the end of the month.
A couple of second hand Osprey Publishing titles for the Arctic Eagles project via eBay, which will be very useful both for scenario research and painting. I've been after the Soviet Hurricane Aces book for ages, as it's out of print and often expensive, but this one was only seven quid, which is a bargain. Excellent!
I've been feeling pretty wonky the last few days so haven't spent much time at the workbench. The only thing on the go at the moment are the three cruisers for the Battle of the River Plate, which are now ready for highlighting and detailing, prior to getting varnished. After that I need to sort out the bases. When I've finished them, I'm in a bit of a quandary as what to do next, although the Red Actions! AFSR are long overdue and I do need to finish off some Chilean and Argentinian pre-dreadnoughts, not to mention the Royal Navy fleet. I've only got a couple of weeks so it might be better to tie up some loose ends, rather than start something new. Blimey!
