French Armour in Indochina

I've been looking forward to this new Osprey book on the use of AFV's in the French Indochina War, and I have to say that I'm not disappointed. Not only does it cover the expected tanks, armoured cars and amphibious vehicles, it also includes armoured trains and landing craft, which is brilliant. There are numerous photos, many of which I haven't seen before, and some excellent artwork. One thing that is a plus as far as I'm concerned, is that the coverage isn't focussed on the M24 Chaffee, but also includes really interesting detail on the early war use of ex-Japanese and British vehicles, for example, which is great. Highly recommended!

Tank Destroyer Crew Sprue

I've been hunting for some metal or hard plastic crew for my US tank destroyers, as the open top turrets on the M36 and M18's just look silly without them. Today, while browsing on eBay, I found a seller who has individual sprues from the PSC range, including one of the US heavy weapons and teams.

There are enough figures in various kneeling and standing poses to equip all four of my TD's with a little bit of chopping and swapping to adapt them as gun crew and drivers. It cost a little over a fiver, so not too hard on the wallet and a lot cheaper than the metal alternative or a full boxed set. 

Cracking!

RAF Roundel D6 Stickers

Try saying that after a few pints? Anyway, I've now found a source of 10mm diameter vinyl adhesive RAF roundels that should be a perfect fit for the 12mm blue D6 that I have ordered for the Lard Day Bag the Hun game. If they fit I will use them to cover the one pip on the dice to add a little customized colour to the game, hopefully without unbalancing the dice and giving the RAF players an unfair ratio of sixes! Unfortunately, the supplier doesn't do any Italian fasces roundels for the other side but that would be a long shot!

Buckets of Bag the Hun Dice!

A very atypically small number of dice!

I may add some RAF roundels stickers to these?

If you have ever played Bag the Hun, or indeed any of the Toofatlardies rules, you'll know that they usually involve buckets of dice at some point in the game. I had forgotten about this for the Lard Day games as most of the club players provide their own, although I always bring along at least one set of D6, D4 and D10.

So, I have now ordered 40 black and 40 blue 12mm D6, two blue D4 and two blue D10 (I have black ones already) and two extra jumbo sized D10's in blue and black as I thought they'd be fun to use for the critical damage rolls. I usually get my dice from Minibits but this time went to EM4  as I could order all of them in one go and they will arrive in the post in only a couple of days, based on previous experience.

This means the Axis will have two full sets of dice for both players, black ones of course, while the Allies will have two full sets of dice in blue. I did also think of putting together a single set of red dice for any Soviet players in the morning game but didn't bother in the end. I think this will be more than enough to fill a few buckets!

WW1 Naval Book Bargains

There are some cracking discounts on pre-dreadnought and WW1 naval digital books for the Kindle at the moment including this book on the siege of Tsingtau, which I thought about getting ages ago but didn't because it was too expensive. There's also a couple of books by Norman Friedman, which are always packed full of detailed information but normally cost a fortune. I decided to download The Kaiser's Battlefleet by Aiden Dodson, however as it's spot on for what I'm interested in and at £1.19 you can't go wrong!. 

M36 Jackson and M36B1

It was my day off today, so I tackled the first of the tank destroyers for the What a Tanker! late war US project, using the Armourfast kit and a spare Italeri M4A3 hull. The M36 was built straight out of the box but I added some scratch built racks to either side using plastic card strip, so that it looked more accurate. I really should add some more detailing bits to the right hand side too but I did find a spare travel lock to attach to the back, as it is missing from the Armourfast kit. The M36B1 was a simple turret swap using the Armourfast open top turret on the Italeri hull, again with a travel lock added to the rear engine deck. I should add a muzzle brake to the gun barrel but I can't be bothered and a set of crew figures are more of a priority, if I can find some decent ones that is?

Sherman Overdrive

I'm a bit tired of gluing together Shermans, so here are the last two that I have completed before moving on to the tank destroyers and light tanks. The first is a standard M4A3(75) using an Armourfast turret with PSC commander on an Italeri hull. The second is an M4A3(105) also using the same mix of Armourfast turret and Italeri hull. I have a second one of these in the box but no more Italeri bottom halves, so I may make it with the Armourfast hull but add some Early War Miniatures sandbag armour to cover up the lack of detail. In the meantime, it's on to the TD's!

Star Wars Legion

When I was down at my Dad's in Cornwall last week, I picked up a couple of belated birthday presents, which were too big to be posted up to us. These included a pack of Imperial Snow Troopers for Star Wars Legion from my sister and the core set from my Dad. I will probably use these with both the official rules but also with Galactic Heroes, for which they will be perfect. Lovely minis too!

M36B1 Conversion

I have nearly finished assembling the various Sherman variants for the late war US What a Tanker! force but have a single Italeri M4A3 hull and track set left over. So, rather than stick it back in the box, I thought I'd use it as the bottom half of an M36B1 tank destroyer. The top half will come from one of the sprues in the Armourfast M36 Jackson set, which I already have in the kit pile. I will need to cut and sand off the glacis mounted travel lock and find a new one to attach to the rear of the engine deck, but I have an old Esci M4A1 Sherman kit in the bits box so I think I can locate the piece I need. If not, I can always cover it up in stowage!

Sherman Conversions

I have been really busy this week but in my spare time have added two more customised Sherman M4A3's to the convoy of armour on the workbench. The first is an Armourfast M4A3 hull with added sandbag improvised armour from Early War Miniatures, which is designed to glue onto the sides and glacis plate of the standard kit. I was a bit dubious about this at first but I think it looks pretty good, especially with a bit of filler to cover up and gaps. The turret is from the Italeri M4A3 (76) kit, which fits the Armourfast hull with a little sanding of the central location hole, although I haven't fixed it permanently yet to make painting easier.

The second tank is another M4A3E2 'Jumbo' using the Armourfast hull sanded down as a proxy for the up-armoured assault tank, with the turret from the Italeri Jumbo kit added instead of the standard M4A3 equivalent. I have also up-gunned this one with a 76mm barrel from the Italeri kit, so that it has a bit more firepower. This was often done in the field using spare guns from knocked out or worn out M4A3 (76) tanks. I like the overall look of the M4A3E2 models but I still need to add some  stowage and gubbins to give them more of an 'on campaign' appearance. I now have an M4A3 (105) and two M4A3 (75) models to build, using Armourfast turrets and the leftover Italeri hulls, then it's on to the Plastic Soldier Company M5A1's!