River Plate Royal Navy Cruisers Finished

HMS Ajax

HMS Exeter

HMNZS Achilles

HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles are now finished and ready for action in the Battle of the River Plate, which I'm hoping to play out using Find, Fix and Strike and Nimitz at some point over the holidays. They came out alright but I'm wondering if I should add masts to my 1/3000th scale ships?

NEWSFLASH - Merry Xmas Mbote! (MBC)

 

From our cultural correspondent in Mpongoville

In a packed press conference at the Ministry of Compulsory Celebration today, President for Life of Mbote, General Papi Mpongo, announced the beginning of official Christmas festivities for the joyous people of the nation.

In his prepared speech to the press, President Mpongo confirmed that the government would be organising a mandatory spontaneous popular parade through the capitol, culminating in the raising of the biggest, bestest Xmas tree in Africa. 

The Xmas tree is a gift from the government of Switzerland ,which has close ties to the Mbote regime through the office of the president (suggestions that this is in any way linked to the financial services sector are, of course, unfounded enemy propaganda!)

Strength and Honour in the Snow

 

The current issue of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy has an article by Mark Backhouse about his recent show participation game, a clash between the Sarmatians and Imperial Romans at the River Danube c173AD. This scenario features some knock out winter terrain and some really excellent units, complete with spears, standards and extra details to make them really pop. It has inspired me to have a look at a barbarian army with a winter theme, with a matching early Imperial Roman army to go up against it, although it's only a sketchy thought at the moment. Check out the article for more pictures and the scenario for the game... inspirational stuff!

Thud Ridge Reading

 

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!

Gunge

 

A while back I was very kindly gifted a box of old Navwar 1/3000th scale American and Japanese models by that most splendid gentleman, Mr David Cook Esq. These were already painted to a decent standard and based on plastic card but they hadn't been prepared prior to painting, so we're covered in flash and seams. 

Yesterday, I thought I'd strip some of them back and clean them up, ready to add to my big box of Davco UDN and IJN shipping for the early war period. Here's the result and I think they came out rather well. Apparently, old-fashioned brown Dettol is the paint stripper of choice these days but I couldn't find any, so bought some non-caustic, fast-acting stuff instead. It seems to have done the trick!

River Plate Painting Update

 

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.

Kriegsmarine Knot Tying

                   

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.

Pre-dreadnought Plan B

 

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. 

South American Interwar Fleets

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!

Flashpoint Taiwan Photo Op

 

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.