Sunday, January 2, 2011

Some mechanicals to go with the Fallschirmjaeger

The last thing I finished off last year was an armoured recon half-track to go with the Fallschirmjaeger platoon I did earlier. Basically I got two half-tracks and a Kubelwagon to create a motorised platoon for the FJ.


 The Kubelwagon is probably superfluous but I can always get a few motorcycle combinations later on for a fully mobile HQ section.  I got the half-tracks and wagon already finished and only needing some minor repairs/touch-ups but the Recon Halftrack was a Blacktree Designs metal kit.


 While I am reasonably pleased with the result, it was possibly the worst kit I have ever had to build.  Firstly, its rough - very rough - and the parts do not fit together.  Even the photo of the completed model on the Blacktree site doesn't - you can see the gaps everywhere.

 But by far the worst was the stupidity of the manufacturer of including two wheel/track guards for the same side.  There is no way you can cut and redo to fit - I was forced to make one of them out of card.  That and the tons of bogging required to fill in the gaps in the model made it a right royal pain in the arse to build. As you are paying over UK$20 for the kit, this really isn't good enough in my opinion.  That said, the completed model looks OK and fits in well with the rest of the models & figures.



On the plus side it comes with a good MG32 and 35mm canon options - I chose the latter - as there is not enough room for both in the cupola. I also added some track and tow bar to the front for further detail.  The figures came in useful as I used one for the missing Kubelwagon driver which fitted well enough (with a bit of surgery) in the smallish wagon model.


Hans - vatch out fur zat verdampten Kfz du Dummkopfen!

The last  pic is the recon/HQ sections.  Click on the pic for an enlargement and feel free to leave a comment.  Happy New Year everyone!

Cheers,
           Doc



5 comments:

  1. Nice work, Doc. I recall reading that some of the BTD vehicles were a bit rough. You did a great job on them though. I use mostly ready-made stuff for WW2 vehicles (Corgi, etc.). They are 1:50/1:48, so a bit larger than most others. I see you don't base your vehicles - I also don't. I think they look better on their own. Regards, Dean

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  2. Happy New Year Doc. And full marks for perseverance on the Blacktree kit.

    Salute
    von Peter himself

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  3. Excellent group shot at the end, really inspiring!
    Could you post more pictures of your FJ force ?

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  4. Dean - 1/48 models are quite hard to get here - most ranges are the usual 1/35 (like most Tamiya for example)- I find basing for vehicles restricting as without you can put them anywhere and they'll look good on the table.

    Von P - perseverance all right - it nearly became the 'flying' version on several ocassions!

    JD - as I said above, my FJ are a work in progress but there are earlier posts of the platoon so far under the WWII label.

    Cheers,
    Doc

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  5. Hi
    Not my era but I love the conversions!
    Regards
    Rafa

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