Been doing this for a while...von Senger und Etterlin

While doing the current German tanks I started looking through my old books and pulled this one out. 'German Tanks of World War 2 - The complete illustrated history of German armoured fighting vehicles 1926-1945'.

This is actually still available on Amazon - which surprised me a bit though as a resource it's still one of my favourites.

Seems to be available with different colour backgrounds, but this is mine.

Lots of useful charts - really an essential reference, even now.

Info about the vehicles, stats, black and white photos - OK, 1969, but really the most info you can hope for from a single volume!

And the CHEAPEST second hand copy I found on the Internet is still only a fiver - though most are £37 upwards.

 
 Now, the really ridiculous thing about this book is that one place is offering it new for... well, look at the link!

Crazy.

Panzers and Tigers....

...And how my paint schemes have changed over the years...

These date back to the 1960s though have had a number of paint schemes. This scheme must be late 60s-early 70s.

Being repaired rather than replaced helps date this one. The 1980s were a time of unemployment, so the new gun and mantle suggests that era. Didn't have much money for new stuff. Not sure when the commander lost his head! Nor do I know where the rest of his Regiment is.

The 90s then up to  2007 was the next major 'expansion' - these are early ones, mainly Matchbox. Had a lot of Matchbox kits. 122 is a simple gun conversion - my original and long gone Pz3s were converted Stugs with carved balsa turrets. Think I saw one of those turrets a while back, not sure where.

Think these are Frontline figures - got a lot of them. Must get round to painting the hubcaps.

Stug and Hetzer. Probably first decade of the new century.

Pz4s from when I started the dappled colour scheme.

Continuing the dappled scheme - R04 is a Headquarters vehicle - had to allocate this thing somewhere.

Size comparison of Airfix and 'Deagostini' models - I originally matched the Deagostini tanks with Armourfast, they are slightly bigger than Airfix.

On the other hand, the Tiger is a lot bigger than Airfix!

Tiger Tiger

Back in April I mentioned buying some Panthers and Tigers in Norwich.

The original paintwork

 Since then I've been slowly painting these and the Tigers are finished.

Here passing a Sarissa church

20mm tanks are not something I paint all that well. For German Late War I decided that I liked the dappled colour scheme - sand with brown and green patches, sand dots covering the brown and green to give a dappled effect. Only seen a couple of pictures of German tanks using this scheme, most of mine do though not always with the dappling.

I usually hand paint markings and again have a 'standardised' method - red on white numbers, first digit 1-4 for company, they're all 1st Platoon so second number 1, 3 tanks per platoon numbered 1-3.

The Panthers represent the first two companies, the Tigers are the 3rd and 4th company. Twelve tanks, my standard for a '12 Tank Armoured Division'!

1897 Scottish Light Infantry

Very much a generic unit. This lot were started before the Irish but had stalled... as did the Rifle Brigade who I will get on with over thenext few days. Working on the assumption of 'toy' I don't really like spending too much time on tartans but suppose I have to really.  Not sure whether I'll be doing any more Scottish units as such.

1897 Fences

It's easy to neglect some of the cheaper items in a project like this... came across a load of cheap toy fencing from China on ebay. A pack of 14 cost me £1.01 so I bought 6 - should be enough for now.

So this pile cost me the grand total of £6.06!

And as these pictures show they are a perfect size. They fit together easily and really do the job well.

Buying cheap... (this is just an edit - I forgot to mention the price originally so have just added it...)

I would say that I have got quite a good collection of books to use as references. Yet with some exceptions, a lot of these I've acquired quite cheaply. Reason? Simply their condition.

This one I haven't got round to sorting photos of the pictures yet. It was a pretty good example of one of my 'cheap' buys (though I confess I can't remember how much I paid for it.

Firstly, it's not a book, it's a photo album. Which probably put off a lot of potential buyers. The condition of the front wouldn't help.

Firstly, not obvious but the spine was completely detached on one side. Not obvious now because I  glued it back. Really high tech repair.

 
Next, the album should have a clasp. Nope, gone, but... who cares? Well, the people who would have paid a lot of money for this if it had a clasp for a start. Me? Not bothered. Nor am I bothered that some of the cells where you insert photos are in poor condition.

So why did I buy it? For the pictures of course. Undated, but look to be 1880s-1890s. And the artist? Looked him up, Richard Caton Woodville Jr. The link shows why the album was a pretty good buy. (Update - Actually didn't mention what I paid for it... £5)

1897 The Irish Free Brigade

So far all the 1897 figures have had a strong basis in reality. However, an entry by Ross on his Battle Game of the Month blog 'Got me thinking about an Irish Free Army joining in my 1897 lot - green jackets and trousers with yellow piping and wearing bearskins - sounds like an excellent Fantasy... er, Alternate History, Brigade...'

The idea being that an uprising, possibly involving regular Irish Regiments, might have occurred if the French and Russians did invade England. Of course, even if this did happen then it is a bit unlikely that Rebels would have time to design a uniform and equip an army with them over the timescale of the war, but then we're talking fantasy anyway.

So... here it is, exactly as thought about. 

What I haven't done yet is paint the rifle slings - not sure whether to leave them brown or go for either black or white. Probably go for black, still thinking about it.

I did go for black webbing - white didn't seem right. Which is why I'm now in a quandary about the colour of the rifle slings.

I was thinking about using French style uniforms but preferred the British style - it's the big furry hats that did it. However, I did consider red trousers with a yellow stripe - might consider that if there's another regiment produced.

The Army and Navy Album

Undated, but I would assume from somewhere between 1880 and 1900, this photograph album is rather large and, as such, some of the images have been clipped slightly. The full range of pictures can be found in the Pages section of the blog, as can the text on each image.

Austro-Hungarian army 1880-1900

So, the most expensive book purchase. Now on pages.

It's not really a book. It's a leprello - basically like those fold out postcard strips you get from Blackpool.

It includes a useful chart (if you can read German.)

 
Plus lots of uniform colour plates. Again, the full set is on Posts. I gather there are about 220 different uniforms - haven't counted them though.

So, this is a bit of a record - 3 posts and 2 pages sorted in one day!

ZinnBrigade moulds arrived.

This could be a strange 3 posts in one day session depending on whether I get the Austro-Hungarian colour plates sorted...

Anyway, ZinnBrigade moulds just arrived - they took a while because (as I already knew from the website) one of the ones I wanted was not in stock at the time I ordered them and I elected to wait rather than have 2 separate deliveries.

So at some stage I'll have to cast some... and as I haven't managed to do any casting this year yet (or last year?) could be a while. Or not. At least I just need the melting pot and not the whole spincaster setup!

German Army colour plates 1901.

Latest addition to Pages. Obviously lots more plates there!

Some Britain's hedges.

Picked up on ebay some old Britain's hedges - should go well with the 1897 figures even if they are 1/32nd scale. Plus they add a bit of flavour.

They fit OK with these dragoons.

There is some damage and I thought about repainting - then decided against as they just add to the charm.

Rifle green?

Yes, I'm sure there was one in there somewhere, I just don't seem to be able to find it...