Thursday 10 July 2014

I love a challenge me...

When chum Jamie sold me his "Open Fire" starter box set for £15 his comments of "I've taken the Stugs but everything else is there. Good luck with those Shermans though. they're absolutely awful. I couldn't face doing them" were as a red rag to a bull.
 
I've already painted and used most of the German Infantry in the Bénouville game (more of them at a later date). I've also added a second US Paras platoon of eBay for a fiver. That should provide enough variation for a CoC force for another project. I must say, the infantry are very nice.
 
So, on to those Shermans. You get eight in total. Two Firefly's & six bog standard mark V's for two troops. 

The sprues are in a softish plastic & don't exactly inspire.
They don't go together all that well. There's a little 'doctoring' needed on both sides of the hull and in the end, I decided to use superglue on the hull assembly to ensure the gaps didn't re-open.
First hull assembled and it's natty little magnet added (in the box!) for the turret.
The hull sides still left a bit of an unsightly gap that's when I had one of those 'lightbulb' moments. I decided to fill the gaps and wondered just what I hafd for the job?
The most disappointing substance known to man. Or is it?
Having bought a pot of Liquid Green stuff only to be very underwhelmed (how can a product really come about from the need to correct a known failing?), I thought I'd give it a go to see if there actually was ANYTHING it was good for before it went on a final journey.
looking a little rough. But I began to believe this plan might just work!


I added another and gave them both an undercoat with my fave trusted Halford's grey primer

Now it was beginning to take shape I decided it was worth pressing on with the others and not consigning them to eBay.

The rest of the troop with a coat of PSC's British armour Spray.
If I did all eight it would take my Sherman count to an unnecessary 22. So I could afford to go against previous thinking and give them decals to make them unit specific. I will be getting some DD's and marking them up as 13/18th Hussars to support the paras in their early battles so for these mark V's I wanted something for the follow on battles east of the Orne. BINGO! Operation Goodwood featured 11th Armoured Division and a quick check yielded that the same tanks could be used for part of Epsom too.
Full troop
I decaled them up as the senior regiment 23rd Hussars and will be adding the second troop very shortly. Considering That I got a German company, an American Airborne platoon, a rulebook (for eBay) & these eight tanks all for £15 I reckon I made off like a bandit!



The decals were 11th Armoured from http://theplasticsoldiercompany.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=60_61_62_66&products_id=279 with the remainder from the excellent Dom's Decals http://www.domsdecals.com/shop/category_ecee596a242de13b779391cdaa2c528d/15mm-WW2-Markings.html?shop_param=cid%3D%26And considering you can pick these tanks up for 99p each I reckon I might be back for more.

Next, back to those A/T guns ;^)

4 comments:

  1. I could do with a Sherman to round out my paras for CoC - where can I find me one for 99p? Nothing that cheap on fleabay

    Phil

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  2. They're there Phil. Believe me! There's four on there now for £4. OK, strictly speaking that's not 99p each, but I've seen them. Stay tuned! (if I buy the four are you interested in one of them?) :^)

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  3. Only 22 - come on you can do better than that.... :-)
    Looking good Ade.
    Cheers
    Stu

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