Julius Fučík - WIP 3

Aft superstructure with the exhausts done, and cut out the barges.

Need to do the hoists on the stern, some scribing on the barges and the anchor reels on the bow. I've been looking at my smallest decals but I don't think I can get DANUBE - SEA LINE on them properly, unless you want to see half her hull plastered with em. Maybe I'll just do SEA LINE or DANUBE, or nothing at all. We'll see.

Julius Fučík - WIP 2

A bit more work on the Fučík.

Most of the superstructure is done, decided not to scribe in the detail of the rails for the barges but did do the lift system in the stern. All left now is some minor detailing, maybe a barge or 2 (or 3) and the exhausts, though I think those will get a bit oversized to make sure it all works the way I want to, pinning my thinnest wire in 1mm plasticcard has a rather high failure rate so I'll go with 1.5mm for that part of the superstructure. I might even get her done for paint this week (but more likely I'll be distracted again as usual)

Julius Fučík - WIP 1

The JULIUS FUCIK was rolling ten degrees with a beam sea. It made life hard on the
soldiers, Captain Kherov noted, but they were doing well for landsmen. His own
crewmen were dangling over the sides with sprayguns, painting over the ship’s
Interlighter markings, preparatory to replacing them with the Lykes Lines emblem. The
soldiers were cutting away parts of the superstructure to conform with the silhouette of
the Doctor Lykes, a U.S.-flag Seabee carrier remarkably similar to the Fucik. The Soviet
ship had been built years before in Finland’s Valmet yard from plans purchased in
America. Already the elevator winch area aft had been painted completely black to match
the American line’s house colors, and a black diamond had been painted on both sides of
the superstructure. Gangs of men were changing the shape and colors of the two funnels
with prefabricated parts. The hardest job remaining was the paintwork on the hull. The
Interlighter markings were made of twentyfoot letters. Replacing them called for the use
of canvas templates, and the lettering had to be neat and exact. Worst of all, there was
no way to check the workmanship short of launching a ship’s boat, something he had
neither the time nor the inclination to do.
"How long, Comrade Captain?"
"Four hours at least. The work goes well." Kherov couldn’t hide his concern. Here they
were, mid-Atlantic, far from the usual sea lanes, but there was no telling-
"And if we are spotted by an American aircraft or ship?" General Andreyev asked.
"Then we will find out how effective our damage-control drills have been-and our
mission will be a failure." Kherov ran his hand along the polished teak rail. He’d
commanded this ship for six years, taken her into nearly every port on the North and
South Atlantic. "We’ll get some way on. The ship will ride more easily on a bow sea."

Excerpt from Red Storm Rising (Tom Clancy (1986))

Aris sent me the blueprints for this ship in November 2009, and I ran into it while cleaning my harddrive a few days ago. As I need a merchant for the scenario I'm building forces for, why not the Fučík? I will keep her in her original scheme though, not the cover she used to sail to Iceland. So the Soviet flag will fly on this one....so much for a "neutral" merchant.  ;)

Start is the same as always. Check the blueprints, check the data online in one of the many ships directories, calculate the correct sizes in 1/3000 and note what goes where and what sizes plasticcard are needed. It's not rocket science, believe me. The hardest thing you have to do is shape and sand the correct bow, for the rest the Fučík is one big box with some superstructure, a barge lift and a open stern. She's a big ship, 90mm from bow to stern.

So here is a teaser pic which shows nothing but the bare hull and the first sanded down coat of filler, I'm trying a new one that is quite light and quick drying.  Not as quick as I hoped so I tore a few chips out of it. Oh well, nothing a second coat and some sanding can't fix.

Don't look like much, does it?  :lol:

Monument to the fallen

Monument to the fallen.

My entry for the Guild contest "40mm base" A 40mm base, plus a 20mm GW base, a old Citadel whatchamacallit, matctsticks and brass wire. My apolagies for not adding my usual standard of flock but that is all packed up for the move. As are my paints, all I had for this was a dried up pot of wash, black, white, a brown and a pot of Iraqi Sand that had rolled underneath my work table. It was nice to be creative with minimalist tools though.

Not scaled to any size in particular, it is meant for 20mm but fits in fine with 28mm as well.

German Early War force for Barbarossa, part 6

Progress report on the Panzer IV's. Been busy converting 2 PSC Panzer IV's into the D model, with sofar the following steps:
-removed top turret detail and added new detail plus handrails (needs more work)
-set back the turret hatch a few mm's, need some milliput to add the curve
-removed the grill detail and filled in the slots, propably needs another smoothing layer
-added round headlights
-cut down the barrel by a few mm's, it looked too long
-cut out the hull to create the set back mg station
-built a new exhaust system, added smoke candles on top of it (can't fit 5 sadly so did 4)
-added a bit more detail to the roadwheels, sprocket and rear idler (needs more work on the idler)
-opened up the gunsights one one of em (needs more work)
-trimmed down and filled in the turret doors (needs more work)

Good thing I only need 2 for starters, though now I'm eyeing Tauchpanzers as well......but on the bright side, my bookkeeping in Excel (a wishlist plus what I've spent or earned per month) is starting to pay off, as at the moment I've sold more then what I spent, and I'm thinking long and hard (and rummaging in my spares bin) before I'm buying now. And I got even more creative in the process :)

Fire in the North - Shipwreck Testgame 1: Picket Duty

Had a short test of the Shipwreck rules lastnight (purely on paper so no piccies I'm afraid), put a Dutch Van Speijk class on picket duty, with a Sovremmeny roughly 80 nautical miles out and closing. Weather was bad, fog and rain, so the helos stayed on deck.

First few turns were uneventfull, with the Sov closing on the Van Speijk. Van Speijk then lucked out with a spotting roll and noticed the Sov and went on active radar. She then fired 4 Harpoons at Long range which would arrive in 3 combat turns. But turning her radar on meant that the Sov had an easier time spotting her, and so she did. 2 SSN-22's left the tubes straight away. Uh oh.

With the Harpoons at Medium range the Sov spotted 2 of them and prepared her defences. The VS spotted both SNN-22's and armed her defences as well.

Missiles are now at Short range and the Sov hasn't spotted the other 2 missiles so fires 2 SA-7's at each spotted missile and deploys chaff. 1 of the spotted Harpoons is destroyed, and 1 of the unspotted Harpoons is decoyed by the chaff never to be seen again (well, maybe by a lonely fishing vessel). The VS fires 1 AA mssile at each of the incoming missiles and destroys one, her chaff not fooling the other.

The remaining Harpoons bear down on the Sov but one gets taken out by the 30mm guns. The other one.....misses! <faceplant> The VS takes out the last SSN-22 with her main gun. Great shooting!

VS then launches her remaining 4 Harpoons, and prepares to turn tail after this (out of missiles). The Sov then unloads a full container os SSN-22's, and 4 of them streak across the water towards the VS. Uh oh.

In the next few combat turns the Sov again fails to spot all of the missiles, only spotting 2, but destroying those with SA-7's. Her chaff looks pretty but does nothing, and her 30mm guns just saturate the water with hot lead. Could this be it? 1 mssile misses (....!) and the other one hits. Light damage. Scratch the torpedoes amidships. Aargh!

The VS does what she can, decoys, guns, missiles, the lot but only manages to take out 1 with 3 of them passing through the barrage unscathed. 1 misses but 2 hit. A 1 and 2 means she is destroyed without any question. With the seaconditions as they are what survives of the crew won't have much hope, but the NATO fleet is warned.

The Sov, lightly wounded and smoking, pulls back. It took 6 missiles to take out 1 FF and she has only 2 left meaning she has to turn to port to reload and repair. There will propably be more NATO ships around soon anyway.

Pretty brutal, 7 turns till the end, took less then an hour to resolve it, most of the time was spent reading and rereading if I was doing things right (propably not, but hey). NATO 0 - Soviets 1 (but with a DDG going up against a small FF, could it have gone any other way?)

For my next test I'll put a Zwaardvis submarine on the tail of the wounded Sov that is trying to reach a friendly port. Can she avenge the loss? We'll see.

German Early War force for Barbarossa, part 5

Package in the mail today.

Yup, 12 of them. Been looking at various Panzer IV's over the years as I prefer to field these instead of Tigers and Panthers and was well taken with the good reviews these got on the web. I'm looking forward to giving them my special treatment, and I'll start with converting 2 of them for Barbarossa. The Airfix ones made good excercise and might one day become wrecks, who knows.

I'm still waiting for the last models for this build, some armoured cars and a Blitz bus, which sofar have failed to turn up. I've mailed the store about that a few times now but sofar no reply. But I've got plenty of other stuff to do so don't worry.

On a side not, I picked up a Seacobra and a Wessex today for my Marines (1 for USMC, 1 for UK) and set those aside.