Panzer IV's, Mobelwagons... and the 'Panzer Bums!'

The last weekend's long holiday in remembrance of ANZAC day here in NZ, allowed me some time off, to finish off, a project I have had on the the go for several months now...

The first part of which was completing another box of PSC panzer IV's...

I made 4 in the Ausf H variety, to complete the missing platoon command and platoons tanks, by turret numbering, giving sufficent for an HQ and 3 combat platoons of 4 tanks each...

Panzer IV Ausf H

The remaining Panzer from the boxed set of 5  I turned out an Ausf G... no side Schurzen armour for this fellow... but still a nice big gun, which in the MidWar setting he is destined for, should be ample...

Panzer IV Ausf G

Back to the core project and I needed 4 Mobelwagons... These are Battlefront resin and metal...and were a bit of a sod to put together! The worst part was the gun mount,  which once assembled then sits off centre on the mounting point, and wouldnt rotate properly without hitting the hull sides... Darm it! I was going to drill and pin it so it could rotate... but after buggering about for a while I gave up, cut off the mounting lug from the base of the gun and just glued them into position so they sat centrally and glued the base of the front gun shield to the hull front side for extra strength and stability...

Mobelwagons

I glued the side walls in the lowest position as I hope these will be shooting up ground targets as well as their original AAA role! I have added decals to the hull sides but you cant really see as they are hidden under the lowered side panels.

So this completed the require platoons for me to field... "The Panzer Bums!"

"Here come the Panzer Bums" (hummed to the tune of Men In Black...) ;-)

I read a battle rep a few months back on the WWPD site where they described a force of Reluctant Trained panzers from the Blood Guts and Glory book as the 'Panzer Bums'. Intrigued I read the report and laughed it off...Reluctant Trained was a little out of my comfort zone, being more used to the Confident Veteran German troops... but then a little comment in the report said that while they typically take horrendous casualties, theres frequently still enough left to get the job done and the list had proved to be quite successful on the whole...

The 'Panzer Bums'...

...that got me thinking... and playing about on EasyArmy... and sure enough... at ~1750points you get a ton of armour... 20 medium tanks, 4 AAA and 14 halftracks and two platoons of MG/faust infantry. Thats a shit load of firepower! Even if half of it gets destroyed there's always going to be something to fire back...

So there we have it, the Panzer Bums ready to rock and roll in Lorraine... the only fly in the aspic is no recce... so ambushes are no doubt going to hurt... but with 14 halftracks zooming ahead they could be the forced 'recce' of the main tank force... whatever pops up in ambush is probably going to catch a ton of return fire... oh and no artillery...so no smoke either!

The Panzers in the above list are admittedly Ausf J's... which just means they also have slow traverse on the turrents, but I dont think anyone is going to mind too much me proxying them with the Ausf H.

I recall a mate telling me that Trained armies are usually 'shooty armies' ... well yep I think that's certainly the case here... and since this force is Auto-Attack you'll always have all the guns on the table...

PanzerKompanie from Blood, Guts and Glory

Of course, being Reluctant Trained...its going to hurt!... So I also made a whole load of burning tank markers recently too - gulp!

Wish me luck!

Han

OMG, Han's back... that is all...

ANZAC Gallipoli Diorama workers featured in the evening news on TVNZ

Above picture and below link courtesy TVNZ

All the efforts made by the hobbyists who have taken part in the painting of the 5000 figures for the Gallipoli Diorama, funded by Sir Peter Jackson, and to be displayed at the Dominion Museum in Wellington, has been featured in a news bulletin on TVNZ news...

Follow link below...

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/sir-peter-jackson-developing-multi-million-dollar-wwi-exhibition-video-6288901

I was lucky enough to be briefly featured in the footage, as it opens with a close up of me filing away, and then you can spot me throughout the feature, wearing a grey top, working under my little light rig.

Sam stole the limelight and rightly so with the amount of work he has contributed.

Well done to all for taking part, and thanks to TVNZ for their coverage.

More Anzac work...at WETA

Well I thought I had seen my last of 54mm Turks and Anzacs... how wrong I was... I volunteered for a weekends help at one of the Weta warehouses as part of the hobbyist crews sorting the models that had been returned from various clubs round the country, getting them ready to mount on to the Diorama board itself, now positioned in the Dominion Museum in Wellington.

It was rather cool, as we got to see some of the other models and gear the WETA folks were working on, for other movies.. but having had to sign confidentiality agreements while being there I cannot elaborate... but lets just say it was certainly eye opening!

I was anticipating a day touching up paint chipped models from the packing and delivery returns... or maybe getting to help out sticking clump foliage to the diorama board ... how wrong I was...

On opening some of the returned boxes of figures from the various clubs, one box contained the entire Maori battalion of about 200 figures that hadn't even been touched. 200 shiny silver figures needing filing, trimming and assembly! And then painting... So I was quickly involved with that... it was just a fluke I'd brought my knife and files along too... just as well!

We quickly got our selves positioned and I had brought my little portable work station with attached light to work by, so I got power, and set to...

All pics on this post courtesy Roly Hermans official blog - "Mustering the Troops" :

Rhys Jones, left,  (Retired NZ Senior Defence force) inspects our progress...

Yours truly hard at work, but has a moment to grin for the camera...

Mid morning a TV1 news crew also showed up to film us and chat to us. I think my little portable light rig caught their attention as they seemed to have the camera pointing my way from time to time. So who knows, I maybe on the news, indirectly at some point!

So I spent most of Saturday helping with the trimming , filing and assembling the Maori battalion figures. Towards the end of the day I also got to start doing the Kiwi HMG teams, which were rather fiddly as you had to assemble the crews and HMGs themselves with their slender fiddly little tripod legs... yes super-gluing your fingers together is always great fun!

Other guys near me were hard at work with painting duties, either doing touch ups, or starting fresh figures that guys in the spray booth had been spray under coating en-masse... this was turning into a real paint-a-thon...



The assembled crew at the end of Saturdays work...

Things wrapped up that night at 5pm and many of us then met afterwards in town with the Perrys for beers and nibbles. I stayed for a short while but felt I had abandoned family long enough for one day so headed home after a short time.... I got to enjoy some pizza, wine and a movie together, once I got home. Simple pleasures...

Evening out at Macs in Wellington...

Sunday was more of the same... though a slightly later start... I had more machine guns to sort out and a steady stream of models that needing fixing with broken or missing parts, or gaps that hadn't been properly filled with model putty...

The painters were often hard out, either painting up new figures, or many were doing re-work, where submitted figures were judged as being too bright and needed toning down, or too dark and needed dry brush highlights so they would all work well en-masse together...

Lunch time on Sunday I got the chance to go round the full exhibit at the museum that was still very much in progress, not just our diorama board, but the whole museum is being kitted out in PJ's vision of an immersive visitor experience in all matters WWI... It's going to be truly mind blowing when finished ... and not just visually, but also sound effects and even smells... fascinating!

After the museum visit we were back to work for the afternoon... and I continued my filing trimming and prep work until I called it a day at 4pm...

There's still lots to do, but there's guys that can devote more of their time through the week... but for myself I am back to my own mundane normal working life, so wont have any more time to be involved...

Its been a fascinating experience... and I really can't wait to see the completed exhibit!