Stuart Recce

 It's been a little while since I have posted anything, Greg going bananas with his Warhammer shit. I decided I should do something about that at least. A lot of my shit for Flames of War is already built and/or primed ready to be painted. The hard part is actually being bothered to do it. Having had a battle not too long ago that went on for a solid six hours, lasting twelve turns, I was kind of inspired to paint something up after. One of those happened to be my Stuart Recce tanks. I quite like how they play and have them specifically for my wautistic Army I want to build up, so let's get into that...

As stated, I have a desire to build up a very specific British Armoured list that's tailored to a Historical unit - that being the 44 Royal Tank Regiment. Having had a relative serve with that unit and having documentation, pictures and other interesting bits of information on them, it all drives my wautism hard and is somewhat personal to me.

The unit itself fought from Operation. Crusader in N.Africa under 1st Army Tank Brigade supporting the Indian Troops at the Sidi Fortifications and the New Zealanders over at Belhamed fighting in the famous Matlida Mk.II's. Thereafter they were refitted with the new Valentine Tanks for the fighting at Gazala known as the "Cauldron". Here along with 50 Infantry Division they were nearly completely encircled and annihilated, but they managed to pull out to fight again. They eventually were refitted with the new Sherman II's coming through for El-Alamein where they supported the Australians - these Tanks they would take with them for the rest of the war.

They refitted after El Alamein then sat out the rest of the African Campaign where they now would be detached from 1ATB and attached to 4th Armoured Brigade with whom they would serve with for the rest of the war. This constituted of 44 RTR, 4 Royal Horse Artillery (mobile) and 'B' Company, Kings Royal Rifle Corps. They served mainly in support of 11th Armoured Division, but also acted independently if and when needed.

They took part in the fighting in Sicily and Italy before being pulled from the line to rest, refit and train for Normandy. There they fought through the grueling battles around Caen against some of Germany's finest Armoured units deployed to Normandy, specifically around Hill.112. Took part in the breakout to Falaise before rushing up to Belgium where the Germans bogged an out-stretched British line. This, sadly, was where my relative was K.I.A. Having fought all this way. they then drove on through to Holland to support the 101st Airborne Division in Operation. Market Garden. Again, getting bogged down. Then being pulled from the line once more, trained up in D.D. warfare to cross the Rhine and through into the heart of Germany itself.

This is all very exciting for me as a bit of a WW2 enthusiast and allows me to build a very nice list to play for Flames of War, one that's both quite flexible and allows me to cover almost any major battle or period for Late War.

The famous Black Rats Jerboa decals for some reason are not actually supplied by Battlefront themselves, so I had to source these elsewhere at a bit of a premium. I am pretty happy with them, despite the transfer sheet itself being rather large so I learned quickly that cutting them up I have to be very precise with them so they will fit and stick to the intended model. As they are Recce, they carry the White Diamond to denote this.
As for painting them, nothing much to add out of the ordinary other than my wash coming out of the bottle quite thick and splodgy. A lot of watering down didn't help much, but I quite like the grimy look of them, as I imagine they are out scurrying around ahead of the main force behind them reporting enemy positions back to said main force - some historical pictures will follow too, because wautism...
I did decide on a metallic dry-brush this time, rather than the usual lighter tone of Green, something I feel works really well to sell the worn, well used look - although probably not carried over too well in the pictures..

I wasn't too sure what the things on the front of two of the tanks were and thought for some reason that it was a metal mesh, lol.. Turns out that it's probably a camo netting/tarp cover. Oh well.. It's metal mesh now.. Speaking of metal, the models are the old BF metal minis. Nice and heavy, but a bit wonky and wobbly.. Painting them was a bit of a pain in some areas as the paint wouldn't go into the poor molds and I wasn't going to do any more than what was absolutely necessary. But that's fine.

Digging around, I managed to track down some Historical footage of the Regiment and used this for both information and inspiration. Below is a Stuart passing through Norrey-en-Bessin, North of Cheux. On the right you can see the number 124. This denotes the seniority or position within the Brigade. 4 being Junior. Now I don't actually have this number as decals and I couldn't be fucked free-handing it, so I used the BF LW Normandy decals and put 54 in place of, which also works. As some of the decals are a little too large or the Tank molds have details on them, I decided to omit placing them on the rear of the models, instead having them only on the front.

Here's one driving along in a field.

Now the old kits contain five Tanks, but I can field no more than four, so I decided to convert one into a mini-diorama-objective marker, because why not? So here that is..

Using some of the spare Plastic Soldier Company Infantry, I decided to add them to the base to give it a little bit of life. I've assumed the Tank has come to a halt as it's out of fuel - which is why the guy on top is quickly filling her up using a Jerry Can. He was mashed up from two separate Infantry guys, but it does the job well enough for me. The other guy sat there is resting and pointing something out for his Commander to have a look at, who's already scanning in that general direction anyway. For some reason he comes with no feet, but that's ok for me. He's sunken in the mud and grass.

With this Tank, I decided not to use any decals to both save them for other Tanks I will use in my wautistic Army and to keep this as a generic obj. marker that can be used, much like the Tiger Tank one I made. And with that, I am very happy to have both completed another set of vehicles in my force and to say I have finally made something for my 44 RTR Army..