2nd Battalion, Kings Royal Rifle Corps Support Company

Yes, as the long title suggests, this is the Motor Battlion Support Company attached to 4th Armoured Brigade. Continuing on with the Army build, 2nd Bn. K.R.R.C supported the Armour throughout its tenure in N.W. Europe. As they were a Motorised Infantry Battalion, they rode around in Bren Carriers and the sorts. They were comprised of a number of regular Motor Companies - Officers, Other Ranks and their vehicles - I believe a tad smaller in size and order - to a regular Rifle Company. Attached to those would be the Vickers .303 MMG and the 6 Pounder Anti-Tank Gun.

This is what today's post is all about. Like just about everything else I own and all previous posts, these models were sat on the shelf, half-complete and I needed to do something about this. The kit is the PSC Loyd Carrier with 6 Pounder ATG with Crew. Like a lot of their kits, it's absolutely fantastic. Well worth the cost with lots of parts and extras that end up in my spares box for other side projects.

Now I built these probably two or three years ago, aside from some difficulties with the gun, which I found tricky just getting them to hold whilst the glue bonded, I really don't re-call there being any issues with them. They follow the typical painting standards of most other things I am doing, so I don't need to delve into that too much, so let's have a look..

Couple piccies I shamefully stolen from another site, lol. Since I don't re-call ever taking any when I built them we can use these to show how nice the kit looks. Small and simple with great detail and singular piece tracks. Painting these tracks and wheels was very easy as they're quite spaced out too. So let's have a peek.

Firstly, I don't have a good camera to take these, so it's the webcam for now. As the details painted are the same as the vehicles in previous posts, I don't need to fuss too much over that, rather I just want to show what I have accomplished and ride on the wave of dopamine. Inside the Carriers are the Crews which are all fully painted like my regular British Infantry, so again, I don't need to fuss too much there as I didn't take piccies before I stuck the canvas down, lol.. Exuses..

With the markings, the AoS Flash should be 125 as seen below, however, like the previous posts, I don't have them as decals and like fuck am I free-handing them on.. 54 is fine to use and is also the correct number that the Brigade actually changed to a little later into the Campaign. So 54 represents the Motor Battalion, which, if you re-call, I incorrectly used on my Stuart Tanks, To fix that I had to paint over the 4 with Flat Red then try free-hand a 3 in it's place, lol. 53 should be the Flash for 44 RTR... All so confusing!





Now that that's out of the way, let's have a look at some more crappy quality piccies!

Nothing more to add here really. The standard Serial Number with Allied Star for Recognition markings. These should have an 8 on them for the Bridge Weight thing, but I couldn't be bothered to be honest..

So that's the Carriers, which, if I am honest, I'll probably never use anyway because 6x4 tables really are too small for these models and they'll never really be needed. But I quite like having them anyway as they look great. Now let's have a look at the fun, killy stuff...

Again, I apologise for the crap lighting and quality, but it'll do as we don't need to look too much at the finer details. I decided to split them into two teams of two guns. I have previously found this works much better when playing, than having four guns together. They don't have the range or stopping power of the 17 Pounder, but they can hold their own against most things Greg will throw at them, whether they destroy them or simply hinder an advance. Splitting them like this means I can get more use over more tabletop with them which is more crucial than having a blob of four do absolutely nothing.

They're essentially copies of one another. One base has an ammo box, the other has dispensed shell casings, which I thought was a nice little detail. Other than that, they're painted the same style as I normally do my guys.

And that is that.. Another project complete. Another post done and one step closer to completing my Army. I look forward to using them in a game some time.

'C' Battery, 4 Royal Horse Artillery

Another project completed. Riding on the wave of hobbyist accomplishments, I decided I would sit down and finally finish these things off. Like many of my other models, I put them together ages ago and started with the base coats before I quickly lost interest and my drive. However, no longer will they sit part-painted collecting dust on my shelf. No, now they can sill fully painted collecting dust as should be the way!

These are from the Plastic Soldier Company Sexton kit, and what a kit they are. The box contains five, total. However, I can field four or eight, so I may have to purchase three more separately and work on them to have a complete Battery. As it stands, I will be able to field one Troop. So that's good at least.

In-game, they offer my Armoured units some flexible and mobile Artillery, having the ability to fire both open-sight - or direct fire, and Bombardment. Again, like the M-10's, they aren't necessarily better than the static 25 Pounder Field Guns. But because of wautism, Armoured units typically had them operate within them to keep up with the pace of Tanks, so here we are.

Like the Recce post, I used some historical pictures to give me a bit of an idea as to how I might paint these up. They're all Black and White, so at least for unit markings and the likes, I could get some idea as to what's what, but I also used modern restored pictures too. So let's have a look.

I used this for colour ideas - but as will be the case for most of this force - I went with Vallejo WW2 Russian Uniform. The vehicle above looks like it's a pretty close match, perhaps mixed with a little Middlestone or Khaki, but I wasn't going to bother with that. Behind the port-hatch is the symbol of the 21st Army Group, which the 4th Armoured Brigade was under. The "S" with the number is the vehicles Seriel Number "S" meaning "Self-propelled". On my own vehicles, I attempted a free-hand of the 21st Army Group symbol. Seeing the lovely work Greg put into his free-hand pauldron's on his Orkz, I figured I'd give it a try. They came out a little rough and can only commend him on his work he achieved, so well done Greg. I also added a camo pattern to them, similar to the above pic using Black Grey. I probably added a little more than what's seen on that vehicle, but that's fine. I found it to be a quite relaxing process and enjoyed doing it none the less.

Here's a look at them together. The front two with areals and three crew will be the two Troop leaders. Moving along, the next picture is taken of some crew that operated one of these, taken somewhere in Holland. In place of the 21st Army Group symbol, I noticed upon closer inspection that they have the Black Rat. Again, I wasn't going to use these, saving them for the Tanks, etc. So the free-hand it was. On the left, the Arm of Service badge is numbered "1191" I tried a few different techniques to paint and write in White this number, but found it far too tedious to achieve. Either coming out too thick or too watery, so in the end I went with a set of Royal Artillery badges that have the numbers in Black. This at least hides what unit it's supposed to represent and I am happy enough with this.

A closer look at the front. The 27 indicates roughly the tonnage of the vehicle as well as to what Bridges it can safely cross. Something I don't think the Germans ever considered and suffered greatly with its much larger, heavier Tanks when needing to cross a lot of old Stone and Wooden Bridges dotted all over Western Europe.

Few different angles to show the camo work and other decals. Again, I used the "T" for Tracked vehicles as I don't have any "S". I have seen pictures with the "T" being used as they are still technically Tracked vehicles. So I guess it's probably fine, but I just work with what I've got and make do.

And finally the names, lol. I decided to name them as I saw many pictures with them having names on them. Again, a bit of a tedious task. This time, I used a White gel pen and for all but one, it worked well enough I think. As it is 'C' Battery, I picked names beginning with "C". Something quite common I believe with Britain at the time.
So from left to right are Crusader, Charles, Crucifix and the two Troop Commanders are Courage and Chariot. I had a little trouble with these two at first - dunno why - but I eventually got Courage down. For some unknown reason, Chariot would not stick.
Initially I wrote the names down, let them dry for a good 15 mins and then very lightly added a dab of Matte Lacquer to protect them. In doing this it stripped the top layer leaving the print on the vehicle making it look like the names were actually pianted on. It came out great. But Chariot wouldn't abide by this, so it's a bit messy, lol.

And with that ends another post of another unit completed.

BBC War Correspondent

Here's something completely pointless.. A BBC War Correspondent. Why? You ask. Why not!? The idea came to me from watching a film called Theirs is the Glory. It's a film set at Arnhem during Operation. Market Garden. It was filmed almost immediately after the war using the men that actually took part in the battle to portray themselves.. You can see in the film the effects the war had on them with Shell Shock and the likes, but what I am here to post about is a chap named Stanley Maxted. He, too, was there, in the thick of it, reporting back to London what the men were suffering through in their fight.

Seeing him and his equipment gave me a few ideas to kitbash something for fun. This was done sometime late last year, when I was in a spot where I had no drive to do any modelling or hobby related stuff. So I figured at least kitbashing one simple guy up might reinvigorate my drive. It sort of did..

To start, I will share one or two pictures that caught my eye. Firstly the equipment. The old recording device and microphone was something he always had with him. So how do I do this?

Relying once more on my spares box, I basically used a Cupola of a Turret that was cut down. A spare wheel and a piece of sprue cut down to size as well. Finally, a thread from a brush for the cable from the mic to the recorder. These were all glued together then painted.

The model is a merger of two separate Infantry types. The head and arms are from a Tank Commander on his radio - this solves the first part. But as you can see, he's with the Airborne, he's wearing their clothing. So I had to very carefully cut up a Para's body so that they aligned perfectly, then glue them. I think it turned out quite well really. He's on the left with the Khaki Beret.

As for the Beret, War Correspondents wore Khaki Berets, apparently. Here he is below, reporting from a foxhole near the Hartenstein Hotel.

As it was just one single model I wanted to work on, it actually all went together pretty well and spurred me on to continue painting. I ended up painting up about six bases worth of Para HQ units, both for the Company and Platoons. They were already waiting to be done, so I figured I should do them all.

He was added to a Platoon Leader's base, as he seemed to be out in the field with the men, rather than with the HQ itself. He doesn't do anything or changes anything about the unit itself. It's just a bit of flavour for the Army, and something that I actually really enjoyed working on and am really happy with how it all turned out.