Mike's Workbench, Just Like Santa, but More Military

Some bits and pieces of stuff on the work bench. British Commandos who will probably end up as German sailors. A few head swaps, a nip here and tuck there and it's done.

The with rectangles are mostly cargo loads for Opel Blitz trucks. They include fuel tanks and supplies and tools, all for my NSKK units. Some Airfix Luftwaffe figures, mildly converted to both KM and NSFK figures.

Roco Minitanks Kubelwagens. I am going through a supply battalion and trying to tidy things up a bit. Trimming flash, repairing broken vehicles, and such. Note the VW with no windshield, and Maxim machine gun mounted on the back of one of the others. Both these problems have now been fixed.

Some NSKK AA gun crews look on while I glue a Roco crane together. I am using this US Cold War crane for a WWII German one with a little modification.

Tools of the trade. Sanding stick, knife with snap blade so is is always super sharp, pin vise with bit for drilling tiny holes, great for antennas, and wheel holes for the axle, tweezers for tweezing stuff, make up brush so I not only look good for photos, but I dust the vehicles with it before painting. Long term storage sometimes gets dusty. Wire cutters for cutting wire, hence the name wire cutters. A little flat nosed pliers for holding small items, sort of like tweezers but with a wider gripping area for a stronger hold. All displayed on a cutting mat to keep the work surface free of cuts. The lines are also helpful for making short cuts in plastic and eyeballing the size of the sheet.

What's on Mike's Worktable?

Three bottles of glue. The CA Krazy Glue for metal and resin bits. Model Master glue for plastic glues all my models together, great stuff, and the ability to put tiny amounts of glue in a particular spot makes a big difference in building models. The clear makes great windshields. The older Roco don't often come with them and this is a good substitute. It is a super-gap filling glue.

Model Master paints, terrific coverage. Gunze Sanyo water soluble paints.

Tamya paints, great colors, and they last a long time. The Smoke is good for weathering areas that have been burned. The Testors Silver is an old standby. Very thick, great coverage.

Bestine prepares surfaces to be glued. I use it on metal and resin mostly when I intend to superglue parts together. Get it at art supply stores.

The Rustall system. It will "rust" any surface. The a little backwash and some Dead Flat finish the effect. These are the products I used to make the Tiger II knocked out vehicle.

Operation High Jump

Ykreol is making two sets of figures for ultra-late WWII. There is a whole genre of historical / historical science fiction type wargames. They use various real, proposed and fantasy weapons made by the Germans and Allies. These figures are useful for playing games about the German base in Antarctica.

Before WWII the Germans explored Antarctica and there were rumors that hey actually built a base there that continued to operate for years after the war ended. Some even say that the Byrd Expeditions after the war were to attack those German bases.

During the war B-17 bomber crews attacking German were sometimes buzzed by aircraft that were not identified by the Americans. They were called FOO Fighters. Some speculate these were either ultra high tech German weapons or even aliens from space. Some claim the aliens were simply watching the war, others claim they were allied with the Germans.

Plenty of good wargame scenarios there.

Sherman Tracks

Paul Heiser Models plastic track in HO scale and new Paul Heiser Sherman track for the extended version.

Some versions of the Sherman were longer than the standard M4A3 and needed a longer track length.

Paul also makes a duck bill track. These tracks were extra wide. As the Sherman got heavier, they needed a wider track to make a lower ground pressure. They put these extenders on the tracks on many of the Shermans in Europe in late WWII.

Paul also makes the early style Sherman track, the same as used on the Lee / Grant series of tanks.

These chevron tracks have the duck bill end connectors. Compare the width with the standard block track. These should be out in the next couple months.

Composite Hull

Paul Heiser Models 1/87th scale HO composite hull Sherman tank.

The composite hull used both cast parts and welded parts to make up the major hull components.

This model will be out in early 2010, and will be sold by Fidelis Models.

The extra armor plates were welded on over the ammo storage. Paul Heiser models makes at least 22 versions of the Sherman tank and very soon will make 19 more!

Caesar Germans

Panzergrenadiers Set I and Set II together.

Set I and Set II standing walking soldiers. 1/72nd scale soft plastic.

Standing submachine gunners, Set I and Set II.

Panzergrenadiers Set I and Set II together. These are great figures, they go well together and both sets give us great variety of both poses and weapons.

Ykreol YKRIP 14

These are the new Ykreol YKRIP 14 set, Germans in Russia, 1944. These are the masters for these new 1/72nd scale figures. While I am not a huge fan of prone figures, I do recognize that in modern warfare, often to stand is to get shot. So the value of being prone is very high. I can imagine these guys in there snow suits crawling up to a Russian barbed wire fence and breaching the fence line with the Caesar Miniatures Winter Germans running into the holes in the wire. A great wargame scenario.

Look for these sets early next year.

Panzergrenadiers I & II

Caesar Miniatures 1/72nd scale Panzergrenadiers Set I with machine pistol, and Set II with rifle.

Set I with rifle and Set II with assault rifle, kneeling figures.

Kneeling soldiers, Set I with submachine gun, and Set II with bazooka.

Set I with rifle and Set II with rifle and grenade.

Set I with machine pistol and Set II with machine pistol. Great figures, and both sets together really give complementary poses and equipment.

More Poses

Caesar Panzergrenadiers, I and II, 1/72nd scale soft plastic figures. Set I left and Set II right. Pointing figures.

Set I and Set II grenade figures, or at least anti-tank mine figure.

Kneeling figures from the two sets. Set II has an AT weapon.

Set I and Set II grenade throwers with rifle and SMG.

Charging with SMG. These two sets complement each other very well. This harkens back to the old Airfix sets with two dozen or more different poses. I like more poses, it really gives a great fell to the unit when a battalion of 800 men has twenty or more poses.

Caesar Panzergrenadier II

Panzergrenadiers I & II from Caesar Miniatures in 1/72nd scale soft plastic. Actually, if you look carefully, there are FOUR grenade poses.

Panzergrenadier set II, walking soldier. I like this pose a lot, useful for guarding, moving, watching.

Machine pistol soldier, set II. Keep the muzzle low, fire in short bursts, lean forward a bit.

Toss that grenade over an Imex log. I am not super happy with the prone grenade pose, but with three standing poses, I can live with one prone one.

Caesar Panzergrenadiers II

Running soldier with machine pistol.

Standing rifleman. An excellent pose, he actually looks like he is firing the rifle.

Kneeling firing an assault rifle. This is an excellent figure, I really like the post. Caesar has done a great job with him.

Panzerschreck, an important weapon in the fight against Soviet t-34s. Very well done.

This guy is actually prone, throwing the stick grenade from a prone position is an upclose and personal close quarters combat. Caesar Miniatures 1/72nd scale soft plastic figures, Panzergrenadiers set. More photos soon.

Caesar Panzergrenadiers II

Caesar Miniatures new Panzergrenadiers II is in stores just now. They are one part 1/72nd scale soft plastic figures and are as fantastic as all the other Caesar sets have been. This kneeling soldier is one of these new troops.

This soldier is placing a magnetic mine on the side of a tank.

Soldiers had to be very brave to get this close to stop a tank. This is why you fire your machine guns at tanks. Kill off the infantry riding the tanks. Force the tank crews to button up the hatches.

Another anti-tank weapon wielding soldier.

This soldier is throwing a grenade and holding a machine pistol. It is a similar pose to Panzergrenadiers I, but that figure had a rifle. This set is great and complements the Panzergrenadiers I set very well. More photos over the next few days.

Tiger

This old, tired Tiger II was an easy model to build.

Compared to this Stug III / IV. Roco Stug III with Panzer IV roadwheels.

The Roco Panzer III and Stug III kits sometimes have had poorly cast roadwheels. So, rather than toss them out, I took a tires worn out Panzer IV and used the roadwheels on the Stug.

1/72nd scale troops with the 1/87th scale Roco Tiger II.