Dirty Jon's Latest Tank Adventures

I have been putting together some rather random stuff lately - the tremendous backlog that I have built up over the years has a wide range of stuff!  This will be a short look at some of my latest projects.

Guards Armour

Over the years, I somehow picked up two of the Cromwell Armoured Platoon (BBX12) box sets.  I got these sets, even though I already had and entire Welsh Guards Company....and had already sold a complete Welsh Guards Company a few years ago.  What was I thinking?  The Guards Armoured was one of the first lists I really went after and painted over time.  I had not achieved a consistent look to the tanks and I had messed up the decals and marking more than once.  Instead of flipping the box sets, I went ahead and painted both up.

One of the sets was the newer one with the individually sculpted tanks, the other was the old one.  I added some stowage to the older box set to bring the Company look together.

Decals are a combination of Battlefront and Dom's Decals.  I really like Dom's large bridge weight numbers. Dom has a variety of decals available and very, very consistent quality to the prints.  They do require more trimming and tend to be thinner and curl up a bit if the water is over hot.

D'oh!  I think I see some flash on that mantlet!  Looks like a little fixing is needed before declaring this done!

While I was at it, I painted up yet another Firefly.  I have seven of these now.  I will likely pick the four I like best and sell off the rest.  This one looks like a keeper to me!  I put a lot of stowage on this one to get the gypsy caravan look a lot of British tanks seem to have.

Hummels

I already have some giant artillery I don't use, so why not get some more?  I picked these guys up in a plastic bag at one of the HMGS conventions for some reason -- they were cheap, I guess!

I went for a new paint scheme that I found in a book I like:  German Wehrmacht Panzer Divisions 1939-1945.  The worn out look is great on German camouflage, so I went with it.

I have to confess, that I LOVE to look through the Interwebs and find the scale model hobby sites - I use the larger models for reference.  It seems to me that 15mm is a bit more of an impression of the tank, rather than a miniaturized, accurate depiction like the larger stuff.  Still, it is great to see those guys' work and gain some knowledge and insight.

For the Panzer III OP tank, I used Evan's great guide on the Battlefront site to convert up a model.  For this guy, I also dug up a camo pattern out of my book.  I used some thick plastic sheet for the mantlet, and I think mine is a bit too flat for my taste.  Oh well, it looks good from two feet!  

More Early War!

I actually purchased the Zvesda Panzer 38(t)s on purpose.  I was thinking of using these with my Early War army, but I decided to go with the 4th Panzer Division instead of the 7th, so these sat.  Craig has already done a great job reviewing these guys, so I won't say much about them.

So, no Dirty Jon painting article is complete without some random model acquired from someone at a place I have forgotten.  I present Generalmajor Rommel (GE892)!  I again referenced the great article by James and Evan for the painting.  I am pretty happy with how Rommel turned out.

I used the excellent Panzer Turret Number decals from Dom for these guys.

Zvesda on the left, Battlefront on the right.  

So, that's my random bag of tanks!  As of today, that's 104 tanks painted in 2013.  D'oh!  I have a problem....