Luftwaffe 1946 Baby Mobile

With a little one on the way I decided to do something a little different. With some 1/72 late WWII / Luftwaffe 1946 model kits unfinished from a fair few years ago (pre-wargaming life) I decide repurposing them into a baby mobile made perfect sense.

Using what I had I only bought Dragon's Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet for its size (to balance the weight of the Messerschmitt P.1101). Below follows the aircraft, a source photograph and its Wikipedia page.

Republic-Ford JB-2 Loon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic-Ford_JB-2

Bachem Ba 349 Natter

It's also worth reading an account of the first (and last) manned flight of the Natter by Lothar Sieber:

https://www.airspacemag.com/airspacemag/world-war-iis-worst-airplane-180973153/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachem_Ba_349

Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieseler_Fi_103R_Reichenberg

Captured British Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_163_Komet

Messerschmitt P.1101

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_P.1101

And putting them all together:

A few month in, the little one is loving them. The finish on them is a little rough, but I was working with some that were half painted, and or horrible to put together in the flight mode (I'm looking at you P.1101). But I'm very happy with the overall result.

Completed Downed MiG-19 and Some Brown Cows

Following on from my previous post, I painted the Mig (basically a random mix of Vallejo Natural Steel (70.864) and Army Painter Plate Mail Metal) and added decals (overpainting a 1/144 WWI RAF roundel and some numbers from Revell 1/100 Mil Mi-24 Hind kits). I'm not sure now what colour I painted the pilot's uniform in, I think Vallejo Khaki (70.988), but I gave it a heavy brown wash as the Albanian uniforms were more brown than green.

Images of Albanian MiG-19 / J-6s to see how run down they are:

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=albanian+j-6&sxsrf=ALeKk037V4Epky3FcatrMGvC6mt_Af6vjA:1608334389732&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjMhOu_2NjtAhVvwjgGHYJHBckQ_AUoAXoECAYQAw&biw=1920&bih=919

This was followed by cleaning up the edges of the decals, and adding weathering (brown and black washes). And then static grass and tufts. I think the Noch Spring Meadow static grass (50210) is a little too bright to replace whatever I've been using for years (Games Workshop or Gale Force 9 light green static grass), but it's definitely better than the Woodland Scenics Light Green static grass that is nice - but a very dull green / grey that I'll be using for desert / post apocalyptic settings instead and not for my temperate and tropical zone-centric armies. I've used it on these pieces to see what it looks liek side by side.

I then also finished off some 1/100 architectural model cows I bought years ago from an art shop, and painted them brown as Buša cattle (a Balkan breed of cow - noting they're a small sized breed) to add as battlefield tat or ambush markers/jumping off points (with 1, 2 and 3 standing cows on the bases to differentiate them).

Did you know there's a lot of breeds of cattle?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cattle_breeds

Some simple additions to the battlefield terrain, but will add to the Balkan and Caucasus theme of my modern games.

Downed MiG-19

I picked up this 1/100 Tamiya MiG-19 in Japan a few years ago. There's not many instances in my current projects where I can use this, but the Albanians were still flying these (well some were still able to fly) at the time of the Kosovo War in 1999.

I decided that instead of a flying model it could act as a focal point for a mission or just battlefield tat by being a downed aircraft (and a quick search confirmed that not all crashed jets end up as a crater and charred frame!).

I based it on an old CD and ripped one of the wings. there's also battle damage at the rear to represent an S-125 (SA-3 Goa) missile strike, same type that shot down the F-117 in Kosovo.

I added the pilot (a 15mm WWII Soviet tanker from Battlefront) so I could easily play a downed pilot scenario for any rule set, like the one Warlord Games has for Bolt Action:
https://www.warlordgames.com/special-mission-downed-raf-pilot/

And this all ties in nicely to the film 'Behind Enemy Lines'.

Things I Love - 58ft Towing Lighters

While searching for something completely unrelated on Google, I stumbled upon this lithographic print by Keith Ferris:



The description for this is:
The Royal Flying Corps launches a Sopwith 2F.1 Camel as a surprise for Zeppelin L.53.

The Sopwith 2F.1 Camel flown by Flight Sub Lieutenant Stuard D. Culley lifts from a "lighter" towed by the British destroyer HMS Redoubt in the North Sea on 10 August 1918. An hour later, the German Zeppelin LZ.53 was intercepted and destroyed while flying at 19,000 feet, putting an end to this unchallenged harassment of the British Fleet. LZ.53 was the last Zeppelin destroyed in WWI and Culley’s Camel ditched along side the Redoubt and was recovered.

This aircraft survives today and hangs in the Imperial War Museum in London, England.
More information on these 58ft towing lighters can be found here:
http://bumaritime.org/projects/58ft-towing-lighters/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cyril_Porte#War_service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rumney_Samson#First_World_War

The print is available from:
https://keithferrisart.com/product/just-airborne-at-sea-lithographic-print-19-12-x-23-le-750/

Little Wars Melbourne 2013

In 1913, 100 years ago, HG Wells published a set of rules for playing games of war on one’s parlour room floor. It was the culmination of many years’ worth of fun he had enjoyed with his fellow gentlemen playing with his collection of toy soldiers. Little Wars Melbourne commemorated this anniversary on May 25 2013 by celebrating with a day of miniature gaming!

I went down to Mornington Secondary College where Little Wars Melbourne 2013 was being hosted. I first played in Mark R's Bolt Action game in the morning, followed by TOing a WWII air combat game set over the north Australian coast with Japanese and Australian aircraft using 1/144 plastic models I had sourced from HobbyLink Japan.

As always, a fun day - made better by capping it off with cigars and whiskey out in a field next to the school as the sun set.