Post-event lazy blog post....

 Ahoy readers. It's been a lazy couple of weeks on the blogging front since I haven't been in much of a place to post things. My hobby time has been filled with doing stuff. So, in the interests of getting restarted, here's as many armies as I managed to take pics of from Panzerschreck XXIV!  

Tank and my Bradley ACAV and Bradley Cavalry

Dan and Greg's M1 + M1A1 "horde"

Bloggers Pel and McBeth's British

Gav's Germans and his partner...

...Rob's Swedes

Blogger Scotty and his absent partner Wilson Pooch's Germans

Clubmate Chris' Germans and his partner...

...clubmate Ric's Americans

Chris and Wayne's Franco-German Alliance

Connor and Simon's (painted by Blogger Pooch) Americans

Russell and Graham's East Germans

Octavia and Richard's Grade 1 WARPAC Russians

Andre and Smudge's Israelis

Finally....

Phil's French, and his partner...

...Ian's UN Canadians

Ian deservedly won Best Army with these Canadians - they're absolutely stunning with one of the best white treatments I've ever seen. He shared his whitewash recipe with me and it's all drybrushed. I was, and remain, in awe. The presentation is just delightful. 

 

Finally, it was a great weekend. Excellent company, excellent food and some great gaming. TY is a solid  game when played for funsies on 8' x 6' tables. It was a lot of laughs. Rumour has it that EW Blitzkrieg next year for the 25th Anniversary of the event - that'll be just as absurd as anyone could want. 

 Next Time

I've been doing a bunch of work on my Deathwatch for 40K and I'm about to start a new building project....  

My Generation Was Killed - Part 9 - Miss Me…?

 

‘Sup Killers? Firstly, thanks for all of you that reached out asking why I hadn’t posted last week. Wait, what? No one reached out…? 😳 Darn, looks like my hopes of retiring on the profits of my soon-to-be-released book might not pan out…😝

Nah, all good…! Reason there was no post last week was, it was the annual ‘boys come down from Auckland weekend’, otherwise known as the 15mm gaming  ’Panzershreck’. This year it was Team Yankee, proposed by the mighty city of Dunedin… (If you know, YOU KNOW…😜) So I dragged out what I had and took a look… I was paired with the renowned ‘Meta Gamer’ Damien Reid, and together we knew we would be a competitive force, easily placing in the top three, and most likely given our skills, winning the event outright…

Reid and I getting smashed by a combo of Canuck’s and Frenchies from Ian and Phil. We lost, but a fun time was had by all!!

JOKES!! 😂 For those that know us, you know we’d be lucky not to get the spoon…! So, what did we take? A motley mix of Polish T55 and T72, and my Ukrainian list of 19 T64s, 3 BMP2, and 4 each of SA13 and ZSU23/4. 

We had a mixed weekend, one 8-1 win, but mostly losses or draws. It was enough to put us just into the top ten…  But the main point of PzS is meeting old mates and having some laughs, and in that regard, we were number 1 🥳 So good to see all my mates from around the motu, loves to you all 🙏 💟

Once the boys had left on Monday and Sarah and I had cleared up the bomb site that was our whare…😉 I cracked into the usual mahi. You’ll remember that I have been trying to mould the TOWs I needed and had not had much luck with the Blue Stuff, so I invested in some of this:

Made a mould from LEGO and stuffed 3 BF TOW into it. Then I applied some Vaseline to the mould to stop the halves sticking together and made the top of the mould. I used Grey Milliput to fill the moulds and the results are not too bad… They are not perfect, and if you look closely you can tell what they are, but I am happy with them as they are at least my own efforts 🤩

Pic below shows the OG BF TOW at the back, and my effort at the front:

The other thing I did was made some bases for the Trucks. The BF ones are rigid enough to be used free-standing, but the 3D ones are just a wee bit delicate. So, to bring everything together I have decided to base everything. This will not only add strength but also allow me to build a coherent theme for all the minis. Stage one was making the base mix, I used a mix of PVA, Rapid Fill, and two grades of model railway ballets. Mix that all up and slop it down on some medium BF bases and you are GtG!

Hopefully next week I can finish these, paint etc, then look at getting at least one PL of trucks mounted!

Data indicates that more of you are keen on the yarns than the minis, so here is this weeks ‘Letter from the Front’ 😉

The first half had kicked off, and we had entered Iraq. Mortar strikes and other arty fire were a daily, if not hourly occurrence and by now they were so frequent, we didn’t even bother getting into the sand trench. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway as it was not revetted and would most likely have just collapsed on us… 😂 

So, things are going on, and I am doing some stuff when the RSM comes over to me. “Hey Bob, what’s happening?” He asks in a ‘there is more to follow’ type of way…“Hey Sir, just checking on my CAMs and what not, what’s up?” I replied.

“Well…..” LONG pause, like long enough for me to wonder if he’s finally slipped into that coma… “Umm… I need you to drive me up to (Insert name of town I can’t remember), and I need to go right now”

“OK” says I, “what’s going on over there…?”

“Ummm… I tell you when we get going…”

So with that, I packed away what I was doing, sorted the truck out, and picked him up at his tent.

We were about 5 MIKES into the trip when he told me what the hoo-hah was. He’d left his S10 at this town we were headed to, and he OBVIOUSLY needed it back ASAP. You know, with the constant threat of CHEM and BIO weapons, and with him being the RSM, it would have been a bad look if we got an actual CBRN attack, and he was the only joker running around without a face-welly on 😂

As you can imagine, I REALLY, REALLY struggled with not just laughing as loud as I could and calling him a Fcukwit…😜 BUT, he was still the RSM, so I had to play it somewhat cool…

En-route to the town-with-no-name, we passed through another dusty poo-bowl of a town. This had been cleared by Coalition forces a few days previously, so was relatively safe. As I was driving into the town, we came into a cross-roads. As I recall the defining  feature was a large mural of Sad-Man Hussein that had been defaced and graffitied by the locals now we were here. As I slowed to admire the handiwork and obvious fresh wet marks that were splashed all over it… I saw two kids, one maybe 8-10, the other 12-15. 

Now, Taff (RSM) and I both knew that we were not supposed to give out lollies to local kids. We were not meant to interact with the locals at all, unless we were shooting them or repairing them after we had shot them…

But these two kids looked so forlorn and sad, I looked at Taff, and slowed the truck to a halt. In the same mindset, we both reached into our daysacks and pulled out a bag of lollies each, can’t remember the brand or type. I then drove towards the kids, and threw out the two bags of lollies. Both kids picked up the bags and the joy on their faces was a sight to behold.

The smaller of the two then ripped into his bag with gusto, stuffing a handful of (snakes I think) into his wee mouth. As he started to enjoy the sugar-rush, the older kids demeanour change rapidly… I could almost see the gears in his head turn as the plan formulated in his brain.

With a flash, he stuffed his bag of lollies into a pocket, and in a simultaneous move that would have made an elite gymnast proud, punched the little kid square in the face…

Immediately the small guy dropped his bag of lollies, spilling some of them onto the ground as he held his nose which was now streaming with blood from the assault. He then ran away as the bigger kid swooped up the spilt bag of lollies, and took to his heels in the other direction. He was like the Iraqi version of Iron Mike Tyson mixed with Zola Budd…

Taff and I took one look at each other, and almost at the same time we said, “Well, we wont be doing that again.” We drove the rest of the way in silence as we tried to process the event we had just witnessed, and perhaps more tellingly, had just CAUSED…

We were just trying to do what we thought was the ‘right thing’, but clearly the BDE S2 knew more than we did when it came to handling locals… 😔

We eventually got to the town-with-no-name, and yup, you guessed it, the RSMs S10 was NOWHERE to be found…😝 He was looking high and looking low. He was looking harder than Gollum after the One Ring…! I told him not to panic, I had a plan…

We obviously couldn’t just rock up to the QM, who, being a former RSM himself, would have just laughed…! And he might not have had a spare Rezzy in his size anyway…

So, I told Taff I would source him a US respirator, and he could put that in a spare S10 haversack. Unless we got an actual CBRN attack, no one would know, and if we did get such an attack, the US one would still work 😉

SO, for the rest of the deployment, he rolled around with a US respirator, praying that he never had to use it… Fun times…

And no, before you ask, I don’t have any pics of this event…

Right, that’s all for this week, al always, thanks for reading this far, I appreciate all of your kind thoughts and comments. Till next time, Stay Frosty 🫡

My Generation Was Killed - Part 8 - Regulators! Mount UP!

 

‘Sup Killers? Well, that was the week that was… Been away all week with mahi, so not a lot of work achieved on the list. However, I did manage to squeeze some painting and assembly in on Monday…

WARNING: This week’s ‘back in the day’ section gets pretty close to the bone. Look away now if you are easily offended…

I decided to build The Iceman’s Hummer to see what it would look like, and I got about 80% of the way there. As you can see in the pics below, I fitted The Iceman, Ray, Trombley and Rolling Stone into the Hummer, almost losing all of them in the process…! I kind of new they would disappear once I got them inside, but maybe wasn’t quite prepared for just HOW lost they would become…

You can see in this first pic some bits of sprue below the truck. That’s parts of legs, body’s arms and Hummer chassis that I had to keep trimming in order to fit the team inside..! Oh well, at least I know they are there…! Still to finish are the high-viz panel on the hood, and more detailing to the MK19 and then final paint including door markings.

At this size, these are more like 54mm than 15, so excuse the roughness, but it does show the crew to good effect, especially Rudies Elvis Sunnies, and Brad’s NVG scope 🤩

In other news, I was fortunate enough to visit a major firearms collection this week. Around a dozen C96’s, two-dozen Lugers, 50+ bolt action rifles, around 10, TEN MP40s, MG42, MG34, Thompson’s etc etc… However, the real standout for me was this beauty; S1 FG42 in MINT condition. I even got to handle it! Such a shame it cannot be legally fired any longer 😢

FG42 surrounded by MP38, MP40, MP41 and others 😎

So, what’s on the ‘back in the day’ menu for this week, I hear you eagerly ask…?? Well this week, we get into some ‘military tourism’… A fascinating subject…! These pics were taken some time after the first round of fighting had taken place and we had pushed into Basra, after the Battle of Basra which took place between around 21 March to 6 April 03.

For obvious reasons, I have zero pics of those days, just the ones that remain in my head… Of course for me, the main event of this period was the loss of my friend, Matthew ‘Marty’ Hull of the Household Cavalry, who was killed by USAF A10’s on 28 March 03.

Matty and I were Section Commander instructors at ATR Pirbright in the late 90’s-early 2000’s, he was originally a Pioneer but transferred to the HCR to get more out of the Army.

28 March started for me in a holding area that we had moved into a day or two before. I remember the usual routine, woke up, had a scrape, did some dobie, checked some CBRN gear, made my rounds to check other gear in outlying units.

Then sometime in the afternoon, don’t remember when, a Rover arrived. Out jumped three of my mates, who rushed over to me. With tears in their eyes, they told me that Matty had been killed by the Americans.

I was overcome with grief.

I joined them in the Rover with the intention of driving to the nearest US unit and getting some payback.

Fortunately for us, we had a divine intervention that prevented us from carrying that mission out… That’s something to explain to people farce-to-face, but basically we were going to commit murder, and God stopped us from doing it.

Tough day in the office…

These pics were taken sometime after this event, when in usual military fashion, I had had to move on and carry on with the mission. Time to grieve being zero… This event was to traumatise me for decades to come, and I thank God everyday for getting me through this and keeping my family with me. 🙏

So, here’s some happier pics, first one of me on / in a T55. In one pic I am holding up a copy of ‘Motorcycle News’, which I was again meant to send in to them in the hope of some goodies, but never did…😝

Mad thing about this tank was, as you know, it was of Russian origin, and now being used by the Iraqi’s. However, I was able to operate all the turret controls with ease, due to the fact that all the controls were labeled in ENGLISH…😂 No wonder the Iraqi’s got slapped around so quickly, they couldn’t read the instructions in their own tanks…

Next up we have an IMR, engineering vehicle based on the T55 chassis, note the prominent gap between the 1st and 2nd roadwheels 🤩 

We found the T55 abandoned in the middle of nowhere, and the IMR was in a holding area for captured Iraqi armour. Fun times were had by all 😜

Well, that wraps it up for this week. For those of you reading that know me, you know the journey I am on, and I appreciate all of your love and support over the years. It’s YOU that have helped me to be able to tell this story. 🙏❤️

Till next time, Stay Frosty 🫡

Workbench weekend

So, given the long weekend here, I got stuck into some serious construction. I picked up a few models for my Deathwatch recently with a view to making a bit more an effort to get them on the table. 

 I started with a couple of Storm Speeders. Honestly, when 8th came out, Dark Angels or Deathwatch was a coin toss and DW came out on top. So this is a nod to the  fact that I loved the 2e Landspeeder as well as having a sensible tactical use in bringing some mobility and some decent armaments. 

Secondly, a bunch of Primaris Gravis Marines, or Phat Bois, as I've taken to calling them. These 8 marines and a Gravis Captain will join a couple of Aggressors to become an Indomitor Kill Team brining some much needed firepower to my DW collection. I haven't bought a Land Raider to put them in yet but so help me I am tempted. 

Finally, a unit of Outriders had to go into the collection. I picked up the amazing Outrider Chaplain donkeys ago and have never put it on the table. This unit solely exists to get him on the table. 

 It was a solid reminder of why I LOATHE GW's Primaris Easy Builds for Deathwatch. I had to commit some serious violence on the shoulders in order to chop off the moulded pauldrons and replace the left hand ones with Deathwatch shoulders and the right hand ones with embossed chapter pauldrons. Ugh. But they're done now so they're the first that are going on the painting queue. 

 Next Time

I dunno. I'm thinking I'll break out X-Force for a game of 40K this weekend and I am musing on a game of Kings of War too as I haven't played that in ages.   

My Generation Was Killed - Part 7 - Paint Your Wagon

 ‘Sup Killers, hows it? Happy Matariki! We had a great local event in Havana / Shannon that was well supported by whanau, so cool to be a part of a smaller community ☺️

Whilst I am not Blogging for numbers here, its interesting that the apparent number of pers who are rereading this has dropped from over 150 for part 1, to ZERO for part 6… Not sure what’s happening there as I know at least half a dozen people who have read it, as they comment to me about it!! 🤩

Anyhoo… Enough tears…! 😂 What’s been happening this week..? Well I thought I’d start to paint the Iceman’s PL of four Hummers, so that’s been a focus this week. Also I made more stowage from my mould, I seem to have hammered that somewhat and may need to make a mould from the mould…

If you remember from last week, I had a go at moulding some TOW launchers using Blue Stuff. Well… That was as expected, a bit average… I get the feeling that it works fine for 28mm shields and arms, but not so good for 15mm support weapons that are around 12mm long and 2mm in diameter..!

Pics below show what I mean…

This was my second attempt at a mould. This time I super-heated the BS in the Mikrowelle for 3 MIKES as instructed by a professional. This made it super goopy, which was great, but the ickle TOWs just wouldn’t push into the stuff enough. And that was with using a LEGO wall and base to stoop the stuff from pushing outwards as I pushed the TOWs into it…

One of them MIGHT be OK with about 15 MIKES of fettling… But that’s too much squeeze for not enough juice owww!! So I have ordered some GSW 2-part moulding putty as used by Mr Allen. That should arrive in a week or two, and then it will then be moulding REDUX… If that fails, I’ll be taking ZT-Boss up on his offer of attempting to print some…

So, back to SGT Colbert’s Hummers. I started with a black undercoat, then did a zenithal pass in white, both using Vallejo paints. Then I started with the base coat of my new AMMO ATOM colours as recommended by Mr Allen. 20009 US Tan and 20066 NATO Green. A few drops of 20510 Thinner and they went on just beautifully ☺️

Then I had to work out how to replicate the tiny camo pattern on Colbert’s trucks. In the show it looks like some type of mask has been applied to the base European MERDC camo, and then the US Tan sprayed over it. If I was forced to make an assessment, I would say they used a standard CAM net as the mask… Anyway, that was way to much for 15mm, so I went with US Tan overall and then stippled on NATO Green and Brown using a sponge chipping technique. It looks OK and will come out better once I start applying washes etc. Pics below show what I mean.

In the last pic you can see Nat Ficks HQ truck in green as in the show. That will be getting the full 3-Color MERDC Euro pattern the week after next.

I also did some work on my O Gauge Pannier. It was a MESS… The dude who had it before me did some odd painting on the buffers and side rods using real thick enamel paint. That all had to be removed with acetone. I then decided as the rest of the paint was in such bad shape that I would model it off an actual engine and renumber it to 3681 as seen on 25 October 1965 at Bath on the old S&D line. 

Pics taken from the excellent work by Jeffry Grayer as above, one of the four books he has written on the S&D in its last days and death throes.

My attempts as below. I paid particular attention to the oil and dirt accumulation on the wheels, rods and underframe, and the mass of boiler wash-out waste on the smokebox and running plate as seen below.

Oil and Grease courtesy of MIG enamels such as ‘Fresh Engine Oil’ and ‘Fuel Spills’, such good mediums to use in this scale. I got the build up of oil and grease effect using weathering powders mixed with Nuln Oil to a thick paste and then layered on to get the effect I wanted. Pretty happy with that side! 

OK, well that’s modelling for the week, now onto ‘back in the day’… If I’m honest I am not sure which milk brings the boys to the yard, the minis or the active duty stories… You tell me… 🤔😉

So one day I am up at my favourite USMC HQ hang-out having just arranged some more DECON training for my team and the Boots, when I saw this little event going down. At first glance it looked to be a literal ‘Tug O War’ between an AAVR-7A1 and an M88 as they were joined by the same towing cable…

After chatting to the crews, they explained what was happening. These AFVs had not long come into theatre and needed their towing cables and other systems recalibrated after the voyage. So this was the method they used. 

I remember thinking at the time that I’d take loads of pics as they would be useful for modelling purposes in the future. Just hadn’t realised it would be like 22 years later…😂 I plan on making objective markers of each of these, which will be a cool side project. Just need some 3D printed minis… ‘Cough-Cough, T-Boss, Cough-Cough…’ 😜 I love the name on the AAVR ‘Psychosis’ so cool 😎 

This event sticks in my mind as only a few hours before there had been the first of what were to become an unfortunate series of events, culminating I guess in Mattys death on 28 March 03. US troops seemed prone to so-called ‘Friendly Fire’ (NOTHING friendly about it), or ‘Blue on Blue’ events, so named after military war games where the S3 uses Blue for FF and the S2 uses Red for ENY.

Anyhoo, a few hours prior to these pics being taken, some Marines in the Supply PL were cleaning their personal weapons and someone had an Unintentional Discharge (UD) or as we called them at the time, a Negligent Discharge (ND). This resulted in another PL thinking they were taking effective enemy fire and reacting to it. Net result thankfully was no KIA but several wounded that needed hospitalisation.

Little did I know at the time that a similar lack of discipline would result in my mate being killed and my whole life being turned on its head.

No pics of this event unsurprisingly…

It was funny as the line-Marines I spoke to about it afterwards were full of contempt for ‘POGs’ (Person Other than Grunt) who they looked down on with disdain. In the British Army these were called ‘REMFs’ (Rear-Echelon Mother Fckuers), and the funny thing for me, was I WAS one of those POG / REMFs, although as I was to find out later, this would not prevent me from getting involved in things I would not normally be expected to be involved in.

I think it was about this time that we got our first ‘real’ NBC alarm and had to take cover, but we will save that tale for the next time…

Until then, thanks for reading, (if anyone did..!) and if they didn’t, it sure helps me to write things down 🙏

Stay Frosty…🫡