As you know by now I've a lot of old rubbish ...err...vintage kits from sometime in the 1970's and I've added to them ever since. I've decided I want to do one of the big Normandy 'set piece' battles like Good-wood, Epsom etc. and I thought I'd get all my old (basically 1:76) stuff together and form it all into the 11th Armoured Division. Later, if I live that long, I'll have a go at Guards Armoured in 1:72 as all the new stuff is bigger...you know...15's are now 18's, 20's are 24's 25's are 28's and 28's are 30 odd, yaddah, yaddah,yaddah...
Still used, still functional but tatty I still think the old gear has life like this old Matchbox Firefly. It matches up really well with the good old Airfix Sherman fantasy (because it doesn't know which Sherman it is supposed to represent)
So, ignoring the fundamental mistakes I made during the original assembly, I whipped of the track guards and added stowage, applique armour (from thin plasticard) and dry brushed a lighter paint job...
...added the decals and...
Me likee, me likee velly much...as they say in Glasgow
I'll be doing the whole of 29 Armd Bde but I've only completed the 1st Regt.
I got a couple of these M5 Stuart Recce tanks from Grubby Tanks. The Recce Sqn for the Rgt. is these two M5's.
They are Britannia and although a little rough around the edges they fit in well with the Regiment
I'm doing it all RAPID FIRE! Rules as per usual but it's still a significant number of vehicles
I think the Humber is MMS. Again it fits in well with the scale look. The Regimental HQ consists of Humber SC, Command tank, ARV and there should be an AA Crusader but they were withdrawn so early on that it's not worth putting them in.
It Humber is pretty diddy next to the Airfix Sherman command tank...and the Sherman is petite to start with!
They go well together in my opinion
This last effort is a very basic scratch build. Anyone can do this.
I used the Sherman Armoured Recovery Vehicle from Britannia as the template. As I only had the one recovery I took the hull of the Airfix Sherman and left off the turret. Including the hole for the gun turret I cut out a square. I cut two doors out of Plasticard. I found a spare .50 cal from the spares box and a lot of old stowage and just glued it on everywhere, again using the ARV as a template to see where kit could go.
A basic paint job, some dry brushing and detailing with some decals thrown in and...an ARV is good to go.
The breakdown (pardon the pun) is the Squadron is four. That's either one or two Firefly's and two or three Sherman's. Three squadrons (equal to a company) and an HQ squadron of three vehicles and a further recce squadron of two vehicles. That's 17 vehicles to the Regiment (equal to a Battalion). Then three Regiments to the Brigade which makes 51 vehicles. Add a Bde HQ and the 29th is set. There is the Division Recce Regiment of Cromwell's which effectively adds another Regiment of 18 vehicles.
I've already done the infantry Bde (that's another 30 vehicles) but there's still an anti-tank regiment, artillery regiment, RASC coy, MG coy, Motor Battalion to be gathered in, revamped or started from scratch....but these are for another post.
The breakdown (pardon the pun) is the Squadron is four. That's either one or two Firefly's and two or three Sherman's. Three squadrons (equal to a company) and an HQ squadron of three vehicles and a further recce squadron of two vehicles. That's 17 vehicles to the Regiment (equal to a Battalion). Then three Regiments to the Brigade which makes 51 vehicles. Add a Bde HQ and the 29th is set. There is the Division Recce Regiment of Cromwell's which effectively adds another Regiment of 18 vehicles.
I've already done the infantry Bde (that's another 30 vehicles) but there's still an anti-tank regiment, artillery regiment, RASC coy, MG coy, Motor Battalion to be gathered in, revamped or started from scratch....but these are for another post.
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