Now in glorious colour

Imagine my surprise when I saw the film 'The big red one' and found out it wasn't about London buses at all...

The Revell set of 'Ardennes' US infantry is a marvelous and well sculpted set of figures but a couple of things irritate me about it. The .50 Cal is a lot of stand for little action and the mortar is worse. Everything else is really good. As you can see I removed the mortar man from the expanse of base and decided to muck about...

The less than accurate old Esci mortar men are ridiculously condensed but are serviceable

The prayer meeting in progress here is for smaller stands. Next time I'll have a muck about with them too...

As with all small parts, and especially with soft plastic bits in figure sets, I paint while still on the sprue. Cutting the sprue down a bit just makes the handling easier

AS an aside I thought I'd have a go at the lovely Mountain/air portable US 75mm Gun from the snappily named 'Waterloo 1815 American Mountain Gun from 75mm WWII'...and they do a British Para version too

It glues very well, is a beautiful little kit and you get 3 in a box with crews. It can be a tricky build as the instructions looked to be drawn by a none modeller...

R/T operators from last blogpost now painted and based

I did go a little err...MAD...and made enough for another division but hey, another division!

I've decided to just leave the three man gun crews with the battalions and keep the guns separate. This way I can put in the relevant gun for the action ie 37mm, 57mm or 3" A/T guns

Each of the file drawers take an Regimental Combat Team plus HQ

Each RCT is the equivalent of a British Brigade or German Regiment. The Brits are in a larger format of file cabinet draw and can also get their transport in as well as the men.

...forming up is always a messy business and it shows gaps in the orbat but then, at least, you can see what you still need to do...

M10's coming in for refurbishment

This example is an Armourfast two-in-a-box job. They are 'no frills' but great for cranking out load of gear quickly

I add my own frills with breach mechanisms, racks of rounds from other kits in the bits box and eventually crew and decals.

None of which is supplied but for the price, range and ease of production is fine by me.

Revel mortar bases...

...cut down (oh, they were so young, sniff)

Paint tubes and legs on sprue...I refer the honourable member to my former comments

Attach to magnet or plastic or card or thumb...

Paint Fred and his base then push pegs of the feet into the stand holes...

Light a candle and ~~pray for Fred~~ heat an old ladies hat pin and melt protruding pegs. It works better than glue on polyurethane (soft plastic) figures and keeps you hat on straight

Clip off your painted weaponry and do the same 'melt' on the tripod...

You can see the pegs on the feet of the tripod

It's now easier to condense and combine figures onto a more manageable base

You know by now I use No More Nails or equivalent and a spot of superglue

Paint the lot...

While that dries do all those things that require the same technique at the same time

...it makes life easier and you get through fewer candles

Once you have them all at the final stage, varnished and dried, add PVA to the base and dip into your favourite potpourri of scatter, foliage, grit, porridge, or as I do, sand.