modeloperations

Today I finished painting four cargo loads for the Zvezda Ural 4320 Truck in 15mm. Not really much to do on them but it’s a good feeling to get something done this early in the year.

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These pieces are a very nice addition to an already great model suitable for many different settings.

I already had four of the truck models, ordered in around 2015, when I found these loads on sandsmodels.com. In addition they offer a conversion kit for an office body which makes a very nice comand vehicle. At that time, in 2017 or 18 maybe, they also sold models of the Ural and so I snatched four loads, the office body and a fifth Ural in one order.
The four cargo trucks and the comand truck were already finished one or two years ago.

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A very nice convoy ready to get ambushed by some partisans or special forces teams! 🙂

And so it ended yesterday without much ado and applause. Not even from my girl-friend! 😉 I finished the last of the vehicles for my US Cold War army, including all the gunner and commander figures. For today spraying varnish was the last thing to be done.

And then to arrange them a nice little box until it’s time for action.

After seeing this, I guess, I will need some more infantry later. How did evil Lord Merrick say: „I’m not that easily defeated!“ I guess, this is also true for most painting projects.

The last pieces yesterday were the M35 trucks and M151 jeeps.

During a night shift I also finished all the gunner and commander figures for all of the vehicles – another 13 figures. Some were easily done with plain NATO olive. Others needed the woodland camouflage pattern, like the gunners in the Humvees and the ones in the MUTTs.

With this the main force of my American 15mm Cold War army is done. Helicopters and planes did I already finish last year. I still have two platoons of infantry and a few helicopters on the pile but these are for a later date. With this ends one of my biggest painting projects ever!

There wasn’t much work to do on this one. This was only a single M1 from the Tanks Modern Age starter box, which I bought last year to play some tank skirmishes with quick to learn rules while I was on holiday on Crete with some friends.

I already have eight Abrams completely painted and ready packed in boxes but I used the opportunity to add some details to all of the models. Two of them belong to the Zvezda Hot War range and two others still need a commander figure, as I found out by the way.

Unfortuantely I used another painting method on the older M1s. They were all primed in black and you can clearly see the difference between old and new.

The contrast between the camouflage colours on the new one (front) is much brighter. The overall look of the older version is much darker and even a stronger drybrush couldn’t fix that. Nevertheless, all models are ok for my liking. Important experience points gained!

At least in the Bundeswehr, the M113 was nicknamed „Elephant Shoe“. I guess, in a Cold War setting of the 60s, 70s or 80s you can never have enough of this versatile APCs and its variants.

In this phase of my US army project I had to finish ten M113 of different sorts And one is rather an objective or scenery item with a base.

The two M577s were lready mostly done and I only added some minor details like head- and backlights. Both models are older pieces from Battlefront’s Vietnam range.

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The standard M113s were also nearly complete, even with the commander figure. So only some detailing and drybrushing with Zandri Dust here.

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Finally, the support variants of the M113 family.

On the M901s and M163s only the camouflage pattern was done and, firstly, I used the infamous MIG-filter on them, as on the LAVs and other models before.

These M163s also still need some figures for gunners.

This is another ten tanks off the list! I’m really coming to an end here.

The Bradleys were mostly done and I only added some minor details like some red for backlights and blue for window slits.

All in all, I think, due to the black primer these models became too dark. That’s why I stopped using black primer on all later models. Fortunately there are enough colour primers around nowadays.

This model is another one from Zvezda, the only Bradley available in 15mm, as far as I know. However, as it seems, Battlefront will release its own Bradley model for Team Yankee with the next wave of US verhicles.

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The Zvezda model shows the deficiency of some of their 1/100 modern vehicles: The sculpt seems to be unfinished! Here you can see it on the headlights.

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All the details for the headlights were omitted. This is strange because Zvezda usually produces highly regarded scale models and the rest of the model is well detailed.
For me, I decided not to paint headlights on but to keep camouflage pattern to do exactly this, to camouflage it! Battlefront’s kit will hopefully be better!
I already took some pictures of the model a few years ago, along with some minis I had painted at that time.

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Another three off the list!

Michael Moore coined my image of the M109 in „Fahrenheit 9/11“. In one scene you see crews firing their 155mm guns during the Iraq War to the music of the Blood Hound Gang’s iconic song „Fire Water Burn“. One of the moments in life when you feel fascinated and disgusted at the same time.

Nevertheless, yesterday I did the last brush stroke on these. In addition to painting details, wash and drybrush, I also added some jerry cans on each side of the turrets.
These are the plastic models from Zvezda, originally for their own tactics game Hot War: Battle for Oil. A game I never played but some of the models for this game are really great. And the M109 is one of them.

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I already had some of the older Battlefront M109s made of resin and metal parts for their Vietnam range. But I don’t like that old model which is rather chunky, in my opinion. But I used these models for my West German army later as you can see in the pictures.

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The Zvezda model shows much more detail and was much easier to build. Superb fitting with no glue required! The only major disadvantage is that it can’t be built open-hatched. So no model with a commander on this one.
Comparing the Zvezda M109 with the new plastic M109 from Battlefront, derived from pictures on their homepage, the similiarities between both models are so big that I’m wondering if there was a cooperation between both companies. Only some details on the wheels and the back of the turret seem to be more elaborated.

Another four off the list!!!