Plastic Soldier Company 1 /72 Scale Sherman Tank - Finished

I have added some of my custom 60/40 Brown /Black wash to the tracks and details and then tidied up the models where necessary.

Here are some more shots of different angles.

Hope you like the way they turned out.

Vitor

Plastic Soldier Company 1 /72 Scale Sherman Tank - WIP2

Painted in all the details and ready for the final shading.

Hope to finish this in the next day or so.

Vitor

Plastic Soldier Company 1 /72 Scale Sherman Tank - WIP

Starting work on my Sherman Tanks, the PSC kit is perfect for me as it is easy to build, has lots of extras, good detail and is affordable. You can also make a Firefly as part of the squad which is a 'must have'.

I started off with a primer / base colour of Plastic Soldier Company Army Spray British Armour. This is a great way to get a smooth layer of paint on all those flat surfaces.

Next step was to apply a heavy wash for the shading which I used my usual 50/50 mix of black and brown.

Then I dry-brushed the models with Vallejo Russian Uniform.

All that remains is for me to complete the tracks and details.


Vitor

Flames of War - Sherman Tanks - Finished

Finally finished these little babies. Painted the stowage along the lines of the Battlefront Video for the Open Fire set.

I am really happy with the way they turned out. The experience of painting such small models will improve my overall abilities I think. Ron at From the Warp once said that a good way to improve your skills was to paint a totally different model from what you usually paint and I think he is correct.

Here are the rest of the pictures.

Now on to my Stug's.

Vitor

Flames of War - Sherman Tanks - On the Painting Table

I started to assemble my Shermans as per the instruction leaflet with the added coins for weight and value :) but soon ran into the dreaded 'awful fit' that I heard about on the net prior to buying Flames of War.

Below you can see how much green-stuff I used to close the gap between the top hull and side track section.

After assembling all the tanks I primed them with a black primer then painted them with a base coat of watered down black paint.

I then applied a two coats of Russian Uniform.

Next step was a liberal wash of a mix of 50/50 black and brown wash.

 

After that was dry I dry-brushed the tanks with Russian Uniform and cleaned up any areas that needed it.

I then painted the tracks and applied the same wash to them.

All that is left is to complete the stowage and other details and it will be done. I am not applying any decals as none were supplied with the starter set, a mistake from Battlefront I think.

Vitor

Flames of War - Adding Value to your Tanks Literally

Reading up on the web etc I noticed that when playing the game itself the extreme lightness of the models can mean moving them around unintentionally, so with this in mind people have added bits of left-over metal sprue to the inside to add some weight to the models to keep them in place on the tabletop. Having not played any games myself I decided to do the same just in case I ever did manage to get to play a game or two.

I went for adding value to my tanks literally by gluing euro cents to them.

They fit just right on the Sherman but the Stug was not as easy, I had to glue the cents to the underside as there was no space inside the model. I am hoping when it's painted up they wont be noticeable.

Vitor

Flames of War - Infantry vs Tank Scale

Here is a picture showing the current plastic infantry model on his base next to a Sherman Tank not on  base.

Below is a shot of real infantry next to a Sherman Tank. You can see that the scale is pretty close.

Why do I bring this up? because when FOW first appeared I was put off by the seemingly large heads ( might just be my imagination ) of the metal infantry models which looked weird and next to the tank models they appeared to be the incorrect scale. One of the first things I did when I opened my started set was to check the scale by putting the two models next to each other and I was very happy to see the results.

I want to field my tanks, if I get around to actually playing, without them being fitted to a base. This means that the infantry on a base are slightly taller ( a base height ) than they should be, so I am devising a cunning plan to test out making a thinner base for them ( watch this space ).

For your enjoyment here are a few other real pictures of soldiers and people next to Sherman Tanks.

Vitor

Flames of War - External Machine Gun Position

Some more musings on WW2 stuff, this time about the positioning of the Machine Gun on the Sherman Turret.

The FOW assembly guide says put it on the hatch which I did. Then when it got to the Commander's Tank I glued the Tank Commander model into the hatch and then realized the Machine Gun wasn't going to work in there as well. This got me thinking about the position of the Machine Gun and how was it possible to fire the thing from the hatch? I also had a memory of a dude standing on the engine compartment behind the Turret firing the Gun from a different mounting position.

I did some investigating and found two references to back up both options.

In the picture below you can see just how awkward it is to fire the Machine Gun from the Hatch.

 In this example you can see the soldier firing from the standing position behind the Turret.

So mount them in either position and you should be good to go.

Not sure what piece of useless information I will be thinking of next but stay tuned.

Vitor.

Flames of War - Tank Stowage

While I was putting together my Sherman Tank I attached the stowage to the tank as per the assembly guide which shows you can attach the bits that look like rolled up 'sheets' to the sides of the tank.

Later on when I was doing a bit of internet trawling to get a bit more info on the Sherman Tank I noticed that none of the pictures I came across showed these rolled up 'sheets' attached to the sides of the tanks, tracks yes but not those 'sheets'.

Now this is not a big deal for me, but it was interesting and I started to wonder about the reason why? I guess its because the 'sheets' and similar stowage can be easily torn off when driving passed walls etc that will just rip them off.
The tracks, in some cases, were welded on I believe as an 'improvised armour' and were not spare tracks for their actual tank.

The British it seems were a bit more conservative than the Americans when it came to improvised armour as the 'Yanks' were fond of using sand bags in every possible place they could find.

They even used wooden logs and planks (picture of planking in Pacific War).

I am really enjoying the Historical side of this game and I look forward to the upcoming research that I will no doubt be undertaking on all the other models in the Open Fire Starter Set.

Vitor