Bar Mills Tarp-Covered Cargo

A while back I discovered that I now live only a few miles from a large model railroad distributor and that they have walk in service. Well, I had to check it out. I spent a few days looking through the Walthers Model Railroading online catalog and decided to pick up a few O (1/48) scale scenic detail items. One of the better purchases was some crates and tarp covered cargo from Bar Mills Scale Model Works.

Last week I decided to finally paint these up, but had to use brush on primer given the weather (ridiculously cold for the last 3 months) and the fact that I have no where to use my spray primer anymore, as I now have a neighbor downstairs who complains when I spray paint in the shared basement. So I tried to prime the crates but found that I couldn't get into some of the spaces between the crates so they will have to wait until it warms up and I can spray paint out in the garage.

I was able to prime and paint the the the tarp-covered cargo, and they turned out really well and were quite easy to paint. The detail on the tarps is pretty amazing to be honest.

One of my commandos taking cover behind some crates of HE shells?

These things are perfect objective markers, and as general scenery for any war game. I highly recommend these for anyone looking for some cheap ($8.00 for all three) and easy to paint objective markers.

In case you were wondering, the size of the pieces are roughly 30mm square for the two smaller pieces and the longer one is 48mm long. So they would all fit on a 60mm base and the two smaller ones could be based on 40mm bases individually.

1930's Airpower

After Christmas I ordered some air power for my VACW game. I had ordered four different planes but it turns out the Travel Air Mystery Ship was out of stock. So I ended up with three planes. 


The first is the Curtiss P-6E Hawk. This plane entered service with the United States Army Air Corps in 1929 and served until they wore out. The last one leaving service in 1942.

The second plane that I have put together is the Gee Bee R-1 race plane.  There were only two R-1 planes built, along with two of the the earlier Y version and one Z version of the plane. Not to mention, that if I remember correctly, they all crashed, and did so well before 1937. However the airplane is so iconic that I just had to have one. Perhaps secretly rebuilt by Wiley Post before his death in 1935, then shoved to the back of the hanger and forgotten about. Works for me!

The last plane of the bunch is the Stearman PT-17. It is still in the box waiting for me to put it together. After the difficulty of  putting the struts together on the P-6E, I am not really looking forward to doing it again so soon. Hopefully I will be able to get these painted up in the next week or so. I'm still not sure of how I am going to paint them up. I am thinking to paint the communist plane green, you know the green I mean, like all other communist planes and throw some red stars on it. Then I think, well heck maybe I should paint it bright red and use a green star to set it apart. As for the Black Legion plane I'm thinking of painting it black obviously, but what to put on it? Human skull decal? or maybe some sort of raven design if I could pull it off.

Flakvierling 38 and Opel Blitz

A short one for today. This are two models that I did a couple of months back for my German Army. They are still one of my favorite units as far as modelling and painting goes. Both turned out really nice and have gotten a fair bit of use. Occassionally the Blitz gets used for transporting my infantry, but it's main job is towing the Flak 38.



The Flak 38 is a Tamiya model that I got on sale for $10.00 and though it had a good number of pieces it really wasn't that difficult to put together. The Opel Blitz in from Warlord Games and was easy to assemble and paint and looks great. However the amount of time involved is a good 3-4 hours. Oddly enough the Opel Blitz hitch and the trailer for the Flak 38 actually hook together which is a nice bonus, even though the two models are different scales. Even though the two are different scales it is not that obvious. The trailer is slightly wider that the truck, which doesn't really bother me.

Also in the shot, between the Flak 38 and the Blitz is my German Observer. He was made out of a Wargames Factory body and extra arms, head and radio from the Tamiya kit. I particularly love the rolled up sleeves, and the hand painted rank actually turned out really well.

As far as the Bolt Action games rules go, the Flak 38 kind of gets the short end of the stick. Even though the gun shield is clearly visible on the model, there is no way in the rules to get a gun shield, and the gun shield rule for the Flak 38. So this unit is easier to kill than it should be. Also there seems to be some confusion in various forums as to how many shots this thing gets.