Chinese Army in 15mm - Part III

One down, three (or more?) to go!

After much painting and bleeding (I need to figure out a safer way to cut those puttees), I finished a platoon, and I think they turned out satisfactory. They don't have any basing or terrain, as I'm still deciding what I want to do, but I'm leaning towards something with a late autumn feel to it.

Something like this, I think.

A modification made, which I discussed earlier, was turning the Suomi kp/31 into an MP 28.

pew pew

This I did by cutting off the drum magazine and replacing it with a tiny bit of wire and covering it with Squadron green putty, then sanding once dried. It also received a left mounted box magazine, made from a bit of scrap metal. I cut the barrel down, thinking it looked too long for an MP28, but now I'm wondering if that wasn't a mistake.

I also added a chest-mag rig, as this seems to be how the Chinese who carried the MP28 were equipped. These were made out of Green Stuff/ Kneadatite, and while they would have carried more than three magazines, I was limited by my sculpting abilities. But I think they get the idea across.

Chinese Army in 15mm - Part II

I looked over the Finnish platoon, did some fiddling around, and concluded my idea of shaving down the boot shaft and replacing it with tiny strands of wrapped Green Stuff to make puttees was not only overly complicated, but also unnecessary, and probably impossible. A far easier solution was to just cut several lines into the boot to create a puttee. Why this didn't occur to me initially, I couldn't tell you.🙄

Left: Jackboots. Right: Puttees.

After tackling the puttee issue, I modified four soldiers and painted them up, as a test run, and I am very happy with them!

I decided to go with the grey uniform, since the opposing Japanese would already be in a khaki/brown uniform, and this would provide a nice contrast.

Now to finish up the rest of the platoon!

The Great War in 6mm

So small! 😮

I had a bit of unexpected downtime recently, which allowed me to finish these Austro-Hungarian and Russian regiments (two of each). These are built for the game Great War Spearhead II, but could probably be used for other gaming systems as well. I still need to do up two more regiments and artillery for both sides before I'll have a division of each. But even before I can have a proper battle, I'll also need to build some basic terrain and scenery.

The Russians.

The Austro-Hungarians.

The miniatures are from Baccus and the bases are 2mm thick mdf from Minibits.The static grass is a mix of WWS 2mm 'Spring' and 2mm 'Farm Field C'. Painting in such a small scale presented new challenges, but was a joy, and is in some ways easier than larger scales. I found the key to keeping things moving along was to treat it more like a production line, and only focus on the areas that would stand out, like the tops of caps, or blanket rolls.

Russians

Russians

Austro-Hungarians

Austro-Hungarians

Chinese Army in 15mm - Part I

           I’ve been wanting to field a Chinese army -either warlord era or WWII- in some fashion for some time now, but hadn’t gotten beyond looking at pictures of other people’s miniatures. Ideally, I wanted to keep it in the 15mm range, but this didn’t seem possible. The only Chinese KMT troops in 15mm are by Eureka and they’re a bit too expensive for fielding a company or battalion sized unit. I had seen others use Battlefront's early war Germans and Hungarians, but I didn’t they looked quite right, and I wanted a mix of soldiers wearing hats and helmets.

           

            I recently revisited the topic to see if there weren’t any other options, and looking at the Chinese forage cap, thought it looked similar enough to the Finnish hat that I might be able use Finnish soldiers as a stand in.

The Finnish forage cap.

The Chinese forage cap.

                               

Coincidentally, Miniature Market was having a sale and happened to have Battlefront’s Jalkaväki platoons marked down to $12.00, so I took that as a sign. Even if it doesn’t work out, I am only out $12 and I’m sure I can find a friend to pawn them off on.

Battlefront's Jalkavaki Platoon (FI702)

                                                     
There are, however, some discrepancies that will need to be worked out. The main one is the Finnish jackboots -the Chinese wore puttees with either low boots or slipper-looking shoes (I have no idea what their proper name is). I could paint this part like a puttee, but I feel it would still be too noticeable, so my plan is to file the shaft of the boot down, and then wrap very thin strands of Green Stuff to imitate a wrapped legging. This may be more ambitious than I realize, but I won’t know until I try.

The are two other minor differences that require modification: the epaulets and helmet vent holes/lugs need to be removed. The Chinese uniforms did not have epaulets, and the helmet lugs were found on the German M16 & M18 helmets (as used by the Finns), but not the German M35 helmet (as used by the Chinese).

A Finnish soldier a German M16 at a rakish angle. Note the large lugs on the side of the helmet.

A German M35 helmet being worn in a more soldierly fashion. Notice the lack of epaulets.

There are some other very minor differences, but I don’t think they’ll be an issue at 1/100 scale. The Finns are carrying Mosin-Nagants, which I think look close enough to the Hanyang 88, the Chinese copy of the Gew. 88. The Finnish gear is different, but I think this can be changed enough with painting, or maybe even adding something here and there with a bit of Green Stuff. A few of the Finns carry the Soumi kp/31 machine pistol, but I think by removing the drum magazine, and adding a box magazine on the side, it can be made to look like an MP28.

MP28s being used by Chinese soldiers, albeit communist, not KMT.

           

The Finns came in the mail today, but I haven’t had a chance to look at them in detail. In my next installment, I’ll asses what can be done, and maybe have converted a few.

Desert Objective Markers

I really enjoy making my own bits of terrain and objective markers, and something that I think turned out rather well is this delightful fascist obelisk, hereafter abbreviated as ‘DFO’.

This DFO was based photos on an actual DFO, built by the Italians outside of Sidi Barrani in 1940.

It bore an inscription on the side which read:

"LA 3 COMP. ARTIERI

SOTTO l’INSIDIA NEMICA

PER LA SAPIENTE GUIDA

DEL GENERALE C. NEGRONI

E VIRTU’ DI FANTI GENIERI E CCRR

DOMATE LE SABBIE ROVENTI

DA SOLLUM A SIDI EL BARRANI

QUI ANNODO’ LE LITORANEE

LIBICA ED EGIZIANA

20 NOVEMBRE 1940"

…which translates to…

“THE 3RD SAPPER COMPANY

UNDER ENEMY DANGER

THROUGH THE SKILFUL GUIDANCE

OF GENERAL C. NEGRONI

AND BY VIRTUE OF THE ENGINEER AND CCRR INFANTRYMEN

HAVING CONQUERED THE SCORCHING SANDS

FROM SOLLUM TO SIDI EL BARRANI

HEREBY LINKED THE

LIBYAN AND EGYPTIAN COASTLINES

20 NOVEMBER 1940”

I took a bit of artistic license with my homebrew DFO, and adding the inscription was beyond my skillset. It’s built on a Battlefront medium base and made from Sculpey clay, but each part made individually, and the fascios were the more difficult part. I started by making one fascio out of a base of thin clay, overlaid with wire, then pressed that into clay to create a mold.

Another objective marker, and one of great importance in the desert, is this well.

It was very loosely based on some images I found of desert wells, but mostly conjecture. It was built from Sculpey clay on a Battlefront medium base, with the timbers being made from toothpicks and the rope from wire.