The Road To Panzerschreck (2016) The Marines Hit Early War

Originally this article was posted on the Flames Of War website back in 2016...

Next month is the annual Studio trip to Panzerschreck with the team jumping in a van and having an epic road trip / lads weekend away. This year I was planning on having a relaxed weekend and heading down to play some Team Yankee games with Evan. Thanks to a last-minute change of plans for Phil (James’ partner in crime for the event) I found myself subbed in to join up with James’ British Armoured Regiment.

No doubt you are all aware of the famous battle somewhere in North Africa where a small Marine Expeditionary Force briefly found themselves siding with a Vickers Mk IV light tank company…

Originally I was in two minds about what to take as I have a French Early War army that I really enjoy playing and need an excuse to finish painting up some Lorraine 38L Carriers. At the same time I have been plugging away with a US Marine Amphibian tank company for Gung-Ho and I saw this as an opportunity to push the army back to the front of the painting queue. After a couple of minutes thought the Marines (easily) found themselves promoted as it is hard to not go with something shiny and new, even if I do have to do a lot more painting to get it ready. Working out an army list that looked achievable on the painting front and fun to play I settled on: 

The core of the force is obviously the LVTs with 10 of them crawling across the table, hopefully shooting up everything in front of them. This should pair nicely with James’ Light Mk IV tanks which will be light enough to respond to any threats as well as threatening enemy objectives. If I am being honest the AA and Rockets are really there to get me to four platoons, but it will also give us some decent AA coverage (as James’ also has some Bofors guns) and rockets capable of thinning out the enemy ranks of infantry.

After the experiment with the dark sand (in the previous article) I decided to go back to pain grey vehicles and to make them look a little more interesting I decided to put beach markings on the sides of the hull (the two red vertical stripes you can see in the photos). These were to help the LVTs stick together and get to the correct landing zone – in this case Red Beach 2 during the Battle of Saipan. The theory being that you just followed the vehicles with the same markings as you. 

Next I chose to go to town on the decals and whilst I was inspired by historical markings here I chose to go a bit overboard to help them pop on the battlefield. I chose tank numbers from a spare NVA T-55 decal sheet I had, as well as US stars, serial numbers and names from the US Late War Decal Sheet (US941) I think these really help to make the models look interesting on the table.

As you can see from the pictures below I still have a way to go to finish the army up but with a couple of weeks to go I think I am in good shape.  

The HQ Platoon
I've only painted the 75mm turrets for my HQ, but I plan to paint up the 37mm ones later to make sure I can swap these around easily.  

LVT(A)4 (75mm) Platoon
Other than a targeted wash, these just need their crew painted and machine-guns highlighted.

 

Above: Most of the army are still waiting for a shading pin wash, so they are currently shiny with gloss varnish. I've used the number '13' 75mm tank to test the oil wash, and I'm happy with the finished result.

LVT(A)1 (37mm) Platoon
These are currently missing the machine-gun turrets, which will make them look a little more dynamic thanks to the crew sitting inside operating them.

Below: To do the red markings on the side of the hulls I made a mask using some low-tack hobby masking tape, then carefully attached it to a model, airbrushed the red and carefully removed it again. Rinse and repeat 32 times as I decided to do the markings on all my LVTs and not just the ones for Panzerschreck to keep everything consistent.

Hopefully this gives you some inspiration for painting your own LVTs.

Building a Marine Amphibian Tank Company

I’ve made no secret of my excitement about the Marine Amphibian Tank Company. And with Andrew making so much progress on his Ka-Mi tanks I thought I’d better get my act together and push ahead with my painting.

Luckily the LVTs are a breeze to assemble. With the hull and tracks being one piece, you are just gluing together the turrets and adding the optional hull machine-gun. A fairly relaxed afternoon saw them all assembled and undercoated.

The next problem was choosing what paint scheme I preferred. There are plenty of options and in the coming weeks I’ll have a short article talking about the most common options to choose from but in the end it came down to a grey or grey/sand scheme (like the Studio models) or a green/brown/sand scheme. The three colour scheme was just too similar to European paint schemes and nothing says the Pacific to me like tanks base coloured in grey!

Using my airbrush, I started by painting a light coat of grey over the whole model. This was to lay down a base colour for me to start highlighting up. I then applied a little more paint in certain areas such as the middle of large panels, the top surfaces, and anywhere else that I wanted a slightly lighter colour. Working over a black undercoat, I was able to use the grey as its own highlight by slightly varying the density of the paint coverage.

I decided that the grey alone was a little boring, so I thought I would try adding the common sand-coloured camouflage pattern to give the models a little more impact on the table. I also thought that the extra colour would mean that I did not have to do as much work to make the grey look good. So the next step was to cover the model in blu-tac.

In my paint collection at home, I didn’t have the Colours Of War Dry Dust or Crusader Sand that Aaron used when painting the studio models. So I improvised by grabbing a dark sand colour that I already had and sprayed it on. The blu-tac worked as planned, leaving me with nice hard edges between the grey and sand but I was not particularly happy with the colour as the studio models just looked better.

Looking at the images now as I write the article I find myself in two minds:

• I quite like the plain grey, and it is a valid historical paint scheme, so I could just stick with that approach (saving me some painting time!);
• Or I could “borrow” the studio paints for an evening and go with the grey/sand scheme.

I think will mull this over a little more and in the next few days make a final decision – the more I think about it, the longer it will take to finish them and get an army on the table. 

 

Time To Hit The Beaches!

It is going to be a very busy week in the Studio!

Painting MERDC Camouflage

One of the things that really interested me when it came to painting a US force for Team Yankee was the opportunity to give them a really unqiue camo scheme - commonly known as MERDC (Mobility Equipment Research and Development Center).

The thing I found particularly interesting about this scheme is that the template is the same regardless of the theatre of its use, only the colours change. The benefit of this is that it makes it relatively easy to paint your vehicles in a historical scheme.

Of course, the downside is that all of your vehicles (of a type) need to look roughly the same. Realising this, I decided to take what many might consider the path of most resistance, coming up with some painting masks that would let me cut out either the Forest Green or Field Drab sections (I’m painting a force in the Winter Verdant MERDC variant, like the Battlefront studio US models pictured in the Team Yankee book) and airbrush that colour over a base of the other one.
 
The MERDC Templates
Before I could start making masks that I could use for airbrushing I needed to find out what colours are meant to go where. Aaron (the resident BF painter and font of knowledge) was kind enough to lend me his book on MERDC and some internet searches gave me a wide variety of material – thank goodness for the internet and large scale modellers! 

you can download a set of templates from the BF website here... (right click, save as...)

How did I make my masks?
I started out with the M113, because it met a couple of important criteria:

• I needed a decent number of them, once you include a Mech Platoon, ITV Platoon, VADS Platoon and potentially Mortar Platoon in a force. 
• It’s a box with tracks! The templates work much better on nice flat sides.
  

My first plan was to get some thin clear plastic sheet, overlay it on a print-out of the MERDC template, and cut out the appropriate bits. For the M113 I chose to cut out and spray the Field Drab, after initially basecoating the whole vehicle Forest Green. However, I found that in practice, clear rigid plastic was just too tough to cut precisely enough, even in very thin sheets. In our stationery cupboard I found some clear plastic document wallets made out of a nice soft plastic and therefore easy to cut. They were not very rigid, though, so I ended up building a frame out of some plastic card.

This worked really well, and the frame held the mask in place on the vehicle, making it easy to spray that face of the vehicle, quickly move the template to the the next one, spray and so on. Then I would grab the template for the next side and keep going. I did find that the front and rear faces had so much stuff on them that it was difficult to make a mask for them. So for these two faces I used blu-tack to make a mask instead.

Using this method I was able apply the Field Drab to six vehicles in about an hour, including blu-tacking the front and rear faces – not bad, compared to painting the pattern freehand!

Paper masks
I sent my original template to Evan (our sculptor) to try out. He took a simpler path, where he just printed out the template, cut out the Forest Green areas and then folded the paper over the vehicle. I had considered this approach, but my original concern was the durability of the paper versus plastic. I wanted my templates to be reusable over as many vehicles as might be needed.

But Evan's experience was that as he airbrushed the model, the dried paint actually helped to add rigidity to the mask. He found that with a couple of very small pieces of blu-tack were enough to hold the mask on to the model, leaving his hands free for easy airbrushing.

Cutting a paper version is definitely a lot faster. Whilst I have not yet tried it through to completion, I experimented with cutting one out for this M109, and it was pretty quick. As you can see, I have decided to combine the paper mask and blu-tack, as the majority of the surface is nice and flat.Once again, I would blu-tack all the vehicles I planned to paint in one go, to help keep them looking the same. Plus, you do not want to be fiddling around with wet blu-tack and transferring paint everywhere.

Tips for using the masks
Commit to the process before finishing your assembly.
Certain items – cupolas, MGs etc – will get in the way and make it very difficult to lay the mask over the vehicle. So I would avoid or delay gluing them on to the vehicles if I was going to use a mask. I still hadn't made up my mind about using masks when I assembled my first vehicles, and now my M106 Mortar Carriers are going to present a challenge, as they have their baseplates and cupolas attached.

Print twice, cut once.
Planning is your friend. Before basecoating the vehicles, take a close look at the templates and work out what sequence of colours will work best. For the M113s the Field Drab areas seemed like the best choice to cut out, whereas for the M109s the Forest Green seemed like the best choice to cut out, avoiding a mask consisting of four or five tiny pieces. Decide on the sequence that will work best for you. But definitely try cutting some masks out first before you deploy the paint. It is also worth having a second, intact template printed, to guide you with painting the Sand and Black areas later on.

Always make sure you leave a frame around your masks (i.e. make the masks bigger than just the painted area) this way you wont get overspray on the other faces of the vehicle.
 

Paper or plastic?
They both have pros and cons. My plastic templates will last forever, but cutting them out did take a lot of time and effort: two or three evenings of thinking, planning, as well as some trial and error. With the benefit of practice, I am confident I could now do a set for another vehicle type in an evening. Paper is less durable, but much easier to work with. Cutting a set of masks for the M109 out of paper only took me about an hour, once I had decided how to sequence the colours.

Blu-tack is your friend.
If you decide to use paper masks, use blu-tack to help stick them down, so they don’t blow off with the air flow from the airbrush or let too much paint overspray underneath. You can also use it to mask fiddly areas where a paper or plastic mask is too much trouble – in which case, don’t forget to blu-tack all of your vehicles in one go, to save time and to make it easier to keep all of your vehicles looking consistent.
 
Take the pressure down.  
I turned my compressor down quite low to avoid the mask flying off or, in the cases where there was equipment making the mast sit above the vehicle, reduce overspray making its way under the edges of the template.

Masks won’t do everything.
There are just some areas where the masks won’t work – like the rounded corners of the M109 turret. My plan is the mask the top of the hull and turret, and side of the hull, then use blu-tack for the rest.

If you put the turret on hull (once painted) you can blu-tack the turret sides and use the turret top and hull side to help make sure your colours start and end in the right places.

And of course, once your templates have done most of the work, you can always use good old-fashioned freehand painting (airbrush or brush) to fix up any messy or incomplete areas.

What's next?
Finally, paint the Sand and Black strips on and you are done, ready for weathering, washes or whatever else you want to do. 

Hopefully this has given you some inspiration to at least try experimenting with the masks. I am certainly sold on the idea for vehicles where I think I will be painting a decent number of them, as the time invested up front pays dividends later. Especially since I now have plans to paint some New Zealand M113s in the Red Desert scheme!

FlamesCon - Day Two

Day one had gone better than I expected and having knocked of Daniel in the last round I felt like I was in good shape. I knew today I would be coming up again Rob and his very Canadian Recon list so I spent a little time the night before thinking about how to play the game, little did I know he would be my first opponent and the game would set the tone for the rest of the day...

Round 4 vs Rob (Canadian Armoured Recce Squadron from Market Garden) and Hold The Line

Rob won the dice off to defend and picked the large cornfields for his Cautious Movement Canadians to hide in. I put one tank platoon on the right flank and rushed the rest up the left behind the forest.

My artillery managed to range in a couple of times but did nothing and Rob was able to move from the templates without giving his position away, so I chose to burst out before his artillery came on from reserve and knocked out mine. Lots of shots.... no hits... my trained tanks in the open...

Return fire...

Recon scrambles to keep me in the game for one more turn (to try to break a platoon) but the dice abandon me..

The game against was really disappointing for two reasons: 1, I went down 1-6 and pretty much ended my chances of a good result, and 2, I played the game really poorly! I should have pushed a single tank out to close range and started shooting him, forcing him to fire and me and give away his gone to ground advantage. It would have cost me my 2iC but I could have then pushed up and tried to knock out his tanks more effectively....
Round 5 vs Aussie Rob (British Assault Company from Overlord) and Free For All

Rob deployed over a broad frontage with his tanks in the middle, infantry on either side interspersed with 6pdrs,recon,  with some AA the middle and a Cruiser off-table to provide support. I decided to hold the left with a token force, push the middle with a single tank platoon and try to roll up the right and then along his line.

We skirmished on the left and centre, Rob loosing a couple of platoons whilst NFGS (Naval Gunfire Support) rained down on my middle tanks.

He retreated his tanks behind the hedges and we stopped to duel for a few turns. Eventually I knocked them out but a stray 6"round from the HMS Glasgow knocked out my camera and I failed to take any more pictures. I managed to roll up and get my 3 points but by then the damage was done and it was all over.

Round 6 vs BF Wayne (Hungarian Zrinyi Company) and Hasty Attack

I setup with tanks on both sides, with the artillery in the middle, Wayne spread his Zrinyi platoons, Panthers on his right flank and Nebelwerfers at the back

Wayne advanced his Panthers shooting a couple of Shermans, my Shermans on my right advanced to get flank shots on the Panthers (missing) and then died to his Zrinyi platoon. My artillery hit ranged in on two Panthers (missing them) and his Company Commander (which I bailed). The Shermans achieved nothing.

And three died (triple 1s on the dice) to the Nebelwerfers....!

Before the rest were finished off by the Panthers....

At a rough calculation I threw around 20 dice in the game, 2 or 3 of which rolled a four or more and the game took around 10-15 minutes to set up and 5-10 minutes to play.... on the good side my easy capitulation catapulted Wayne up the table to take out third place (so a good result for team BF!).

15 points on day one.... 5 points on day two. Not a great finish but at least I had a lot of fun and managed to get my 1956 Israeli tank company much further down the path to being almost painted! Although I think I'll take a break from Olive Drab for a while and do a little Dunklegelb for a change.

FlamesCon - Day One

Into the gaming!

Round 1 vs Heloise (German Panzers from Devils Charge) and Dust Up

I put all my tanks on the table, Heloise opted for Panzers and Nebelwerfers, putting more Panzers and King Tiger in reserve

My Spearhead Move put me in the middle of the table, Heloise moved up and missed with everything (and bogged her captured Firefly down in the woods). My shooting was considerably more accurate.

I weathered some more inaccurate fire, moved up and mopped up the majority of the Panzers.

A Panzer platoon came on from reserve knocking out a couple of tanks but I had swamped the objective, winning 6-1

Round 2 vs Patrick(Kampfgruppe Swoboda - yes 12 88's!) and Surrounded.

Patrick concentrated most of his force in the centre deployed 2 of his batteries of 88's (1 in ambush) covering most of the table. I opted to put one tank platoon hidden at the far end of the table, and the rest behind a tree line where I could take out an 88 platoon and 2cm platoon.

I overran the 88's and 2cm quite quickly with only a few losses and then moved up to the tree line. Keeping my spare Sherman platoon behind a ridge awaiting Pat's ambush.

88's come out of hiding in the vineyard and knock out some Shermans, I move up and work over the CT Tiger platoon and 88s.

We trade some more shots, my spare Sherman platoon moves up and.....

Dies heroically! By now my recon is moving around the flank to threaten the objective but I know I need to break his company or loose the game.

A final round of accurate shooting by the last of the Shermans breaks Pat's army, but the losses were heavy! 4-3 to me.

Round 2 vs Daniel(21st Panzer) and Breakthrough
Sadly I did not take many pictures of this game - Dan is a long time gamer that I almost never get to play in tournaments despite playing in many FOW and Warhammer tournaments over the past 15 years. He also plays a lot more than me these days so I put my game face on and forgot to grab the camera...

Dan put an infantry screen across half the table, with 88's and 3.7cm guns covering the cornfield. Despite a convenient tree line that I knew his 15cm SP artillery and 2 units of Beute Stugs I knew I had to push through their gun line.

In the end I broke through but only had a handful of tanks left, however my recon came on from reserve and captured the objective whilst the remaining Shermans formed a screen to stop any counterattacks. A tough 5-2 win.

End of day one and I am feeling good, sitting in second or third and having knocked off a tough opponent to finish the day. Thinking about day two I knew I was going to be in for some tough match ups.