Royal New Zealand Navy’s 75th Birthday celebrations and the ROKS Chungbuk

On 1 October 1941, His Majesty King George VI approved the designation “Royal New Zealand Navy” for the regular element of the New Zealand Naval Forces (with Reserve and Volunteer Reserve elements appropriately titled.)

2016 marks the 75th Anniversary of the foundation of the New Zealand Navy and the occasion is being celebrated with a programme of commemorative events and activities – collectively named Operation NEPTUNE.

One of these events is an Open Day where ships from friends and allies were open to the public to have a walk around certain parts of the vessel. Unfortunately the tragic events of Kaikoura earthquake meant that a number of vessels scheduled to visit were providing support humanitarian support to survivors including a large number of residents and tourists stuck in the area and unable to leave. Two of the vessels that I was most looking forward too, the USS Sampson (an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer) and HMAS Darwin (an Adelaide-class guided-missile frigate that is based on the US Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates) were amongst those that were diverted.

The day itself proved to be a lot of fun with Auckland weather turning up and providing a beautiful sunny day for us to enjoy and I managed to get aboard 5 vessels. First up was the ROKS Chungbuk, Incheon-class frigate.

ROKS Chungbuk, Incheon-class frigate

The Incheon-class frigates are coastal defense frigates of the Republic of Korea Navy. The lead ship was launched on 29 April 2011. They will replace the aging fleet of Pohang-class corvettes and Ulsan-class frigates, and take over multi-role operations such as coast patrol, anti-submarine warfare and transport support.

The Incheon-class frigates main gun is the 127mm/L62 Mk. 45 Mod 4 naval gun. This was chosen over a smaller 76mm for naval barrage support in amphibious landings and superiority in ship to ship firing. Point-defense armaments include a single 20 mm Phalanx CIWS and a RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile Block 1 21-round launcher. The anti-submarine warfare armaments consists of K745 LW Cheong Sahng-uh (Blue Shark) torpedoes. Anti-ship capability is provided by SSM-700K Hae Sung (Sea Star) long-range anti-ship missile, each with performance similar to the U.S. Harpoon.
 
The ROKS Chungbuk is the fifth ship in the class and was launched in October 2014 and commissioned earlier this year in January.

Another front on view of the ROKS Chungbuk

A view from the rear of the ROKS Chungbuk showing the hanger door open on the left

The 127mm gun mount

Another view of the gun with the masts of the Bark Esmeralda (from Chile) in the background

The business end of the ROKS Chungbuk

The bridge of the ROKS Chungbuk

A view from the wings of the bridge looking back down at the bow. Unfortunately we were firmly (be very politely) asked to not take any photos inside the vessel. The ROKS Chungbuk was the only ship where we made it to the bridge. It was smaller than I expected with no room for any unnecessary people or equipment

The RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) Block 1 21-round launcher. This is a point defence missile system designed to target incoming cruise missiles.

An action photo on display on the ship.

SSM-700K Hae Sung (Sea Star) long-range anti-ship missile launchers. Two sets of four launchers mounted amidships. We were able to walk around these and have a close look at the launchers themselves. Below are the K745 LW Cheong Sahng-uh (Blue Shark) torpedo launchers.

At the rear of the ship above the hanger a single 20 mm Phalanx CIWS. Ever since my Harpoon gaming days this has been a favourite piece of technology of mine.

On the landing pad, the CIWS at the top of the shot, the hanger door open on the right.

Another shot of the rear ROKS Chungbuk, taken from the HMNZS Otago

One of the ROKS Chungbuk crew patrolling the vessel. Unlike the rest of the vessels these guys looked pretty serious about their patrol duties.

Next stop was the HMNZS Otago, a Protector class off-shore patrol vessel.

Mid War Plastics At FlamesCon 2016

Its pretty traditional these days for Battlefront to bring a few rapid prototypes of some of the new plastics we can expect to see over the coming months. This time was no exception and we had a few of the new Mid War plastics we can expect to see on shelves in early 2017.

The models are rapid prototypes based on the CAD data that will go to the toolmakers, assembled and then given a quick coat of primer. They are used to make sure that the model will look right and go together correctly. Much easier than staring at 2D printouts of components.

There were also a few new goodies for the East Germans in Team Yankee. These are traditional metal/resin models and are looking awesome!

 

Ahh, 2017 so many projects for me to start.... will I finish any of them?

FlamesCon 2016 is coming!

FlamesCon 2016 is happening tomorrow! Whoops, where did 2016 go? I seem to have blinked and we are at the end of the year.

So... I picked up a Soviet infantry army off a couple of friends and it looks lovely. I've been wanting to paint one up for about 15 years since I first saw a massive Mid War Soviet Militia Battalion. I even thought I'd get it painted next year, but when the opportunity came to grab one that was already painted I took it. I'll put some pictures up another time but it is pretty massive! Maybe not massive compared to some Soviet armies but pretty big compared with any other FOW army I've ever painted.

Needless to say I thought I'd take it along this weekend and try it out. The list I am taking is a little static - I'm easing myself into the complexities of running a big Soviet horde by taking a small Soviet horde with plenty of guns!

With a weird number of platoons (7) and a lot of expensive toys it is probably not a traditional Soviet list but I've also wanted to try a Soviet Gun Line... I expect to come out in a body bag in most games but lets be honest as long as plenty of enemies die Stalin will be happy!

My plan is to leave each objective defended by some anti-tank guns and artillery, whilst the infantry hold the centre and one flank leaving me with some options when it comes to counter-attacking. Time will tell if it was a good plan or not!

Good luck to everyone else heading to FlamesCon and I'll no doubt have some pictures from the weekend up sooner or later!

Time To Hit The Beaches!

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

Painting my Team Yankee Petrol Station

Its funny what you get excited about when a new project rolls through the Studio and in the case of Team Yankee I'm on a real high about the terrain. I've been mucking about with making some terrain bases (more on this later) for me to put buildings on, making up car parks etc and painting up my Petrol Station.

The original inspiration to do a little work on it came from Casey who whipped up some pump signs and posters to decorate your station. From here I did a little digging and found a wonderful reference photo of a Lego Shell Petrol Station and decided that would be my inspiration. 

Painting the station was actually quite easy. I have a pile of different widths of masking tape thanks to a few earlier projects and I just progressively masked and spray my colours on. It's important to leave each colour to dry thoroughly before masking for the next stage, to make sure the tape doesn't pull off paint that hasn't cured fully.... I learnt that one the hard way.

The station passes the table top test but if you look a little close you can see places where the colours have bled under the masking tape. But on the table it looks great - especially with an M1 about to drive through!

First pass with the masking tape.

Last colour going on.

Finished with some posters added. The Pepsi poster was attacked with a knife to make it look faded and ripped.

Whereas the Coke poster is untouched and new!

Finished, on the table.

Tablescapes Urban Tiles: Base Coats

I've been struggling to do anything major over the past month or so but I've been able to chip away at my Secret Weapon Tablescapes Urban Tiles every now and then as I only needed to pop out to the garage to 5-10 minutes to spray a colour half dozen tiles. Over the course of a couple of weeks it mean that I have gone from Black Primer, to Dark Grey all over, to Medium Grey on the sidewalks and a light patchy dusting on the roads.

Next up is to paint the metal bits with a gunmetal colour and airbrush a lighter grey on each of the individual sidewalk tiles - that is going to be the really time consuming part. Once that is done I'll put some road markings on, must first experiment using a mask made from CCG cards worked badly so I will be picking up some low tac painters masking tape and trying again. After that I will mix up a few batches of oil washes - one brown, one black and one brown/black and apply liberally... at least that is the plan!

Cheap spray cans from my local Bunnings (NZ DIY store)

Laid out in my garage. Don't skimp on the newspaper surround. I have a large "overspray" of black and grey paint on the concrete now. Luckily its just the garage.

Sold coat of the dark grey spray on the tiles.

After the dark grey I used the plastic lid from an FFG Imperial Assault Carrier packaging to mask off the footpath and gutter whilst spraying the light grey on the sidewalks.

And I made a mask out of two old Battletech CCG cards and a lot of packing tape to help with the corners

And this is what 6 (out of the 32) tiles look like. Right now they all look like this (except 2 test ones) so I have a lot of airbrushing to do.

Each one of those tiles will need to be airbrushed using another card template. I've made one for the smaller "plaza" sidewalk tiles and I need to make a second one for the bigger sidewalk tiles.

And each square gets airbrushed from a different direction so that when a table is laid out the hightlighting of each individual sidewalk tile blends it all together.

Once it is all done, I still need to find some fairly generic 28mm buildings that I like to finish the whole thing off.

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!