PSC 15mm Cromwell

 

I got this PSC 15mm (1:100) Cromwell as a freebie some time ago, I think for renewing my Wargames Illustrated subscription. (I've since given them the flick, having become fed up with repeatedly not getting my monthly magazine, and also with seeing less and less in it that I was actually interested in).

It's a decent enough little kit, and it comes with an exhaust diversion duct and s Culin hedge-cutter, neither of which I've included. The sprue also includes fore and aft track guards, which I've also left off.

The trickiest bit of assembly is the turret, which has no definite location pins and needs to have its plates held in place while they're being cemented. Also, some of the locating lugs on the one-piece running gear components are much too long, and had to be trimmed off before the element was glued in place.

I was originally going to get some decals for it, but in the end the cost of postage put me off, and I just painted on the markings. As it turns out, hardly any Cromwells actually had the Allied star painted on the turret sides, so I might as well have saved myself the effort there.

Red Devils — Finished

 

I've finished my first section of 15mm paras, and I'm satisfied enough with them that I can proceed with confidence to do another couple of sections, and some command and support teams.

I'm making an effort these days to actually record what I'm doing with paints and things, so that I don't have to rely on my fairly crappy memory when I come back to a task weeks (or months, or years) later.

One would think, having been trained in this sort of record-keeping at art school, that it would be second nature. But no, my laziness tends to trump things like utility, and I have to keep a stern eye on myself so that I don't piss off Future-Self too much by my lack of consideration.

Red Devils in 15mm

I recently got some 15mm plastic British WWII paratroopers from PSC. This is the first section off my painting desk.

I haven't ever tried painting the paras' Denison smocks in this scale. I do have a vague memory of painting an Airfix 1/32 scale para, probably some time in the early '70s, but I don't remember if it was any good or not. I suspect not.

I'm reasonably happy with how they've turned out. I might do little bit more with them — maybe a bit of highlighting on the trousers, for example — but apart from a bit of base flocking, this is about it for them.

There are always limitations with hard plastic figures, and compromises to be made for castability from rigid metal moulds. However, I think that PSC have done a pretty decent job with these ones.

PSC 15mm Early War Germans

These just arrived for me today, a box of PSC's 15mm plastic German infantry for the first half of WWII.

On the box it says "138 figures and 6 models" — I'm not sure to what they refer when they say "models", unless maybe it's the 50mm mortar and anti-tank rifle teams which need to be assembled.

At about 22 quid (roughly forty KiwiBucks at the current rate of exchange) for in the region of 150 figures, they're not bad value. They're a lot cheaper than any metal alternative, as well as being substantially cheaper than Battlefront's plastic offerings in the same scale.

There are twelve sprues in the box, three with command and support personnel, and nine sprues of your regular grunts.

On each of the "grunt" sprues, you get eight riflemen in various poses armed with the Kar98, and two MG34 teams (gunner and loader), one standing, one prone.

The figures are somewhat soft of detail, as is common with injection-moulded plastic, but they're not too bad, and they're satisfyingly chunky compared with some of PSC's earlier offerings. The sculpting is decently round, taking into account the limitations of the medium, and they don't look as flat as some injection-moulded figures do (such as some of the figures from their companion set of early-war support weapons).

The "command" sprues give you a senior officer in a peaked cap, five junior officers and/or NCOs with MP40 submachine guns and other weapons, including one with what appears to be a signal pistol. It also contains components to assemble a 2-man 50mm mortar team, and a 2-man ATR team.






Overall, I like them. The sculpting is good, and there's a lot less multi-part assembly required than I've experienced with some of PSC's other sets, such as their late-war German grenadiers or their Soviet infantry. They look to me like they'll paint up well.

The weapon mix is more suitable for the latter part of the period they're intended for, as there are more MG teams available than would have been present in the campaigns in Poland or France, for example. However, they did soon start to bump up the number of MG34 per section, so I guess it's better to have them supplied than not.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with them.

Another PSC 15mm Churchill

Here's another 15mm (1/100) Churchill from PSC, this time the Mk.VI with the welded turret and 75mm gun. It's a little late for my curent chosen period, but I'm sure I'll get some use out of it one of these days.

PSC 6pdr & Loyd Carrier (15mm) — review

Here's another British WWII gun and tow in 15mm (1/100) from the Plastic Soldier Company, this time the 6pdr (57mm) anti-tank gun and Loyd Carrier.

This is a pretty nice pair of models, very easy and straightforward to assemble, which come in a box of four sprues. The carrier and gun are on a single sprue, along with crew figures and various items of stowage — mostly ammo boxes. I especially like the modeling of the canvas tilt, which has a bit more of a fabric-like character than many injection-moulded examples I've seen, and it sits very snugly over the sides of the Loyd.

The only assembly issue I had was with the fit of the axle stubs and sockets; they were all too tight to press-fit without risking bending or breaking something. A few swipes with an emery board loosened them up sufficiently though. The same was true of the mounting pin for the gun barrel.

The carrier can be assembled without the tilt, and four seated crewmen are included, as well as figures to represent the gun crew in action.

In this picture they're just held in place by bits of BluTak, as they'll need to be painted separately and then glued in place. Trying to paint them in situ would be a nightmare.

There's no rolled-up tilt included amongst the stowage, so if you want to represent that on a top-down model you'll have to provide it yourself, one way or another.

 The instruction sheet is a little clearer than most I've seen from PSC, both in terms of image quality and instructions. It could still do with some improvement though; the instructions for their kits are PSC's weakest point, I would say.

For example, the sheet mentions installation of the fuel tanks, but it's not completely clear how or where they fit except by their shape. Likewise, the exact placement of the seated crew is rather vague according to the instructions, but I notice there are four square pads on the floor of the carrier which I have assumed are where the crew seats are.

The exposed engine housing is nicely represented, and in this picture you can also see the ammo cases and what-not that fill up the side bench-seats. They're quite nicely modelled, but if you want to use the Loyd as a troop carrier, you'll want to leave them out and fill up those benches with squaddies from some other source.

I have had some difficulty tracking down where and when the Loyd was first used in action. I've seen one photograph of one in Italy in 1944, but apart from that I don't think they saw active service until after D-Day, in the ETO.

The 6 pounder represented is the later version, with the stepped barrel and muzzle brake. It could be used as the early model 6 pounder, sort of, by cutting off the muzzle brake and ignoring the stepping of the barrel. The gun can be assembled either in its action configuration, or towed, but not both — or at least, not without using two separate models. There are two barrels provided on the sprue; one as shown here, and the other with what I assume is a muzzle cover in place, for use if the gun is to be depicted towed. There are also two sets of wheels with different hubs and tread patterns, and I'm not really sure why that is. I would have to do a bit more research to find out, if I were so moved.

In brief, this is a nice, well engineered pair of models, and the Loyd isn't easy to come by in this scale — certainly not for this price. I'm very happy with them.

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Later:

I was pointed towards this Australian film of a pair of Loyds on the back of a truck outside Alexandria.

They appear to be part of a Valentine tank unit, so are probably the Starting and Charging variant rather than gun tows.

PSC 15mm 25pdr & Quad

Click on the pictures for larger versions

The 15mm (1/100) 25 pounder gun-howitzer box set is a pretty useful and flexible purchase for anyone fielding a WWII force. The 25 pounder served, in one form or another, throughout WWII and after, and in every theatre of operations.

This set offers options to build an early or late model 25 pounder on either a Mk.I/II or Mk.IV carriage, or an 18/25 pounder on the Mk.I/II carriage, or the 17 pounder Pheasant anti-tank gun on the Mk.IV. The limber is included on the guns' sprue, while the CMP Quad tow vehicle is on a separate sprue, and can be built with or without a canvas top cover. Mine is intended for North Africa, so I've built it without. (Note: PSC also offer a set with the Morris Quad.)

There are crew figures supplied suitable for the African or European theatres, and they're reasonably well sculpted, if a little soft of detail. All of the helmeted ETO figures have hessian scraps in their helmet nets, so if you want an early-war crew in battledress, you'll have to do some head-swaps, or sand down the clutter on the helmet covers.

The Guns and Limber

There are four gun/crew sprues in the box.There are sufficient parts on each sprue to build one gun and a limber, or two guns, one on a Mk.I/II carriage and the other on the Mk.IV.

Or, you can do as I did, and cheat: I used InstaMold (like Blue Stuff) to make a two-sided press-mould of two of the wheels so that I could do both guns and a limber. I cast the new wheels in 5-minute epoxy.

To be honest, it seems a little parsimonious of PSC not to have just included a couple more wheels on the sprue. There's room enough for them.

The guns go together pretty easily, though I got some parts the wrong way around at first and had to re-do them. The instruction sheets aren't some of PSC's worst by any means, but they could definitely still be clearer.

As you can see from the photo, I built an early model 25pdr and a Pheasant. There's only one hanger supplied (the connecting frame between the gun carriage and the turntable), so I didn't bother with it on the Pheasant. It would be a fairly simple thing to scratch-build, but I didn't think the effort worth while for my purposes. And besides, I vaguely recall reading that it tended to be left uncoupled on the Pheasant in any case, as the massive recoil of the 17pdr had a tendency to rip it off!

The limber, like the guns, went together very easily. Regrettably, there's no option to model it with the doors open, as they would be in action, and it's also missing the canvas cover that shrouded the connection between the limber and towing-pole — that will have to be added from putty or whatever if you want it present.

The Quad

For the most part, the quad assembled as straightforwardly as everything else, but with one exception: the roof.

The locating rim around the edge of the rear portion of the roof piece does not fit with the sides and rear. To get the roof to sit flush on the sides, you have two options: either shave down the inside top edges of the sides and rear pieces, or shave down the roof piece itself. I chose the former as the easier option. The plastic is fairly soft, so it didn't take all that long, but it was an irritation nevertheless.

I built mine as the open-topped version. In the desert, you pretty much had to choose between letting the air in or trying to keep the dust out, and since the dust got everywhere in any case, the choice was generally pretty easy to make.

Unfortunately, there's no piece supplied for the rolled-up top cover tarpaulin, so that's another piece that will have to be scratch-built or sourced elsewhere.

Summary

This set is not without its faults, but they are very minor. The fitting of the quad roof might cause problems for someone quite new to plastic modelling, but not to anyone with any experience.

The faults, such as they are, are far outweighed in my view by the flexibility and usefulness of the options offered. As such, it's good value.

Cruiser Mk.I A9 CS

Next up for my 1940-41 North African Brits is this one, the Cruiser Mk.I A9 CS, in 15mm (1/100) from PSC. The Close Support tanks mounted a 3" howitzer in place of the gun tanks' 2 pounder.

The Caunter pattern is darker than I usually paint it, as I wanted this tank to look a bit fresher than the others I've done previously. The paint faded fast in desert service under the assault of sun and dust.

PSC 15mm A10 Cruiser

This is the 15mm (1/100) British early-WWII A10 Cruiser tank, from PSC, painted in the Caunter disruptive pattern.

The A10 was a decent enough tank for its time, and it fixed a lot of the reliability and usability issues of its predecessor, the A9. But it became obsolete pretty fast, and was forced to stay in service longer than it really should for lack of a decent replacement.

PSC 15mm M3 Honey

Here's the American M3 Stuart, called the Honey in British service. The model is 1/100 scale (15mm), from the Plastic Soldier Company.

I had originally planned to paint it in the Caunter disruptive pattern, but after several attempts I gave up in despair and settled for overall desert yellow.

PSC 15mm Churchill

Here's the first of my 15mm (1/100) Churchills from the Plastic Soldier Company in its coat of paint.

I've painted it in a very generic scheme that I can use for Tunisia, Italy, or even Normandy. There are no unit markings (as yet), I may add some later on if I feel the spirit move me.

Here's the PSC Churchill (on the right) alongside the same Churchill from Battlefront, which I painted quite a few years ago. The resin and metal BF model is very slightly larger (in width, mainly), and its surface detail is less crisp than that on the injection-moulded model from PSC. It's also a heck of a lot more expensive, per model.

PSC 15mm Churchill — first look

Here's my first look at the 15mm (1/100) Churchill from the Plastic Soldier Company. I've built this one as the cast-turret Mk.IV with the 6-pounder gun.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this kit. My only previous experience of a plastic Churchill kit was the fairly ancient Airfix model, with its horror-show running-gear of a bajillion tiny pieces. This one, however, was an absolute breeze to assemble, possibly the easiest of all the 15mm PSC tank kits I've tried so far.

Sprue layout and assembly options

Assembly instructions

There are five version options offered from the parts included on the sprue, the earliest model being the Mk.III.

I don't know enough about the Churchill to be able to say how easy or difficult it might be to convert this kit to a Mk.I — though I'm sure it's possible.

Instructions are given only for the Mk.III turret, but it's not difficult to work out what's needed for any of the other versions.

PSC 15mm M3 Stuart "Honey" — first look

 The M3 Stuart "Honey" from the Plastic Soldier Company in 15mm makes up into a good representation of the original, and at the usual £20-ish for five models it's pretty good value.

However, there are a few things to be aware of before you launch into building these kits. More things than usual, in my experience of PSC kits, but nothing too intractable — for the most part the engineering is pretty good, but see below for my notes about the fit of the running-gear pieces.

NOTE: I am informed that the Honey in British service had the sponson-mounted machine-guns removed. Fortunately it's a simple matter to chop these ones off, and one of the sets of side-plates provided on the sprue has those points blanked off, which I will hopefully remember next time.

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The usual PSC version display, colour-coded
for your inconvenience

WARNING! DANGER!

As usual, PSC have provided a colour-coded layout to show you which parts are for which version.

WARNING!

The hull-top parts are mis-coloured, and the one used for the British "Honey", which should be in green, is actually shown in red.

I found this out when I tried to get the track pieces with sand-guards to fit, and could not. Fortunately the cement holding it to the hull-bottom had not yet set hard, and I was able to prise the two pieces apart and fit the right one.

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 The instruction sheet shows the process for building the "Honey" only, and nothing at all for the other two (American) versions of the machine.

Fortunately that doesn't affect me, since I'm only interested in the British version.

The illustrations are easy enough to follow, better by far than some of PSC's instruction sheets, but the pictures are still a bit dark and low-contrast. I've cleaned them up considerably for this illustration.

NOTE: If you glue on the auxiliary fuel tanks as shown in the last picture before you have the turret in place, you will not be able to get the turret on without shaving off its locating lugs. Also, with the tanks in place the turret will no longer rotate 360°.

The only major issue I had with the fit of the parts was with the running-gear pieces with the sand-guards — they would not seat seamlessly against the hull top, and left a large and obvious gap along the front outer edge.

I found that what I had to do was to shave down the front half or so of the back of the piece — I've outlined the relevant area in the illustration — until it was flush with the front sprocket moulding. Then the piece settled properly hard up against the mudguard-edge.

There is still a visible seam, but it's not nearly as bad as it originally was. I assume this won't be an issue for the American versions, as they don't have to align with the sand-guards.

PSC Valentine — Alternative Turrets

Valentine Mk.II

The PSC 15mm (1/100) Valentine sprue includes parts to make alternate turrets for the Mk.II, Mk.III, or Mk.IX versions of the tank. These two images show the turrets for the Mk.II (above) and the Mk.IX (below) on the hull I finished yesterday.

Valentine Mk.IX (on Mk.II-III running gear)

PSC 15mm Valentine Mk.III

This is the 15mm (1/100) Valentine Mk.III from the Plastic Soldier Company.

I may have gone a little bit overboard with the weathering I think. The vehicles in the desert took quite a hammering from the environment, but in this case I might have got a bit carried away. Ah well.

PSC Valentine (15mm) — a first look

Twenty quid, roughly, gets you five sprues of 15mm (1/100) Valentines from The Plastic Soldier Company. Each sprue contains parts to build one of either a Valentine Mk.II, Mk.III, or Mk.IX, with or without desert sand-skirts.

For my test model, I've built a Mk.II without sand-skirts.

It's an easy enough model to build (though see below for my comments on the instructions) and it seems to have been pretty well engineered. The turret is the fiddliest component, being comprised of six parts, but everything locates quite well and I didn't really have any trouble with it.

I haven't checked the model's dimensions, and to be honest I probably won't bother. It looks right to me, next to other models in the same scale, and that's all that I need for wargaming purposes.

There are some things to be aware of though, before you start building these kits. If there's one area where PSC consistently fall down with their plastic kits, it's in their instructions.

The parts are numbered on the tooling layout, next to the illustrated instructions, but they're not numbered on the sprue itself — something that may take people coming from other manufacturers by surprise.

Version colour-coding sheet —
doesn't match actual sprue.

Tooling layout and
assembly instructions

The assembly illustrations are quite small, low-contrast, and indistinct, and since parts aren't numbered, it requires a bit of checking back and forth to make sure that you have the right parts for the version of the Valentine that you want to build. The vagueness of the illustrations means that it could be quite easy to get parts attached upside-down if a modicum of care isn't taken, as it's impossible to distinguish orientation from the pictures.

Most irritating to me is the fact that the colour-coded sprue layout shown on the reverse of the instruction sheet, designed to show you which bits go with which version, doesn't match the layout of the actual sprues in the box. That's a pretty glaring flaw, in my view.

In summary: good little model, terrible instructions.

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Valentine Mk.III

Valentine Mk.IX (-ish)

Later...

Something I failed to mention, and should have, is that although there are parts on the sprue to build only one tank, it is possible to build separate turrets for all three versions of the Valentine.

It would be possible, with some work and care, to make the hull-tops (with or without sand-guards) swappable by means of magnets. However, it would be a bit of a faff, and for my money I'd probably just as soon buy another box of models.

Note that the running gear for the Mk.IX has a slightly different pattern of bogies, and separate track pieces are provided for it. However, the visual difference is really quite minimal, if you prefer to have the flexibility of swapping the three turrets around between a common hull.

There are three commander figures provided on the sprue, but one of them is a Soviet, wearing their distinctive ribbed tanker's helmet. It would probably be possible, if you really want to, to convert its head to a beret-wearing Brit, but it's more work than I care to do.

PSC A9 CS (15mm) — first look

Following on from my initial look at the PSC 15mm (1:100) A9/A10 pack, here's the close support version of the A9, mounting the 3" howitzer instead of the 2 pounder anti-tank gun.

It goes together a bit more easily than the A10, as there's less to do with the hull superstructure.

The only issue I found with the A9 construction is that the socket for the starboard MG turret is too close to the driver's barbette, so it gets canted a bit to the right. It's easy enough to fix though; all you have to do is either shave a bit off the port side of the turret, or (more easily) carve out the starboard side of the socket a bit. If having a rotatable MG turret is important to you, you'll probably have to do the former, but I glue mine in place, so enlarging the socket was the easier option.

PSC A9/A10 Cruiser (15mm) — WiP

 Some new toys arrived for me today from PSC, two boxes of 15mm (1:100) tank kits. I got some Stuart "Honeys", for future use when I get around to building up my Western desert forces a bit, and this one, the A9 or A10 cruiser, to pad out my B.E.F. force.

I already have a troop of A9, so this box will go to making me a troop of A10 gun tanks, and one each of an A9 and A10 CS (close support) tank.

Options

The sprues provide optional parts to complete  five variants: hulls for European or desert versions of the A9 or A10, and turrets for gun tanks of various marks (distinguishable by the different gun mantlets) or the close support tanks mounting the 3" howitzer.

Note that the hull tops for the desert variants have symmetrical track guards, which wasn't the case on the original vehicles — they were actually deeper on the port side than the starboard to accommodate the vehicle's cooling system. If that sort of detail is important to you, you'll have to do a bit of trimming.

Regrettably there aren't enough running gear pieces to build more than one tank from each sprue, nor enough turret components to be able to just make a spare CS turret. Still, I can't really utterly condemn PSC for that. At about twenty quid for five tank models, they're already pretty good value for money.

Instructions

Construction is pretty straightforward, though instructions are provided for only one variant — the A10 Mk.IIa for the European theatre. You'll just have to guess and hope for the others. The main thing is to make sure you're actually getting the right parts off the sprue for the variant you want to build, and with so many optional pieces it pays to double-check. The colour-coded layout shown on the other side of the instructions is useful for this.

The instructions given are very simplistic, but adequate (for the single tank variant shown) except for one part: Step 3 (highlighted here in yellow). DON'T DO THIS. Go straight to Step 4. It might be possible to force the running gear into place after the top and bottom hull pieces are glued without breaking something, but I doubt it.

I wasn't timing myself, but I'd guess that putting this first one together took me about half an hour.