Schupo Sonderwagen 1921

 

I have finally managed to finish my 15mm (1:100) Weimar Republic Schupo Sonderwagen of 1921. At least one of these armoured cars was still trundling around Berlin when the Soviets took the city in 1945.

The STLs are available at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/daimler-schupo-sonderwagen-1921/

 

Later on...

Unditching ramps

I've added a separate STL for the wooden unditching ramps that could be carried over the port rear wheel.

However, due to the limitations of the STL format's floating point calculations, it will probably come into the slicer ten times too large. It should be only 14mm long. Rescaling it to 10% should do the trick.

Interwar Micros

I've been revisiting a bunch of my interwar vehicle models, rescaling them to 1:285 for micro gaming, and I've put them up on wargaming3d.com in packs of six to eight models.

This first one is British: a Birch Gun SPG, a Peerless armoured car, a Lanchester Mk.II, a Burford-Kegresse half-track MG carrier/APC, a Lancia armoured lorry, and a Carden-Loyd Carrier Mk.VI.

It's available at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/british-interwar-micro-pack-other/

The next one is also British, but it's tanks this time.

There's the A1E1 Independent, the Vickers Medium C, The Vickers Medium Mk.III, The Vickers Medium Mk.II and II*, and the Medium Mk.II Hornet.

It's at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/british-interwar-micro-pack-other/

 The third is a bunch of Soviets.

This is the Komintern heavy tractor, the T24 medium tank, the Austin-Kegresse half-track armoured car, the Garford-Putilov SPG lorry, the Benz-Mgebrov armoured car, the T27 tankette, the SU18 SPG, and the T18 light tank.

You can get this pack from https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/interwar-soviet-micro-pack/

Bristol Bulldog

 

Yet another of Roman Troyan's aircraft models up-scaled to 1/144, this time an interwar Bristol Bulldog, the standard fighter of the RAF in the early 1930s, alongside the Hawker Fury. It was replaced (briefly) by the Gloster Gauntlet in 1937, before the monoplane fighters (the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire) came along in numbers.

I printed it in two halves on my Ender 3, and the surface finish on the fuselage isn't very good; I think if I changed the print orientation and did it in a single piece I could get better results.

The model doesn't have a pilot figure, and I think it really does need one. I shall have to do something about that.

Martel Tankette

 

This is a niche product if ever there was one — the 1925 wooden prototype of the tiny one-man British Martel tankette.

The model is designed at 1:100 scale (15mm).

The STL is available at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/martel-tankette-prototype-1925/

Vickers Infantry Tank No.2

 

I printed Roman Vasyliev's model of the Vickers Infantry Tank No.2, rescaled to 1:100.

With a crew of five*, it must have been pretty cramped in there. I've photographed it alongside a Valentine, also in 1:100 scale, and the Valentine was not a notoriously roomy vehicle even with a crew of four.

*Note: I've also seen stats which claim a crew of two, which seems a lot more likely considering the layout of the interior.

I'm coming to truly loathe the eSun water-washable resin I'm having to use. Nothing I do seems to stop it from opening gaping cracks. If I could easily get hold of something else, I surely would, although I don't have a ventilation system set up right now to cater to some of the stinkier resins out there..

I've attempted to disguise the horrible cracking on the port side by slathering on masses of caked-on muck. It's not ideal, but at least it covers it up to a degree.

My collection of British interwar medium tanks proceeds. I'm continuing with it more out of habit than anything else, as the chances of actually doing any interwar era wargaming seem to be becoming vanishingly small.

Medium C Hornet again, but bigger

 

I've redesigned my 1:100 scale model of the Medium C "Hornet" for 1:56 (28mm). That mainly means refining the size of the rivets, adding some detail to the Hotchkiss machine-guns, and a few other bits and pieces.

It's at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/medium-c-hornet-156/

Großtraktor

 

While I was browsing through the files in my digital object library, I happened upon this model: a Daimler Großtraktor from between the wars, the precursor to the Neubaufahrzeug. 

I have no memory of where I got the file from, nor who actually designed it in the first place.

I have no particular use for one of these things; they never went beyond the prototype stage, and never saw action at all. Still, that's never stopped me in the past. So I've decided to print and paint one.

There's a photograph of a Großtraktor mounted on a ramp as a gate-guard outside some complex or other, during WWII and it was painted in the pre-war 3-colour scheme. That's how I intend to paint this model, once I've got it printed.

It's a different version than the one I have — a Krupp production I think — but never mind. 

Here's my finished print, and it's pretty ropey.

I could find no information on interwar German tactical markings at all, so I made them up based on the sorts of crosses that appeared on German tanks in the last days of WW1.

Burford-Kegresse, revisited

I have been redesigning my Burford-Kegresse to make it manageable for home FDM printing.

The Burford-Kegresse was an armoured half-tracked vehicle, used as a machine-gun carrier mounting a pair of .303 Vickers guns on a Scarf ring mount, as shown here, or as an unarmed personnel carrier.

It was in service with the British army from the mid to late 1920s, about the same time as the Birch Gun.

The British didn't use either half-tracks or self-propelled artillery again until WWII.

I've uploaded a couple of versions for 3d printing to wargaming3d.com

• The 1:100 (15mm) scale version (shown here) can be got at  https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/burford-kegresse-15mm/
• The 1:56 version for 28mm gaming is at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/burford-kegresse-28mm-1-56/ (Note: The 28mm version does not come with any crew figures).

Vickers Medium Mk.III (revisited)

I've been redesigning my old model of the Vickers Medium Mk.III to make it suitable for home FDM 3d printing. This is a job that I've been putting off for quite a while, mainly because I don't personally have a need for the physical model any more, so it hasn't been a very high priority for me.

Unfortunately, wargaming3d.com (where I put my STL files up for sale) is having issues at the moment, and I can't add any new products to my catalogue. Hopefully the problems will be resolved soon, but until then it will have to remain accessible to me alone.

Wargaming3d.com is back up (-ish) again, and the STLs for this model are at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/vickers-medium-mk-iii/

Hawker Hart

To make a change from tanks and trucks and things, I've put together this model of a Hawker Hart light bomber in Blender.

I started this quite some time ago, but I really didn't have a handle on how to deal with smoothly curved shapes in Blender. I'm a bit better at it now, so I've finished it off.

The Hawker Hart was the RAF's best and most effective light bomber of the 1930s, being substantially faster than any of the biplane fighters in service at the time (such as the Bristol Bulldog, for example). It was so good that a single-seater fighter was developed using pretty much the same airframe, the Hawker Fury, and the first biplane fighter to break the 200 mph barrier (223 mph (359 km/h) at 16,500 ft (5,000 m).

Neither the Hart nor the Fury made it into WWII except in a very small way.

I thought that I had been modelling the Hart in 1/144 scale, which is the scale I've been using for all of my other 15mm wargaming aircraft. However, it turns out that it's actually 1:100 scale, which is the scale I use for all my ground vehicles and guns.

I think there's probably enough leeway in the thickness of the various members that I can resize it without too many problems, but I might have to bulk up the struts a bit. We shall see.

This print is 1:100, and it printed OK. Not spectacularly well, but OK. I tilted it forward on its nose at about 45°, so the wing supports were clustered along the leading edges. Unfortunately they also wrapped around the wing struts a bit, and I broke a couple of them trying to remove the supports.

I might try splitting the aeroplane right down the middle and printing it in two pieces; that has worked well for me in the past with aircraft models.

The 1/100 scale model is available printed by Shapeways at http://shpws.me/Rq8O for $US22.00 in their white nylon material, or $US25.00 in black.

If you have access to a 3d printer of your own, you can get the STLs at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/hawker-hart-light-bomber/

Interwar Soviets

SU-18

T-18

Here are a couple of Interwar Soviet vehicles I've made in 15mm (1:100). 

https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/t-18-light-tank/
https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/su-18-spg/

The links lead to downloadable STL files for home 3d printing.

The figure is a 15mm plastic Soviet commissar/officer from PSC.

Vickers Light Tank Mk.V (2 pdr)

In the latter half of the 1930s, experiments were made with mounting a 2 pounder anti-tank gun in an open-topped box turret on a Vickers Light Tank Mk.V, to create what would later be known as a tank destroyer.

It would have had the advantages of being relatively cheap, small and easily concealable, and quite fast for its time, and the 2 pounder was arguably the best ATG in existence then. However, it would have been very vulnerable to return fire from virtually anything heavier than a machine-gun.

It was not taken up by the British army, and never went into production. However, that’s no reason not to have a model of it, if only for “what if?” scenarios.

The model comes in separate STLs for three components: the turret and turret plug, and the hull. You can get it at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/vickers-light-tank-mk-v-2-pdr/

If you don't have access to a 3d printer, you can get the model printed for you by Shapeways at http://shpws.me/Rn3m

The figure is a WW1 British officer from Peter Pig.

T-24 Revisited

I've redesigned my model of the Soviet T-24 of 1932 for home printing, and uploaded the STLs to Wargaming3d

https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/t-24-medium-1932/

It's a 1:100 scale (15mm) model. It would up-scale to 1/72 OK, but any larger than that and you'd probably want to replace all the guns with something a little more delicate.

The photos shown here are SLS prints. FDM, or especially DLP would, of course, be better, but the SLS print looks quite OK as a wargaming model, and it has the advantage of being nigh-invulnerable. SPOOOON!!!

Component STLs

SLS print from Shapeways

SLS print from Shapeways

SLS print from Shapeways

Note: I've now added optional pieces so that people can, if they so desire, print the hull and tracks as separate components. I know some people like that.

Medium C "Hornet"

The Medium C, nicknamed "Hornet", was designed towards the end of WW1, intended as a replacement for the Medium A "Whippet". It was much superior in every respect to the Whippet, but it was too late to see action in WW1. It remained in British army service until the mid-1920s.

I've made this model available before on Shapeways, but now it's available as a STL for home printing from my shop on Wargaming3d at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/medium-c-hornet/

The model shown here has been printed horizontally, sitting on its tracks, in eSun PLA+ at a layer height of 0.08mm. It is 1:100 scale for 15mm gaming, but it can easily be scaled up or down in your slicer for other scales.

Brand New for 1926, the A1E1 Independent from Vickers!

I'm building my 15mm A1E1 Independent (a British experimental tank from the 1920s-30s). I'm quite fond of these old rivet-studded land dreadnaughts.

The STL is available at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/a1e1-independent-15mm/

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I printed the turrets and hull separately, as I wanted to use line supports and a support roof for the turrets, and tree supports for the hull.

The hull has been split into two pieces, fore and aft, and printed vertically. I find this tends to give me the cleanest detail in the running gear, and on sloping panels which would have very pronounced layer lines if printed horizontally.

Here the two parts of the hull have been cleaned up (I'm getting a fair amount of stringing at the moment.)

The turret has had a magnet glued into the base of its turret plug, and a nail head is glued into the bottom of the socket. This allows the turret to rotate freely, but it won't just fall out if I turn the model over.

The MG sub-turrets will just be glued in place; it's not really important for game purposes that they be able to rotate.

I'm keeping some of the tree supports (to the right of the photo) and I'll turn them into dungeon terrain pieces.

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Assembled and primed, now all that's needed is the final paint job.

I replaced the exhaust pipes with lengths of wire, as I broke one of them off when cleaning up the print. The down-side to printing the hull vertically is that elements like these, which would be quite strong if laid down horizontally, become a bit fragile.

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Frontish

I've used Vallejo ModelAir 70013 Yellow Olive to represent the British peacetime military Deep Bronze Green.

I've tried it before and not been that happy with it, but I realised that's because I sprayed a matte-coat over the top. The peacetime vehicles were always finished in a satin or high gloss finish, for smartness rather than concealment, so I've given this one a satin finish as well. It makes a much better Deep Bronze Green this way.

It's been given a very light dry-brushing with a much lighter yellow green of my own recipe, and it's been pin-washed with Nuln Oil. There are no markings (as yet); the original vehicle has none except for serial numbers and the like. 

Rearish

Toppish