Building the Mig 17

So I said I'm building this wheels up let's see how that is going.

 

 
 
 
 

Left wing looks pretty good but the right one is going to need a bit of green stuff.

And need to fill those holes - no drop tanks or rockets on this one.

The cockpit is nice and simple. That's just fine. You'll see why in a bit.

 

Then I got picky about this.....

No. I'm going to cut a piece of styrene card and make my own control panel.

I got a picture of where it's going to go, but never did get one with it in place. I really gotta get back in the habit of documenting these again.

Still don't have a good digital camera for these but the iPhone camera seems to be working just fine.

 

Got everything filled, sanded, cockpit masked,

 

Let's paint.

 

 

Mixed up my own base color...

Flash forward...it's getting camouflaged with dark grey.

 Still brush painting at this time.

 

Foreshadowing: I got an airbrush for Christmas so I'll be practicing with that soon!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 



Well it's time to start up posting again.
New Year. New Job. New Goals!

I've been away but still working on projects. I completed a few which I'll eventually get to posting. In the meantime...….here's the current project.

Part 1

This is a project I've been wanting to do for a long, long time. Part 1 begins with a Mig 17. I searched and searched and found all kinds of 15s, 21s, 24s. Finally found a 17 and what do you know?....it even has the North Vietnam markings I was looking for!

But wait...there's more!!!!

 

IT HAS A PILOT!!!!!

 

 

I can't tell you how difficult it is to find 1/72 pilots. I searched and searched a while back for WWI pilots. Found like one set and only about 6 were suitable for cockpits. So not having to search for a pilot on this one! YAY!!!

 

Let's check out te rest of the model:

 

It's a Hasagawa kit. They have always been pretty good models for me.

 

Another cool thing about this model is it has a weighted nose. Super awesome for this plane if you are building it wheels down. I remember having a 15 many moons ago that wouldn't balance right so I had to remove (rip off) the nose and glue pennies in the front to keep all the wheels on the ground.

 



But, of course I plan on building it wheels up.

 

 

Let's make a drink & start building.

 

 

ll







WOW!!! Has it really been almost a year since I posted?

Why yes it has.

Just because I haven't posted doesn't mean I haven't been busy. Aside from the usual real life getting in the way I had several distractions from my planned projects the past few months (read...."year").

I would post pictures of these distractions but the "upgrade" to windows 10 doesn't have a driver for the Sony Handicam which all my digital pictures are taken with. So I have several picture series of projects and distractions on a camera that I can't get anything off of. "Upgrade" indeed.

So until we figure that one out it's up to the iPhone to be the camera and an AAR.

WargamesVault had for sale:

So this go round mini-me and I are going to be following someone else's rules. These are good simple rules. They make for a pretty quick game and not too complicated. It has stats for some of the more common WWII tanks, based mainly on the North Africa campaigns. It also has a few scenarios and for our initial game we (I) chose Hellcats at the Bulge.

I don't have any Hellcats so we substituted 3 M10 Wolverines and an M4 Sherman. The opposing side was to be three trucks, three Pz IV and a Tiger I. Since I don't have any Tigers we substituted a Panther and instead of Pz IV I used Pz IIIs just because.

Terrain - snow Dec 1944:

Victory conditions:
German: advance three vehicles across the table from NE to SW.
American: destroy at least four German vehicles.

Initial deployment:
Germans in the NE:




















Americans in the SE:

Americans go first and split their force. Two Wolverines head straight to the convoy while the other two units head for town to cut off the route.

The Germans put the pedal to the medal and speed up the road.

They can only go as fast as the Pz. IIIs which just happen to be the slowest vehicles in the group.

Turn 2 much of the same. Everyone still out of range.

Now the two Wolverines have pulled within range, the Panther takes off the road to meet them.
The first American shot goes wide, the second aims for the convoy and hits a truck.

But the Panther scored a hit. Note the damage bead next to the M10 on the left.

Turn 4 the first Wolverine hit beats a hasty retreat while the other aims for the damaged truck in the convoy. He scores another hit, destroying the truck, but also takes a hit, the Panther still unscathed.

Meanwhile the convoy is still speeding up the road and the other American units have taken up position in the town.
The Wolverine taking cover behind a boulder scores a hit on the lead Pz III.

The trailing Pz. IIIs fire on the Sherman but both miss.

After knocking out one truck the M10 gets cocky and goes straight for the Panther and scores a hit!

The Panther returns fire does more damage. ( each tank can take 3 hits before being knocked out and there is no provision for ramming damage)

Back in the town things are getting hot at close range.

One Pz. III has pulled off to try and flank the Americans and another of the trucks has been damaged, but they're so close to making an escape.

Turn 6?:

The Wolverine evens the score on the panther and makes for cover behind the building but when the Panther comes around...............

KABLAM!!!!!

That's two vehicles destroyed by the Americans!

Back in the town, one of the trucks has sped off to safety and the German tanks close in to do as much damage as they can. The M10 gets caught in a cross fire but the Sherman is able to get the kill on the panzer coming around the corner. That's three!

At this point I have to go for the win. I run the truck (second vehicle) and one of the tanks (third vehicle) off the end of the table before the shooting phase to achieve the scenario goal. But we still fight past the end. Because it's FUN!

I move the last panzer in and take out the Sherman. Mini-me determined that it was an ammo rack hit - note the turret on the roof. The Wolverine that took the first hit of the game has made it back in support, fires a shot but misses.

I back up behind the wreckage for cover hoping to outlast the M10 before his buddy the Panther killer arrives.

And even though ones always miss......

A six always hits!

So that was lotso fun.

I'm going to try really hard to update the blog more often. If I can figure out how to get the pictures off the Sony I'll have a lot of stuff ready go.

Until then I'll have to start over with the photo documentation.

Micro Armor and a Fountain of Light

Okay so I'm getting one more post in before the month ends.

I was supposed to finish the adventuring party but of course, I got distracted.....

I worked on my Stug company (see March 8 post) support vehicles. I also had some Panzer III/IV tanks to do. I can usually get through the Microarmor minis pretty quickly and I just had the need to get something done.

The support vehicles are painted up in the same scheme as the Stugs. In this shot you can see the Panzers in the background. Their pictures are below.



Now a few pics of the Panzers

Going through the pics I just realized I didn't get any good overhead shots. Oh well, I'll get some eventually once I get in a game with them.

For these I went with a basic two color scheme: Panzer grey and earth brown. Quick, easy, simple.

I did remember to get some scale comparison pics this time. Here's how these guys size up next to a US dime.



Pretty small huh?

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And now for something completely different.

We just finished a gaming session and the party finally got to the cavern that had my big terrain piece so I can post it.

It's a fountain that spews out glowing, healing water.

Here's what it looks like in normal light on the gaming table.

And here it is in the dark....

It was a bit more difficult to construct than I anticipated.

Made with Hirst Arts bricks and fiber optic finger lights.

It came out taller than I originally planned but it had to be due to the lighting unit I used.

It still looks pretty cool on the table though.

Well that's it for this edition. Let's see if I can get another post in before October.

Thanks for stopping by and leave some comments if you like.