Mama and baby

My friend John gave me some of his Flames of War Americans to paint up and it seemed like a fun project. Now, having painted a few models, I decided to paint a bunch of his models, because it's fun and because he doesn't have to do it. So here is the first one, as a test....I will have to improve a bit on this...

....and here is a M8 Greyhound. I recently finished one of those for my Bolt Action US Army, so it seemed like a good moment to capture Mama and baby.

 The decal doesn't come with the blister of the Greyhound, an oversight I think, so I grabbed a little one from a Sherman Squadron decal sheet. I think it makes it look a lot better.

SC Mike

Painted: this M8 Greyhound is ready for (Bolt) Action!

The picture above was my inspiration for the 1/48 Tamiya M8 Greyhound for my Bolt Action American army, based on the Road to Anzio army list from the rulebook. Below the pre-painted version:

and here's the painted version: 

The backpacks are a mix of Bolt Action and Hobby boss packs (left overs from the Sherman). 

 The Tamiya kit doesn't have decals that match any of the units active in the Northern Italy theatre, so I chose the one that had the most modest decal look - the yellow lettering you see on many Greyhounds were active in Northern France, so I stayed away from those. 

 One cool thing: Tamiya did supply the decal for this vehicle, during an action shot in Northern France:

The kit comes with the Colbert markings - pretty cool. You can see the yellow lettering on this shot as well. Too bad I couldn't use it.

Here's a picture of Brazilian soldiers in Northern Italy, who together with the 10th Mountain and the 92 Inf Div made the push in the spring offensive in 45. I couldn't make out much of this greyhound but it is an impressive shot:

I painted the inside of the kupola as well - light grey with dirt and soot - but you can't really see it in this shot: 

Here's a link on the how to of the making of sandbags, handy in case you haven't done that yet. 

This model is a wonderful kit to put together and the scale works perfectly with the Bolt Action models. The advantage is of course that these kits are much more detailed the the BA vehicles (and a lot cheaper!)

cheers!

SC Mike

1/48 M8 Greyhound for Bolt Action

Over the last two weeks I have been working on a model that SC John generously gifted me: the Tamiya 1/48 M8 Greyhound, a lightly armored reconnaissance vehicle. Thousands of M8's were built and used during WW2, by the British and by the Americans. Here's a good shot of one in action:

I wanted to build a model with plenty of visual character and I had my mind set on adding sandbags to the front. The crews in the front of the Greyhound were vulnerable; the armor on the front and bottom was woefully thin. I read that many crews put sandbags on the bottom of the vehicle for extra protection from mines..
Anyway, on Google I could not find Greyhounds with sandbags on it and I was about to give up when I found this image

on this site called Warwheels. I was so happy to find it! These images don't seem to show up on Google and the site has an amazing bunch of links to obscure but very detailed and cool military model sites. Anyway, I realized that is what I wanted to build...and here's the result:

After building the vehicle out of the box,  I started working on the basket. I created it from plastic tubing and L-shaped pieces from Evergreen. I got a rod and tub assortment and used the thinnest piece for this:

After drilling some holes I added the base wire and slowly began to add cross bars. To finish it nicely I added L-shaped bars along the sides.

Then I started the sand bags. I am sure most of you already know how to do this, but just to make sure, this is how I do it:
1. make a long roll of green stuff

2. flatten it a bit

3. cut pieces. keep a soldier at hand, so you can keep an eye on the scale

4. once cut, press with good, textured cloth

5. add to rack. Make sure not to forget the stuff the bottom of the rack and and let some of it stick out of the bottom

Make sure to bend some of the corners to make it more realistic.

Hopefully some of you will give this easy process a try, it's great fun!

Here's another great action shot of the Greyhoud, although this image was indicative for the times to come. The M8 was great on the roads and hard surfaces, but in the field it was slow and had to large a turning radius; it was quickly beat out by the jeeps.


It was a joy to work on this vehicle and in the second part I will show you the painted version; that might be a week or two! If you have comments or more info, I would love to learn a bit more about the M8!

SC Mike