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Many thanks to Alan, Gibbo, Spal and Stevie!  And as for Stevie's absolutely ridiculous theory about the contraption....Damn! I'd hoped leaving the actual tracks off would have thrown you!  Smartie Pants!!  Back soon Robin First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Wow!!! What is there to say apart from amazingly stunning!!! I have just been through this thread from start to finish and it is awesome!!!!
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Many thanks for those kind sentiments Nemesis! Things are hurtling along now in the last fortnight, after wondering how I was going to get the correct 'orangey' coloured mud effects for so long - straight forward painting or airbrushing etc. etc. I've finally come up with the perfect solution which turned out to be - none of the above! It also turned out to be such a simple (though quite labour intensive) process, I wonder now why it never occurred to me before! The results however are superbly realistic and captures the Messines Mud to a tee!  More on this in the next instalment! Part Thirty Four: The Wooden WallForward Joe Soap's army, marching without fear,
With our bold commander, safely in the rear.
He boasts and skives from morn till night,
And thinks he's very brave,
But the men who really did the job are dead and in their grave.
Forward Joe Soap's army, marching without fear,
With our bold commander, safely in the rear.Another one of Tommy’s opinions on his favourite target – his own top brass! Sung to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers.This instalment deals with the ‘other’ trench lining: the purpose built wooden plank section. Originally there were going to be two of these, this one and a smaller one at the extreme right edge of the base. The smaller one has however now been converted into the mortar pit once I realised the other trenches were actually too small in width to accurately fit the mortar into! In Photo 1 we can see the left hand side wall which is built up using more of the tunnel linings as the troops in the front line would often do – if it hasn’t got anybody’s name on it, grab it and use it! This, and the main section of the wall were built out of the Costa coffee sticks again, the only difference between these parts and the earlier bunker wood is that these are also ‘weathered’ with the Carrs Mud powders to ‘dirty’ them up a bit. The four main planks can be seen in Photo 2 along with the box section of the grenade locker, which will be inset into the wall and bank. Photo 3 illustrates the four planks PVA’d together with another coffee stick cut down into the square section posts to hold it in place, the effects of the mud powders can be seen clearly in this pic. At this point, the locker is just sitting in it’s cut out in the planking, awaiting the creation of the hollow alcove back into the bank and also it’s front hinged door. In Photo 4 the wall section is in place on the raised fire step and at this point I was able to score the shape of the locker through the cut out into the foam behind with a sharp pencil point. With the wall removed again, the marked rectangle was then incised with a sharp knife blade into the green foam board as can be seen in Photo 5. This rectangular cut was then sub-divided into smaller sections allowing a long nosed pair of pliers to grip each little square bit of foam in turn and literally ‘yank’ it out like pulling teeth!  The last couple of pieces are coming out in Photo 6. The hollow then created can be seen in the gap in the wall in Photo 7 along with further planks being cut to length to form the fire step itself. The wooden fire step sits on to of a series of square strips, again cut from the coffee sticks which raises it up to the required height before a final two sticks were cut to length, for the top one, and both length and width for the bottom plank. Once correct they were then kept in place with another four, square pointed posts as in Photo 8. In Photo 9, the fire step is in the process of being glued down to the strips underneath, (the strips however are not glued to the foam at this time, allowing the whole construction to be removed for further work on the landscape). I had intended to have a piece of corrugated sheet for the other side, but decided afterwards to have another three wooden sections there instead. I realised afterwards that I hadn’t actually got a photo of the grenade locker in situ! But don’t worry, you’ll see it in the next instalment: “Digging the Kaiser’s Ditches!” along with some slightly wider views of the whole trench system coming together at last (just for Stevie!)and I’ve just glued the bunker and shaft in permanently too! Back soon and happy modelling! Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Part Thirty Five: Digging the Kaiser’s Ditches!We beat ‘em on the Marne,
We beat ‘em on the Aisne,
We gave them Hell at Neuve Chapelle,
And here we are again!I just found this Tommy marching chant in a WW1 book and couldn’t resist it! Sung to the tune of ‘A Hunting we will go’In this instalment, the very first part of the planning stage, the drains comes to completion and in so doing, ties in the whole of the trench system so at last you can get a glimpse of the entire layout (from the Jerry end anyway!) The first diagram, which I drew up right at the beginning shows the drainage system in a very basic form. Unlike the Allied trenches which were down on the plains and flooded incessantly, the German trenches for the most part were up on the high ground and could be drained of excess water (of course, it all drained away downhill, straight into the Allied trenches!)  At the time I wasn’t sure if the very bottom of the ditch was just a dug out furrow, or whether it was more complicated. An e-mail to the head of the archeological team who excavated the Messines trench revealed it was the more complicated version! The second group of photos shows the excavation in process and although not too clear in these pictures, the bottom of the ditch is actually a wooden trough - so more coffee sticks! Anyway, as promised, in Photo 1 we have the grenade locker from the last instalment complete with its hinged drop down door, and in the bottom half, in situ in the wooden wall. Photo 2 illustrates the first short section of the drain. The side walls are coffee sticks, the base is a wider lollipop stick (a used lollipop stick in this case!) I eventually bought a bag of fifty brand new sticks sold as plant markers (with a pencil too!) in the Poundshop. Photos 3 – 6 show the drain as it was extended around the trench system working from right to left . As the box system was glued in place, the edges were filled in with the Terrain Foam Putty, stippled to form the mud effect and then painted with the Woodland Scenics Earth Undercoat. After drying overnight the lovely orangey mud effect was created by using of all things, the Carrs Mud Powders which I’d bought to weather the tanks with! Using cotton buds, the medium brown powder was rubbed into the surface of the textured foam, followed by the orange mud just sparingly wiped over the top. Its almost dry-brushing with cotton buds in effect, but the result is some of the most realistic ground effects I’ve ever done (and I wish I’d known about this stuff years ago!) As you can make out in Photo 6, the communications trench drain is considerably smaller than the main trenches. Just as well really, space was at a premium down in there! With the forward edges of the drains landscaped, the two ‘modules’ minus their wicker linings were finally glued down into the base and once dry, the remaining drain edges were also ‘terrained’, this time, mainly working with fingertips to get in the narrow spaces! In Photo 7, with both sides of the ditch foamed, undercoated, textured and painted, (and the wicker panels pushed back in)I could begin the task of building in the wooden supports for the duckboards above. These are all made up from cut down coffee sticks, cut to approximate size and dunked in my home made weathering solution (the sticks are small enough to drop in the meat paste jars now!) Photo 8 shows the first of the duckboards going down on the extreme right edge of the trench, the raised bit on the right is part of the added weapons pit (more on that soon). The duckboards are also coffee sticks, but a thinner variety which Costas have just started using (and right on time too!). And lastly, in Photo 9 you can finally see the entire length of the trench, from the bunker on the left to the weapons pit on the right. As you can see, I now have to make up the thin support posts and carry on with the duckboards, but first I have to make up the muddy water to fill up the drains with. If you look at the two lowest shell craters you can see the effect, this is Woodland Scenics Realistic Water with a tiny pinch of the orange mud powder dissolved in it. Quite a few more of them to do!! In Part Thirty Six: The Weapons Pit and the scratch built Trench Mortar. Happy Modelling ‘till then! Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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 Rank: Vice-Master    Groups: Registered
Joined: 26/05/2014 Posts: 912 Points: 2,773 Location: East Sussex UK
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Research and attention to detail again is stunning mate, looking forward to the next instalment. Paul Building: DelPrado HMS Victory. Building: DeAgostini Sovereign Of The Seas.
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 Rank: Super-Elite      Groups: Registered
Joined: 30/01/2013 Posts: 4,604 Points: 13,607 Location: Monmouthshire UK
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Brilliant work Robin Steve
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Many thanks indeed again to Gibbo, Nemesis, Stevie and Alan! Into the last week now and still full speed ahead!! Part Thirty Six: Up-grading the Trench Mortar and the Weapons Pit.When old Jerry shells your trench, never mind
And your face may lose its smile, never mind
Though the sandbags bust and fly you have only once to die,
If old Jerry shells the trench, never mindAnother verse from “Never Mind” which fits in quite well with the Trench Mortar!The HaT WW1 German Heavy Weapons Set (8110) includes a four part model of the 75mm Minenwerfer Trench Mortar (base and barrel and two operators). This item is a little on the basic side as far as detail goes although the crew are quite nicely modelled and so another little up-grading was in order. The German Minenwerfers of WW1 differ considerably from the British mortars employed against them, the main difference being the means of propelling the bomb. In the case of the Allied mortars, (and for that matter the German mortars from WW2) the bomb itself holds the propellant charge and dropping it down the barrel or more correctly ‘Tube’ triggers the charge and fires the bomb up and out. These Trench Mortars however are completely different. The bomb has no propellant at all and the mortar is virtually a huge version of a modern paintgun, propelling the projectile with a blast of compressed air from a re-usable gas tank (the dumpy cylinder on the back of the barrel). This system has both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, ALL of the charge inside the bomb is designed to go off when the bomb lands on the target so German mortars fired from the trenches were more powerful and destructive than say, the British Stokes Mortar. The down side is pretty obvious – the cylinder gives between twelve and fifteen shots depending on the range, once you’ve fired those fifteen bombs, unless you have another air cylinder, charged and ready to go, all you can do is roll the rest of your bombs down the hill and run for the hills! In Photo 1, we have the basic mortar as supplied in the set. The first task was to cut away the simplified ‘tripody thing’ from the polythene base (and also remove any flash present) using a new safety razor blade as in Photo 2. The basic construction for the replacement parts was provided by a few lengths of aluminium tubing recently rescued from the garage (bought decades ago to re-model a T-800 Terminator!). There are four pieces as shown in Photo 3: the barrel, the air tank and two recoil pistons. With the pieces cut to length, the pistons and the air tank had to be blocked up at both ends, the barrel obviously only at the bottom end! To block up the smaller tubes I used the ends of the plastic sprues which I made the wicker panels from, cutting off the thinner bits and super gluing the ‘cone’ into the ends before cutting it off level once dry ( Photo 4) The two pistons then each received a flange ring at the top and mid way positions from a thin strip of the Decraled, the start of which can be seen in Photo 5. With the rings on, the pistons were super glued to the barrel and then another pair of lead strip was wound around the whole thing, tying the pistons into the barrel. The pivot bar at the base of the barrel (which was plugged at the bottom with a cocktail stick) was a length of styrene rod. Before fitting the mortar to the base, the base was itself fitted up with lifting tubes made from wire insulation (plenty of that laying around from the barbed wire factory!) and the lifting handles were made from single strands of the same wire. The triangular platfore is also formed from the piece of strip lead which the flanges came from ( Photo 6). In service, these minenwerfers were fitted with a pair of wooden wheels together with a steel ‘plough’ like device at the rear. By depressing the barrel right down flat it was converted into a ‘Baby Howitzer’ (Damned clever those Germans!) By coincidence, as I was searching through my box of childhood Airfix soldiers, I found a Napoleonic cannon limber with wheels the spitting image of those on this mortar, they will be featured leaning up against the walls of the weapons Pit before the end. The stubby axles for those wheels were formed from brass rod, drilled and glued into the base plate. The final result can be seen in Photos 7 to 9. A slight improvement! With the completion of the mortar it was time to decide where abouts in the trenches it was going to go. That’s when the slight problem cropped up – there was no place other than on the duckboards that it would fit! This type of mortar was normally sited on a prepared position incorporating a sturdy timber floor so the only thing to do was to provide it with the same. I chose the extreme right hand side of the trench, in the little area that was originally going to be another continuation of the fire step. In Photo 10 you can see the original cut out with the addition now of a semi circular extension marked out using the lid of one of the meat paste jars I’m storing various timbers and other bits and pieces in. In Photo 11 this has been roughly cut away using a basic snap off blade knife. The next decision was what to line the pit with. I toyed with the idea of having heavy timber bulks like railway sleepers just for something different but in the end I decided on extending the corrugated iron into the pit (mainly because I’d built up enough of the stuff to do it with!) By Photo 12 the pit has been layered with the Terrain putty and the sheets of wriggly tin are being cut to size to fit around the perimeter. Once that was finished the ground was undercoated and a ‘step’ created out of scale logs. ( Photo 13). These were a great find in my local Poundland – a 1 metre long strip of willow edging for garden borders. I used to get something identical to this for my pet Degus from the pet shop but I noticed that the Poundland ones had some very thin willow sticks amongst the more usual thicker ones. With a vigorous sanding down to remove most of the bark and a dunk in the weathering solution – perfect retaining wall logs! (Some of the very thin ones will also be used for the barbed wire posts as well). The planks to line the floor, Photo 14, came from another trip to the garage workshop when I found a little polythene packet with about fifteen of these mahogany looking planks. I think they might have come with an old Billings Boats lifeboat many years ago. After cutting to size, they were PVA’d into place and once dry the edges of the pit were given a ‘loose fill’ to simulate the soil seeping in as a result of the shelling etc. This ‘soil’ was created using a mixture of PVA glue with a tiny part of my 99p bag of Budgie sand and a pinch of the Carrs orange mud powder, all mixed together and ‘shoveled’ in on the tip of one of the metal carving tools. The final result can be seen in Photo 15. Not seen here are a load of wooden mortar bomb ammo boxes which will eventually be placed around the edges of the pit and also the pair of crew figures to come shortly. In the final week of the build I will be concentrating on the painting and some converting of the many figures to be placed on the battle scene, some are done and some are still coming and I’ll try and have a big ‘Figures’ post right before the end. In the meantime I’ll also try to catch up with the other elements like the two cut away tanks and the rest of the trech flooring etc. Most of it is done but I haven’t yet made up the photo pages and text. So the instalments throughout this week will be random (to say the least!) In the meantime, here’s somebody looking really mean in her new undercoat! Happy modelling until the next post! Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Rank: Super-Elite   Groups: Registered
Joined: 31/05/2010 Posts: 5,679 Points: 17,011 Location: Wiltshire
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Robin Your attention to detail and your research is making for a very impressive build diary. Well done Sir you have something very special in the making here. Happy modelling Tony Happy Modelling
BUILDING: Hachette Spitfire Mk 1A, Constructo Mayflower
SUBSCRIPTION COMPLETE (Awaiting building): USS Constitution, Sovereign of the Seas, 1:200 Bismarck (Hachette)
COMPLETED: Porsche 911, E-Type Jaguar, Lam Countach
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 Rank: Pro  Groups: Registered
Joined: 01/04/2013 Posts: 342 Points: 1,029 Location: Essex
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Just to reiterate what others have said, this is a fantastic build. The attention to detail is amazing Robin. Absolutely stunning mate. Best regards Alan England expects that every man will do his duty.
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Rank: Super-Elite Groups: Registered
Joined: 30/01/2013 Posts: 4,604 Points: 13,607 Location: Monmouthshire UK
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The tank looks spot on Robin, really enjoying this one Steve
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Many thanks to Tony, Alan and Stevie! Well the Big Day is finally here and talk about taking it to the wire! (excuse the pun!) The build is now as complete as I can make it, give or take a tweak or two here and there! Over the next couple of days I'll put together a full series of pics for a proper look around the diorama. The first thing you'll notice is I'm short of a couple of tanks! There were two main reasons for this: firstly, despite all the reference material I've collected, I'm still not exactly sure how the engine and transmission goes together under the chassis and after the hundreds of hours spent trying to get everything else as accurate as possible, I don't want to spoil it right at the end with a botch-up 'indoors'. Secondly, I still haven't managed to get hold of or scratch build crew figures and the big problem with that is that the crew have to be fitted in the far side of the hull first, before the chassis parts. So with much changing of mind, I decided to put Iron Rations and Revenge on pause and concentrate on getting Rumblebelly into the thick of the action (which she definately is!!) Until the 'photo shoot' comes together, here's a couple of tasters! What I forgot to add is that this diary is not over yet! It still has many weeks of posts to go as I haven't had time to put together everything that has gone into the diorama yet. The only difference will be that instead of it being the 'How I'm doing this and that' it will be the 'How I did this and that'! So many more figure conversions, groundwork application and the painting and weathering of old 'Rumblebelly' to come! Until the next post.. Happy modelling to all! Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Rank: Super-Elite  Groups: Registered, Forum Support Team, Administrators, Global Forum Support Team, Moderator, Official Builds Joined: 09/11/2012 Posts: 8,520 Points: 24,651 Location: East midlands
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Hi Robin, STUNNING, Regards delboy271155 (Derek) COME BACK GUY FAWKES "YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU"
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 26/05/2014 Posts: 912 Points: 2,773 Location: East Sussex UK
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Looks fantastic Robin, looking forward to seeing more. Paul Building: DelPrado HMS Victory. Building: DeAgostini Sovereign Of The Seas.
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Rank: Pro Groups: Registered
Joined: 01/04/2013 Posts: 342 Points: 1,029 Location: Essex
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Looking really great Robin  can't wait to see more Regards Alan England expects that every man will do his duty.
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Rank: Super-Elite Groups: Registered
Joined: 27/01/2014 Posts: 5,060 Points: 14,980
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Hi Robin
This is truly an amazing build, I take my hat off to you. A lot of skill on show here
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Grateful thanks indeed to Derek, Paul, Alan and Davetwin, I'm really glad you're enjoying it so much! In this instalment it's time to start hacking some figures up again! Part Thirty Seven: The Trench Mortar Crew and AccessoriesThe Trench Mortar in the HaT set is supplied with a pair of crew figures as seen in Photo 1. On the left is a kneeling figure of the Commander with a standing figure of the loader holding a mortar bomb ready to slide it down the tube. The loader I decided to use ‘as is’ but for the weapons pit I wanted the other figure to be standing up as well so another simple conversion was in order. In almost every respect, this conversion is virtually identical to the Field Telephone Operator, he too had his right arm down by his side and his left arm raised so the razor blade cut was identical as shown in the box art drawing in Photo 2. I even used the same set of legs as the Telephone Operator so yet another poor sniper met a grisly end to supply his legs as seen in Photo 3. With the two halves cut and trimmed, just as before a hole was drilled into the middle of each half and a brass rod pushed in to join the two together. In this case, the join was so tight I didn’t need to apply any Milliput putty to clean it up as I did with the ealier figure. The undercoating and painting followed the same procedure as the Telephone guy so I haven’t put in any ‘ in process’ pics. The finished figure, all painted up after his base was cut away and another brass rod drilled and pushed up one of his legs is shown in Photo 4. Along side in Photo 5 is the Loader, similarly de-based and pinned. His mortar round is painted in Medium Olive Green with a copper fuse in the nose. It should also have three black rings around the body of the bomb – I might (or might not! ) The great asset with the brass rod locating pins through the feet is that at the moment each figure is simply stuck into the foam base, I can easily remove and replace them at will in order to perform any little ‘extras’ (dry-brushing, ink shadowing etc). They will eventually be PVA’d down permanently but until then each one is still accessible. Now for the accessories! In Photo 6 we have the pair of Napoleonic cannon limber wheels I mentioned earlier. One is a little beat up around the rim so guess which one’s going to be stuck at the back! In this photo they have been given a coat of grey primer using that brilliant Poundland aerosol paint. Once dry this was followed by a coat of the Vallejo 70.886 Green Grey (the German tunic colour) which was then given a diluted wash of Citadel Shadow Black Ink followed when dry by a dry-brush of the Green Grey with a little Admiralty White to highlight the rims and spokes. The finished wheels can be seen in the background in Photo 7. The next job was the wooden ammo boxes for the mortar rounds. (Actually I made these before I found those wheels but what the heck!) A little research indicated that the rounds were brought to the front in purpose made pinewood boxes, each one holding four rounds and quite roughly made, possibly a case of use once and then re-use for the cooking stoves! I didn’t have any light wood of the right thickness so the simple solution was to glue and clamp two of the thicker coffee sticks together as can be seen in Photo 8. After a good twenty four hours of drying, the resultant wooden stick was sanded smooth before beginning the interiors. The web photos revealed a sort of routered out, curved ended depression in the top of the box into which were set four cylindrical hollows for the rounds. The first job therefore was to router out the inset into the top of the wood using a rotary tool with a ball shaped carving head as seen in Photos 9 and 10. The wood strip was marked off in individual box lengths and the insets then carved out of each in turn. This production line together with the various tools used to make the boxes up is shown in Photo 11. The router and the drill are self explanitary, the diamond dust tool was simply used to clean up the drilled holes. To complete the boxes, a lid was made from the thinner coffee sticks (the ones used to make the duckboards) and a rough piece of quite thick strip was added for the corner re-inforcements. These were only fitted on the front side, presumably to allow tighter packing of the boxes. The lids were stuck on at various angles to give some variability in the finished setting. I may try and give them a thinned down stain of pine varnish before they get glued down permanently. I did try a thinned down darker stain on one unfortunate box which completely ruined it (it looked more like ancient oak than antique pine!) and the hinges on the originals were inset so only a little grey square in the corner of the lid was visible, but again, I’ll need to seal the bare wood before I can paint that in. The virtually finished stack of boxes can be seen in Photo 12 and also in the large Photo 13. As you can see, the loader is holding the last of the rounds and if the angle of Rumblebelly’s port 6pdr is anything to go on, it could well be the last round too! There are still a couple more little additions to put in yet – a couple of metal poles which would have been placed into those tubes on the mortar’s base to move it around and a thin single strand of wire from the base of the air cylinder on the back of the mortar to the Commander’s right hand. Pulling on that lanyard was how the thing was fired. Finally, the final photo shows the real thing, courtesy of Bernard’s excellent web site Passion and Compassion 1418, a goldmine of info and photos on both sides of the Great War. The rotating ring on the base of the mortar is clearly seen here, showing how the entire weapon could rotate through 360 degrees once it was set up. In Part Thirty Eight, another figure conversion, how to turn a prone light machine gunner into something more useful in a trench! Happy Modelling ‘till then! Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Brilliant work once again Robin.... This is a build I want to see finished just so we can see how it is going to end up, yet it's a build I do not want to see finish as it will mean an end to seeing the fantastic skills being applied on this dio..... Keep posting those fab pics..... Regards Alan
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Many thanks for those kind words Alan and don't worry, there's a lot more 'filling in' to post up yet! Part Thirty Eight: The German MG08/15 Light Machine Gunner.Last night as I lay on my pillow Last night as I lay on my bed I dreamt our old sergeant was dying, I dreamt that the old sod was dead. Send him, Oh send him, Oh send our old sergeant to hell,–to hell Oh keep him, Oh keep him Oh keep the old barstool in Hell Barstool huh? the original was somewhat more illegitimate! For some unknown reason Tommy didn’t seem to like his sergeants! (To the tune of Bring back my Bonnie to me)The German MG08/15 was an attempt to provide what was termed a ‘Light Machine Gun’ to the front line troops. This was essentially a lightened version of the existing Heavy Machine Gun MG08 (the Maxim look alike) which was mounted on a heavy sledge mount (one of them to come shortly!) The MG08/15 was introduced in 1915 (hence the /15) and featured a slimmer barrel casing, a bipod support and a wooden stock. It could be fed by either the standard ammo belt as used in its bigger brother or else from a steel round drum which held a hundred rounds. This was supposed to clip onto the right side of the weapon but I’ve seen this set up on clips on the TV recently with the drum simply laying on the ground with the ammo belt being yanked out of it as the gun fires. Despite its classification, this was a ‘Light Machinegun’ only in the minds of its designers! (According to one of my WW1 books anyway!) This is the first of the major conversions and involved turning a prone German light machine gunner into an upright version, more appropriate to the trench scenario. I had two attempts at this one, the first involved simply cutting the poor gunner in half and trying to fit a pair of standing legs to the torso as in the other two figures already done. Unfortunately, no matter which way I tried it, I just couldn’t get the two halves to match up in a realistic or natural way. The only alternative therefore was to try and get the figure to ‘stand on his own two feet’! Photo 1 illustrates the actual MG08 figure as supplied in the HaT WW1 German Heavy Weapons set (#8110) This figure actually comes with a loader too, laying on his right holding the ammo belt but as you will see, in this particular set up, that loader won’t be required (so that’s one less piece of drastic surgery needed!) In Photo 2, the basic cutting is shown, I’ve had to simulate this with some fiddly graphics as I didn’t realise I hadn’t taken any photos of the actual figure under way. Mind you, he needed both hands for most of the procedure so that’s probably why! A pair of slices were made into the underside of the figure shown by the black cut out, from directly behind his left hand (held under his body) to the inside edge of his backpack and again from just above his tunic bottom up to the same point. This removed a triangular sliver of polythene from the lower body with the upper and lower parts of the body held only by the thickness of the backpack. With his ‘guts’ duly removed, I was able to gently bend his legs down until the gap was filled and his legs now appeared at about 45 degrees to his upper body as seen in Photo 3. Next came the part which is not for the squeamish! In an act worthy of Vlad the Impaler, whilst keeping the body bent at the correct angle, a 1mm drill bit was drilled up through the gunners er, bum, and continued up into the thickness of the torso. With that done and still keeping the figure bent, a 1mm brass rod was then pushed up the hole, effectively locking the legs and torso together. About 3” of rod was left sticking out which made a useful handle for the next stage which involved dribbling super glue from a cocktail stick around the joint to both strengthen it and to fill any small gaps. ( Photo 4) At the same time, the ‘bulge’ under the machine gun where the solid bipod was cut off, was drilled out with a 0.5mm bit ready to take another brass rod which was bent to form the bipod and then passed through the hole under the gun. The bipod was made longer than necessary, the excess length then being the means to secure the figure to the base by simply pushing it down into the foam (as you can see in the last three photos) As I mentioned earlier, the loader figure wasn’t required here, the reason being the gun is now fitted with the drum magazine instead. This is best seen in Photo 5, and was made up very easily by selecting a piece of kit sprue of the right diameter (one bit that didn’t get stretched obviously!) and carefully slicing off a piece about 2mm wide. After sanding a slight flat onto the inner side, the sprue was carefully drilled to take a 0.5mm piece of brass rod which was super glued into place before drilling right through the body of the machine gun and pushing the rod through, locking the drum into position. Any excess rod sticking out of the left side of the gun was then snipped off and filed down. The gunner was undercoated before the protruding rod was finally snipped off as close to his bottom as possible and then very gently ground back level with a rotary disk tool, touching up the undercoat afterwards. Painting followed the same procedure as the others, with Vallejo and Citadel paints and inks used again. The Machine gun itself was painted in Citadel Bolt Gun Metal with a wash of Shadow Black Ink.Now there was a slight problem even after all the above work – because he is bent at an angle, he is a lot shorter than his companions shooting over the parapet! (In short, his feet won’t reach the ground!) that’s why this particular soldier is standing on a pile of conveniently stacked sandbags! ( Photo 7) Notice in Photo 6 the spent brass cartridges piling up under the gun, this was something I dreamt up for the Lewis gun and I’ll show you how I did them when that one comes up. I’m not sure if the MG08/15 would have had the disintegrating steel ammo belt needed for this effect by 1917, or whether it should really have had the canvas belt coming out the other side, but I like the effect anyway (and it looks great on the Lewis!). So that’s the MG08/15, in the next instalment I’ll show another one of the same figures (without his MG) together with an unconverted trench mortar commander in a different coat of paint! Bye ‘till then. Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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