Jasta Boelcke

Just finished off six doing repaint jobs on six planes of the Wings of War Fokker DR I Fritz Kempf models to represent six different planes from Jasta 2 (Boelcke) in February/March 1918. Information for the repaint jobs came from the Osprey book Jagdstaffel 2 'Boelcke' in their Aviation Elite Units series.


All the planes have been modified by having their rear fuselages painted white on the port side and black on the starboard, a feature of Jasta 2 DR1s that's strangely absent from the WoW model. My white paint failed to match that on the white squares around the Maltese Crosses on the prepaints so I overpainted these markings and replaced them with crosses from Dom's Decals. The Kempf markings on the wings were overpainted with Knarlock Green from the Citadel Foundation Paints range, a colour that almost perfectly matches the green on the original model.

I've cut of the pegs on the underside of the models and replaced them with 1/8" rare earth magnets also available from Dom. I can now use the models with Wings of War stands that I've modified with matching magnets and also with the Litko stands shown in the picture above which I use for playing Algernon Pulls it Off from Too Fat Lardies.

All the planes have been given pilots from Peter Pig's Range 6, Odds and Ends. These look about a hundred times better than the mishapen blobs that made an appearance on the Wings of War Series 2 models.

Kempf

Baumer - the Bs are white decals that have been overpainted in red. It worked better than any of my attempts to handpaint Bs

Loffler - handpainted stripes round the fuselage.

Papenmyer. I wish I was better at painting stripes.

Plange - A white stripe edged in black with Maltese Crosses from Dom's Decals on the sides and top of the fuselage.

Vallendor - letter V decals with hand painted serifs. Not quite the proper shape of V, but good enough for me.

I'm quite happy with them, but I'm not at all convinced that the base shade of green is historical. I much prefer the finish on the Wings of War Fokker DR I (Arthur Rahn) model which looks much more like what I see in the Osprey prints and photographs. But I'm too lazy to change all that and what I've done will do for now.

Stuart Jalopies from QRF

New from QRF are these Stuart Jalopies (aka sawn off Stuarts) which were used in many British and Candian armoured regiments in 1944 and 1945. They were first used towards the end of the Desert War and came about when armoured commanders realised that the 37mm gun mounted in the Stuart's turret was all but useless in combat and that if the turret were removed the tank would have a lower profile and that the crew inside would have a better view. These were useful characteristics in what was used mainly as a recce vehicle - though the jalopies were apparently also used as general purpose runabouts, for carrying supplies around the battlefield or even as ambulances.


As far as I can make out 11th Armoured Division removed the turrets on their Stuarts after Operation Epsom and all the Stuarts that went into action in Operation Goodwood had been converted. To give the vehicle a bit more firepower they were usually equipped with .30 or .50 cal machine guns which were welded on to the hull. I've been waiting for models of these things for years.

The QRF models are nice enough, but they're not without their problems. The details on the models' running gear is not particularly well defined and the MGs supplied with the model are very thin and didn't look like they'd last more than five minutes on a wargames table. Also they don't come with any crew, though they do come with a canvas cover for the opening in the top of the vehicle (seen on the righthand tank in the picture above)


I've replaced all the HMGs supplied by QRF with some more substantial ones taken from some Peter Pig Shermans that are currently sitting in my pile of unpained lead. Quite appropriate really as this is where the troops got the machine guns used in real life (their Shermans came from the US rather than Peter Pig).

I cobbled together crews for two of the vehicles from Peter Pig tank commanders and troops with berets from their AK47 range. The markings come from Dom's Decals.

I find it really annoying that manufacturers making open topped vehicles like this don't supply crews as part of the model - the things just don't look right without them ! The only manufacturer 0f 1/100th WWII models that I've come across who do supply crews is Battlefront, whose Flames of War models usually (always?) come with crew when it is appropriate.

Hats off to Battlefront for that, though it is annoying that they seem to have finished with Normandy without making these handy little vehicles which were found throughout 21st Army Group.

Albatros Jasta

Looking to get a coherent Jasta look for my six Albatros I spent a load of time looking round the Interwebs to find a historical Jasta for which I could find six planes that would be easy to paint based on the Wings of War prepainted Albatros DVa of Ernst Udet. I was unsuccesful so I decided to make up a colour scheme that was fictitious - but at least historically plausible.



Well here it is - lozenge pattern wings, black fuselage with personal insignia on the side and individually coloured tails. The Jasta leader, a bit of a show off if you ask me, has purple coloured wing top-surfaces and a white chevron on the front of his fuselage. The personal insignia were hand painted (white tail) taken from the Dom's Decals Jasta 19 sheet (green, purple, yellow) taken from a sheet of model railway letters (blue) or from the Warhammer 40K Space Marine decals sheet (red).



Again I've replaced the pegs on these aircraft with rare earth magnets so that I can easily use them on different types of flying stand.

Silly, but fun.

My son won a two of these Eureka Cowboy Teddy Bears at the "Toy Story" demo game put on by the RAF Leuchars Wargames Club at Carronade earlier this year.



There's now about twenty of them sitting on my painting table. First four finished. They're available in the UK from Fighting 15s.

Jasta 15 decals from Dom's decals

Just back from my holidays and I've got my hands on some of the Jasta 15 decals from Dom's Decals.

The decals are specifically designed for modifying the Wings of War prepainted Schafer model (WW08b) and the sheet contains all the decals you need to put eight individually marked Fokker DVIIs in the air. The instruction sheet is first class, even covering the different colours individual pilots had on their wheels and struts.

(Left to Right) Veltjens, Klein and von Beaulieu-Marconnay.

Dom's even provided snake decals for Schafer, which look much better than what's on the Wings of War original, and this means you can use your own shade of blue for repainting the WoW models rather than having to mix paints to mach the colour already on them.

There's actually markings for ten planes on the sheet, including that of Berthold, commander of JG.2, who flew a plane in his old Jasta's colours. But to do all ten planes properly you need to get your hands on some decals of German crosses in the appropriate style. These are also available from Dom (sheet no 144-GE-4)

I've only got six of the Wings of War prepainted Fokker DVIIs at the moment and, as you can see in the pictures, I've chopped off the pegs on the bottom of the planes and replaced them with some of the rare earth magnets which are also available from Dom.

This allows me to use the planes with both modified Wings of War bases and with some of the rather nice hex based flight stands available from Litko which I intend to use to play the hex-based "Algernon Pulls it Off" rules from Too Fat Lardies.

The background to the pictures is one of the European Field mats available from Hotz Mats. I bought a double sided mat, plain on one side and with 2"hexes on the other which will give me flexibity in the games I can play on it.

(Left to Right) Hantlemann, von Zeisgar & Klaudat

I'll be getting a few more Fokkers to round of my Jasta 15 soon.