Saturday, December 29, 2012

More Houses for Villers Bocage! Endpoint in Sight?

 
As well as painting German AFVs, I have also finished off a section of houses for my always smoldering Villers Bocage project.  With the completion of this current batch of Najewitz Modellbaushop French row houses, I may be close to achieving victory.  Or at least culmination.  I figure that with these completed, and a mess of new (already painted) BattleFront houses in my possession or scheduled to arrive, I could (and this is a big assumption here) finish up the needed houses by spring.  All I need to do is finish painting a half dozen Musket Miniatures houses to fill up the space.  This can be accomplished if I can maintain my current level of activity and discipline.  Really!  
 
 
The seven Najewitz Modellbaushop French row houses all in a row.  I screwed up building the one on the far left and used the front panel as a rear side of another house.  As such there is no front door here.  Oops!
A closer look at the front.  The roofs are a little high as there is a gap in the height on the side and front panels.. 
The back of the houses.  Note the one house with a rear door. 
The side of one house.
Another side shot.
A BattleFront house between the Najewitz Modellbaushop French row houses.  The size is pretty close and the detail on the Najewitz Modellbaushop French row houses is better, but the BattleFront house comes painted and has detachable stories.  It is a bit sturdier as well.    
The top view of one of the Najewitz Modellbaushop French row houses with the roof removed.  I added a piece of wood so that two medium stands can fit with little overlap in the second story. 
Comparison shot with the BattleFront house on the left with a medium and small stand, and the Najewitz Modellbaushop French row house on the right with two medium stands.  It should work for the scenario. 
The rest of the story . . .  There is a lot to do, but I may be getting to the end of the saga.  At least I am praying that the end is near.   

StuG IVs to the front!

 
Well I finally finished my StuG IV platoon that had been languishing for a while.  I made these for a somewhat generic 17 SS Panzergrenadier Division force so I could use Fearless Trained Germans to contest the always difficult Fearless Veteran US Paratroopers my son likes to throw at me.  So, I now have 1020 points of SS panzergrenadiers to fight for Carenten, at least until he gets his German Falschrimjagers painted.  That might be a while. 
  
A full platoon of StuG IVs is worth 435 points.  I did these in the standard German  LW camouflage and added the foliage to make it harder for the jabos to find them.  These are all BattleFront models.   
 
A rear shot.
None of the pictures I found of 17 SS Panzergrenadier Division StuGs showed them with either schurzen or any German crosses or large numbers on the sides.  On the other hand my forces are pretty generic and LW screams for sideskirts on German AFVs.  Plus the numbers in red look pretty neat. 
The zug commander peers over the hatch looking for the enemy. 
I glued on the foliage using a hot glue gun which worked out pretty well.  We'll see how long it sticks. 
 
A top view.
 
And the front.
 
A combined arms kampfegruppen.
  
Elements of the 17 SS Panzergrenadier Division move up through a French village.
The Heavy platoon is about 33% done.  All told I want to paint this and another panzergrenadier platoon which should give me ~ 1500 points.  More than enough to hold the line.