Little Tanks & Tiny People

Oops, it’s already August and this is only my third post of the year… In my defence, I’ve been rather busy starting a new job back in April, finishing my PhD in June and starting a new hobby of learning how to fly gliders. While I did do a fair bit of hobbying this year, I haven’t gotten ‘round to posting about it. So, here is a quick post of three more Dutch Aircraft. First up is a Spitfire Mk. V of 322 (Dutch) Sqn. RAF with the markings of Jan Leendert Plesman. After the war, 322 Sqn. would become the first squadron of the newly formed RNLAF. The kit is by Airfix and the markings were cut and assembled from an aftermarket decal sheet for the RAF New Zealand squadrons. Up second is a Gloster Meteor F. Mk.4 of 324 Sqn. stationed at Leeuwarden AB c. 1950. The kit is by Special Hobby and was built as is. The aircraft is very tail heavy and the instructions do not mention that you should weigh down the nose. So, having already closed up the hull and finding out that she would not stand up...

Inspired by a trip earlier this year to the Aviodrome aviation museum in Lelystad, I’ve been working on two Dutch warbirds. Both were designed during the Interbellum and saw action during the German invasion of May 1940. Sadly, original aircraft of these types no longer exist, at least not in the Netherlands. Not that long ago, however, a beautiful full-scale reproduction of the Fokker D.21 took to the skies for the first time in about 80 years.  Fokker G.1   Being such niche aircraft, none of the large companies make model kits for them. Luckily, however, smaller companies have stepped up. The Fokker D.21 is by PM Model and the G.1 by MikroMir. Both are in scale 1:72. The D.21 is a very simple kit with few parts, that went together reasonably well with some filling and sanding. There was very little in the way of panel line detailing, though, so I’ve tried to paint these on by hand. Another shot of the G.1   The G.1, on the other hand, was an absolute nightmare. I’ve r...

Here is my fourth and final (for now) Dutch jet, the awesome F-104 Starfighter! The Starfighter could achieve speeds of Mach 2, which made it great at intercepting Russian bombers. Its tiny wings, however, meant that it wasn’t particularly manoeuvrable and needed to land at exceptionally high speeds so it wouldn’t drop out of the sky. The F-104 is a bit of an infamous aircraft. There was a rather large scandal when it was found out that Lockheed had bribed several foreign military and political figures to secure purchase contracts. Among these was the Dutch Prince-Consort Bernhard, who as a result was forced to resign as Inspector-General of the Dutch Armed Forces and was not allowed to wear his military uniform in public anymore. Additionally, high accident rates earned the jet the unfortunate nicknames of Widowmaker and Flying Coffin. That said, though, it’s a really pretty aircraft... The Dutch Air Force operated the F-104 from 1962 to 1984, alongside the NF-5 Freedomfighter that ...

And another Dutch jet is finished! This time it’s an F-84F Thunderstreak from 315 Sqn stationed at Eindhoven AB. The F-84F was a fighter-bomber that could carry nuclear weapons and for that reason several NATO countries were supplied with the jet under the Mutual Defense Assistance Act. The RNLAF operated the F-84F from 1955 to 1970. The Thunderstreak has received fairly little love from model kit manufacturers but the Czech company Sword has set things right. Sword produces not one, but several Thunderstreak kits, one of which includes the parts and decals to build a   Dutch version. Overall, I really liked the kit. The details such as the many panels on the fuselage are very crisp and there is very little flash. The kit even comes with painting masks for the canopy and a very detailed, resin ejection seat. There are a few minor things, however, that show you that the kit is not from one of the bigger companies. The first isn’t a major issue, but it’s just a little odd. While ...

I couldn’t resist. After finishing my F-16 , I pretty much immediately picked up this Italeri F-5 kit. The RNLAF operated the F-5 from 1969 to 1991 and used it as a light fighter-bomber alongside the F-104, which served as an interceptor. The Italeri kit gives you several options, one being a Dutch NF-5A from the 316 Sqn Demo Team operating out of Gilze-Rijen (1978). The kit went together very smoothly. No flash or gaps whatsoever. One annoying thing, however, is that the rear fuselage consists of a left and a right half, which means that there is a very prominent seam running along the centre of the aircraft. Also, the font fuselage is constructed as a separate piece, which again leaves a noticeable seam. An expert modeller with more patience than me could probably have - after multiple passes of filling and sanding - gotten rid of those seams. After one pass of filling and sanding I simply hoped that my paint job would hide the worst most of it. One of the jets of the NF-5 Demo Team ...

You may remember that I built some 1/144 scale jets last year. Well, it’s time for another jet now, only in 1/72 scale this time. This is one of two Dutch F-16’s of 313 squadron sent to the 1991 NATO Tigermeet at RAF Fairford. The two jets were given a special paint job for the occasion. Back then, 313 squadron was stationed at Twenthe Airbase at Enschede. The red banner with rampant horses on the tail is derived from the flag of Twenthe. The model is a rather old kit by Revell, which I picked up second-hand. The kit must have been made somewhere in the mid 90’s, but I remember reading somewhere that it was basically a reissue of a kit from 1976 with a small upgrade sprue and new decals to turn it into a Dutch F-16. Two big identifiers of the Dutch F-16’s made under licence by Fokker are the drogue parachute in the tail and the tinted glass of the canopy. The other of the two planes sent to the 1991 Tigermeet.   Given that it is such an old kit, it went together pretty well. T...

After wrapping up my wee Roman army with my Roman cavalry unit last month I needed a bit of a change of pace. Designing and scratch building a Roman watchtower to go with my army seemed just the thing.   Most models of Roman watchtowers you find online are based on stone examples like those found along Hadrian’s Wall or in southern Germany. I, however, wanted to build a tower more like those found along the Dutch part of the limes , the border of the Roman Empire. As stone is pretty hard to come by in this tiny flat country of ours, watchtowers were either made entirely out of timber or had a timber frame with inset wattle and daub sections.   I particularly liked the look of the reconstructed watchtower at Vleuten-De Meern, with its dark timber frame and yellow wattle and daub. As you can see, my tower is quite heavily influenced by the Vleuten-De Meern watchtower, although I wasn’t too strict when it came to the exact dimensions. The reconstructed watchtower at Vleuten-...

It’s time for the fourth and final part of my Roman army for Basic Impetus. It took me almost two months, but with this single cavalry base the army is finally complete! The miniatures are from the Hät Imperial Roman Auxiliary Cavalry kit and I painted them up to match my auxiliary infantry . The painting schemes for the horses are as follows: Black horse: everything Citadel Abaddon Black with drybrush of Vallejo Neutral Grey, horse tack Vallejo Flat Earth  Dark brown horse: body Vallejo Charred Brown, manes, tail and hooves Citadel Abaddon Black with drybrush of Vallejo Neutral Grey, horse tack Vallejo Flat Earth   Light brown horses: body Vallejo Flat Earth, lower legs Citadel White Scar, manes and tail Citadel Morghast Bone with wash of Vallejo Flat Earth, horse tack Vallejo Charred Brown Now, after finishing these tiny buggers I may take a little break and work on something else for a bit before starting on a second army for them to fight...

As promised last time, here are the auxiliary archers for my steadily growing Roman army. They are a mix of Zvezda minis from the RomanAuxiliary Infantry box that I also used to make my auxiliary infantry , and archers from Hät’s Imperial Roman Auxiliaries box. The figures differ a little in style, with the Hät minis looking slightly more cartoony. But they are all about the same size and work pretty well together. Especially when painted the same colour scheme. The Zvezda archers come in two nearly identical poses. The three poses offered by Hät, on the other hand, are much more varied. Together, I think they make a nice varied looking unit.   All figures are clearly supposed to represent archers from the eastern part of the Empire, wearing conical helmets and long tunics. I therefore decided to paint their tunics in a different colour then my regular auxiliary infantry, to make them look as their own separate unit. The tunics were painted Citadel Morghast Bone with a horizont...

I banged out a couple of quick fields this week as a bit of a break from my teeny 1:72 Romans. Fields are very versatile bits of terrain, as they can be used for many different periods and settings and even for different scales. I would be happy to use these for both 1:72 and 28mm games. I made two crop fields and three hay fields, one of which is a corner piece. For construction I pretty much followed The Terrain Tutor’s tutorials to the letter, so there’s little need to go into much detail (you can find his excellent tutorials here and here ). I’ll just say that I used some corduroy fabric scraps for the crop fields and a bit of coconut fibre doormat for the hayfields. Glue them to a plastic base, paint the edges, add some flock and glue on a couple tufts from Army Painter. Bob’s your uncle!  Now it’s time to get back to my Romans. Auxiliary archers are up next!

I had a couple days off last week and spent a good portion of that time painting up three bases worth of Zvezda auxiliary infantry , 21 minis in total. Like the legionaries I painted earlier , these auxiliarii have excellent sculpts and come in a nice variety of poses. These auxiliarii seem to have been recruited in the northern provinces of the Empire. For one, they are wearing trousers under their tunics, a very un-Roman fashion statement but pretty useful in colder climates. Secondly, the minis are noticeably taller than their legionary counterparts, although I doubt that was intentional on Zvezda’s part. Although noticeable, the size difference isn’t that great to be annoying when the minis are placed side by side. For painting these figures I used pretty much the exact same recipe as for my legionaries , only substituting Citadel Caliban Green for the red I used on the tunics and shields. I really liked the step-by-step picture I made last time, so I made one again: And after basi...

This is my first post in about a month, but not because I’ve been twiddling my thumbs. I’ve been working on a teeny tiny Roman army! I’ve wanted to assemble a Roman army for quite a while, but the tedium of painting dozens and dozens of near identical figures has always stopped me. About a month ago, I bit the bullet and decided that I would build an army for Basic Impetus published by the aptly named Dadi & Piombo. The armies needed for this game are relatively small and you can use miniatures in whatever scale you like. Another cool aspect of Basic Impetus is that it uses multibasing, so you can create very personalised and impressive looking armies.   Scale wise, I chose the somewhat uncommon 1:72. Uncommon for wargaming, that is, because it’s probably the most common scale for model kits. Firstly, size and detail wise it sits nicely in between 15mm and 28mm scale, striking the perfect balance between aesthetics and the amount of time it takes to build a decently sized ar...

This was my first experience with a Zvezda kit. The parts go together well enough, but I did need a bit of filler to fill in some gaps. The instructions took some getting used to, though, particularly when it came to the sails and rigging. Nitpicks aside, it is a great looking kit. And the only one of its kind, so hats off to Zvezda for making it. A note on the scale: the box says it's scale 1:72, although my Italeri 1:72 Greek hoplites seem to be a little on the large side for it. You are given the option of building the trireme with its keel in place, so you can display it on a stand (which is included), or you can build it waterline up. I chose the latter and glued it to a 5 mm sheet of polystyrene. The sheet measures 50 x 25 cm, which is too narrow to display the ship with its oars extended. I therefore chose to shorten the oars as if they were retracted during sailing. I painted the polystyrene sheet with different shades of blue and then painted on a coat of Vallejo Water ...