WWII Soviet assault pioneers Part 2 (Basing)

[Gunner Dunbar]

Good man! It's not proper nostalgia unless you have your fingers crossed that the glue holding the sprockets and idlers in place is strong enough to survive the tension of the polythene rubber band tracks or that the heat weld you made with a butter knife over a flame is strong enough to hold the two track ends together.

True, although I use a stapler, much easier.

[Gunner Dunbar]

Hi guys

I have always want to do a project with really convincing jungle themed bases, so I CAD designed a set, initially I intended to use them on a jungle fantasy themed army, but at a pinch I could use them for my WWII pacific theatre project, my nostalgia project is a project within a project, I’ll be using 1 of each pose of the Airfix, Esci and matchbox Japanese and Australians, all other troops will come from various metals or 3D printed figures.

I usually undercoat my figures black, I feel like using grey this time, I may paint them using a slightly different painting technique than I usually use, I think they are looking great undercoated on these bases, looking forward to painting them.
https://gunnerswargamming.blogspot.com/2024/07/nostalgia-project-part-2.html

[Tom Dulski]

 Wonderful, are these 1/32 scale?

[Gunner Dunbar]

Wonderful, are these 1/32 scale?

No, 20mm, 1/76, and 1/72.

[gamer Mac]

Looking forward to seeing some paint on these
Great bases

[Gunner Dunbar]

Hi guys

These aren’t finished yet, the first sets for my “nostalgia project” 1 pose from the Airfix and Esci Japanese sets, need to do some highlights and more work on the bases, but they are well on the way. If you want the files for the bases they can be found in My shop https://www.wargaming3d.com/vendor/dan-dunbar/
https://gunnerswargamming.blogspot.com/2024/07/noslagia-project-part-3-airfix-and-esci.html

[CapnJim]

I've been remiss in commenting on your work of late.  It all looks good - and I like those IJA chaps.

[Gunner Dunbar]

I've been remiss in commenting on your work of late.  It all looks good - and I like those IJA chaps.

Thanks mate, struggling to get them done, other projects (Kriegsmarines) are calling to me,

[carlos marighela]

If you want some inspiration, why not pop up to Yeppoon? I hear there are Japanese property developers up there hiding out in the scrub who don't know the 1980s are over.

[Gunner Dunbar]

 Hi guys

I have had a North African project in mind for a long time, but couldn’t decide on El Alemein/Tobruk or Tunisia, I was involved recently in a very interesting discussion regarding British paras in North Africa, and did a little research, I knew about their involvement in North Africa and the Mediterranean, but hadn’t given much thought to their equipment and uniforms, after researching them I have decided to go with Tunisia, from the pictures I have found it seems they wore battle dress trousers (and maybe shorts from the last picture) tropical shirts, Denisons (depending on temperature) and the para helmet/beret, the unusual uniform is right up my alley, I haven’t done a good conversion project for a while, so will enjoy this.

I’m now in the process of deciding what figures I will use, I usually start with a platoon sized group for my projects, plus some support element and will do the same, I scrounged through my stash and could only find 16 plastic para helmet figures, I’m probably going to need 40-50, I have a bunch of metal AB and Simons soldier metal paras, and a couple dozen AB Chindits, so if I combine plastic and metal I probably won’t even need to buy any figures, which is handy, here are a couple of test figures, the metal is a mating of AB para head, and AB Chindit body, the plastic is Italeri para heads, Italeri 8th army torso, and Italeri British infantry legs, I still need to putty up the joins, and add a rolled Denison to the top of the packs.

If anyone has more pictures or info on this subject, or has done similar conversions I would like to see them.
https://gunnerswargamming.blogspot.com/

[Kikuchiyo]

Very cool, would they work for italy too?

[Gunner Dunbar]

Very cool, would they work for italy too?

I’m not 100% sure, but I think so, I’d have to research it.

[arshak]

very interesting, and beatiful conversions!
Concerning Italy, I seem to remember to have seen pics with this uniform in connection to Primosole (which is not surprising considering the summer temperatures in Sicily), although I cannot remember where now and at the moment I am not able to check (might be M. Saliger, The First Bridge Too Far: The Battle of Primosole Bridge 1943, perhaps...)

[carlos marighela]

I’m not 100% sure, but I think so, I’d have to research it.

This may help: https://www.paradata.org.uk/timeline/1942-1943

If you fancy a more exotic location and exotic opposition, albeit with the paras in basically standard uniform there's always Athens in December 44/ Jan 45.

[Gunner Dunbar]

very interesting, and beatiful conversions!
Concerning Italy, I seem to remember to have seen pics with this uniform in connection to Primosole (which is not surprising considering the summer temperatures in Sicily), although I cannot remember where now and at the moment I am not able to check (might be M. Saliger, The First Bridge Too Far: The Battle of Primosole Bridge 1943, perhaps...)

O
K, in this short time I have found out, the 2 middle pics, Bren gun and stretcher are from Tunisia, the the top mortar pic maybe Sicily, but the bottom pic in berets  are actually air landing troops for Sicily.