Afrikakorps Raiding force - Hollywood-style (Update: 13.07.17: Me109 finished)

[Carrakon]

While I was pondering what vehicles to get for my Decima and waiting for a good deal on Ebay, I managed to get some work done on some Artizan Afrikakorps I got on Ebay a while ago:

A bunch of Riflemen:


Even more Riflemen. As I ended up with a couple of doubles, I modeled some scarves and googles:


Officer and NCOs


As I really had many doubles and already quite enough ordinary riflemen, I made a member of the Deutsch-Arabische Lehrabteilung, as having a local around seems like a reasonable thing to do. (and I somehow couldn't pass up the opportunity to make an African in Wehrmacht uniform  )



As the Artizan DAK figures have a rather cartoony feel to them (which I like), I decided to just run with that and go a little Hollywood on the vehicles as well - why should only the LRDG chaps get to ride in cool vehicles, eh? Also of course, creating field conversions seems to have been a rather popular hobby among German troops.

First the good old Kübelwagen - pretty much the LRDG design philosophy applied to German wheels. Now of course the Vilar-Perosa MG used here technically is of WW1-vintage, but I recently saw a documentary about archeology in the 30's which clearly showed that those guns were fitted to Biplanes by the Germans




Second: A converted Sd.Kfz. 10/2. Given how short on vehicles the DAK was, I guess it'd seem like unaffordable luxury to keep dedicated chemical decontamination vehicles around. This version is interesting for my purposes as I offers a widened cargo bed, so I can place more miniatures inside:




I did however want one more vehicle in order to carry more troops. Now a while ago, I got a couple of old Bandai 1:48 vehicles dirt cheap on ebay, as they were already built and rather damaged. Among them, was an M3 Halftrack. This reminded me of the Vismodded Halftracks they used in Tobruk and I figured this would be just the vehicle to underline the Hollywood-theme of this force.
So some research into those Hollywood-vismods yielded these results:
The well-known pseudo-Sd.Kfz. from the 1967 movie Tobruk:


An M3 with modified front from the series "the Rat Patrol":


Another M3 from the same series:


Now the last one seemed rather impractical and also looks too armored. I decided to go for the Tobruk-style cut-outs and the modded front.



Of course it had to be liberally covered in national insignia to show the viewer that this really is a German vehicle

And just in case you were wondering why I left out much of the interior - especially the seats - that is so I can place miniatures inside, because I hate it when parked vehicles have a crew (or moving vehicles are empty) or when the crew doesn't fit the look of who's actually driving (e.g. German drivers, when the vehicle was captured by an allied player).
Here's a WIP shot of the vehicles mounted:


I hope you like 'em!

[pocoloco]

Looks like a start of a very nice DAK force! 

Great conversion work with the minis and vehicles, good idea to "hide" the doubles with sunglasses and scarves.

[Captain Blood]

Lovely. Great work on the vehicles 

[Ballardian]

Great work on the DAK, always nice to see the characterful Artizan minis & your strategy for dealing with the limited number of models is excellent.

[Captain Darling]

Great idea for a theme.

Good job on the figures and vehicles!

[Helen]

Wonderful approach to this period. Nice idea on the vehicles.

[fred]

Great stuff - really like the way you have taken the cartoony look and carried it through as a theme for the whole force.

The idea of doing the interiors of the vehicles simple - but still with the significant features - so you can get the figures in and out is very clever.

[wolfkarl]

What a great idea! Now you just need an M24 or M48 for your tanks.

[archiduque]

Nice stuff!!

[Carrakon]

Thanks for the kind comments!

What a great idea! Now you just need an M24 or M48 for your tanks.

I don't want to just use some different tank. Does anybody here have a pointer for movie with modified tanks used for the Germans? I'm only aware of the various Not-Tigers, which obviously aren't that suitable for Africa.

Other than that I'm thinking of buying a SdKfz 251 and giving it a closed roof, making it into an OT-810. Vismodding an actual German vehicle in order to make it look like a non-German vehicle, which was then used as a stand-in for the actual German vehicle would kind of close the circle of lunacy  

[ARKOUDAKI]

I think you are watching too much of that TV show 'Rat Patrol!' 

Looks good, keep at it!

[Carrakon]

It's like a horrible traffic accident! You can't stop looking! 

[Jericho]

Great stuff here!

I don't want to just use some different tank. Does anybody here have a pointer for movie with modified tanks used for the Germans? I'm only aware of the various Not-Tigers, which obviously aren't that suitable for Africa.

Well, it depends really. All the old movies had either M24s, M47s, or M60s. Only Kelly's Heroes stands out though so far as I know.

But there are some modified tanks in "Band of Brothers":

They turned the British FV32 APC into a Stug III.




Or the T54 turned Jagdpanther:





Maybe if there are matching kits you could use the undercarriage of one tank and put the German upper body on top of it.

Also don't forget to include a helicopter in your army 

[Carrakon]

During the weeks, I'm away in the middle of nowhere due to work, which leaves me with plenty of time to get some painting done. So here's some new toys:

First is a Not-Horch Kfz 15. It's a slightly vismodded Gaz 69 I had lying around:




And then I decided to broaden the horizon of this project and include some italians, because why not?

Riflemen:


Light Machine gun teams:


NCOs. The guy second from the right is a minor green stuff conversion because I wanted to include at least one guy wearing one of those hilariously oversized berets the italian special forces were so fond of:


Officers:


And another officer who I'm told looks like me, when I'm grumpy 


Obviously some vehicles were needed as well for those lads.

First is a Gaz-AA, which I'm using as a Fiat 621 (seriously: Was there anyone not license building model A's?)


And loaded with the boys:


The next is a converted Gaz-A, which looked suitable similar to the predecessor of the well-known Fiat 508 CM. I just modernized the spoked wheels, moved the spare tire to the front and added some stowage:


The top is removable, so I can place miniatures inside as per my usual build-philosophy:


And of course not including the AS 42 Sahariana would be a severe crime, so here it is:




Being 1:43 it's a tad big, but I think with the bulkier Artizan sculpts it works out OK - after all the real thing was quite a monster as well.


Hope you like it!

As for armored support I'm still looking for ideas. The problem with Jericho's suggestions is that imho those look too good and I'm afraid the end result wouldn't look deliberate enough and more like a bad scratch-build. At the moment I'm toying with the idea of building something along the lines of the pseudo Sd.Kfz. 222 from the bridge assault in 'a bridge too far'.

[Captain Blood]

Wonderful creations