British WW2 Heavy Artillery

 I recently took charge of a portion of the Eric Knowles WW2 collection.  I now own the 1940 British and early war Germans, or some of them at least.  As always, there is some rebasing and organising to be done.  Unfortunately, I did not get all of the British artillery and thought it would be nice to have some heavy guns, although I am not too sure how I would fit them onto my 8 x 4 table!

So, with reinforcements in mind, I purchased a couple of Resin 7.2" howitzers and a Strelets 6" gun, to provide the crew, which are dressed largely in 1940s, early war uniforms.  A couple of Oxford Diecast gun tractors were also purchased.

I had a lot of fun putting this lot together and here is the result:

I have some Vickers light tanks and Matildas to paint, along with a load of German horse drawn transport. I should soon be ready for a game or two.

Colonial British Artillery

 Last night I finished  painting a pair of guns with crew, along with a mounted officer. These are more Irregular Miniatures and I really like them.  I wanted to finish them off before a break from painting as I have house guests arriving over the weekend.  

And guess what - its raining huzzah!

More Ros British

Over the weekend I finished off some more refurbished Ros 25mm British.  The first unit is an infantry battalion in belgic shako:

Also one each of foot and horse artillery:

Just two units to go to finish off the allies.  I am running out of time to be ready for the coming weekend and the French may have to make do with what is already finished in my Ros and Warrior collections.

British RML 2.5" Screw Gun with Indian Crew

Continuing to add to my colonial forces, then next item off the production line is this rather nice Screw Gun with Indian crew. The model and gunners are by Tradition  and will support my British infantry in various theatres of operation, but primarily for operations on the North West Frontier:

Minifigs 25mm AWI Gunners

Continuing working through my box of Minifigs AWI figures for refurbishment, the latest victims are two artillery crews with their guns:

British Artillery:

American Artillery:

I am now almost at the end of refurbishing my old painted figures and now must decide whether to work through the unpainted lot. However; I have other projects that I am keen to get my teeth into and may may put the AWI figures away for a bit.

Scrap Box - British Artillery Prince August

The scrap box contained two British horse artillery figures, an officer and a gunner with trail spike. I was able to acquire a mould with two different figures; gunner with ball and another with rammer. I cast two new figures then painted all four. This is the result:

There were no guns in the box of any use, so I employed a Del Prado offering.

The British infantry are almost finished and with luck I will be able to post some pictures soon, That will complete my scrapbox challenge!

Peninsular Warriors - British Foot Artillery

Next off the production line are these Warrior Miniatures British Foot Artillery. Unfortunately Warrior only produce post 1812 figures with the Belgic shako, so I had to do some head swaps to give them stovepipe shaped shakos.

The conversion worked well and the figures were fun to paint. The result was quite pleasing:

Peninsular Warriors - British Royal Horse Artillery

Another offering from the Warrior Miniatures stable are these rather splendid Royal Horse Artillery figures. My plan is to have one battery of horse, one battery of line for the British, and two Spanish batteries. The French will have three line and one horse battery.

The British Horse Artillery:

Something new from Old John - British Foot Artillery

Old John has been busy recently, churning out a number of new castings. The latest for me to have a go at are these three Minifigs S Range Crimean British gunners.  They are a lovely clean casting and with little preparation are ready to paint.  The result is very pleasing. There are a couple of issues that are easily solved. For some reason these figures have sabretaches and full length swords - more in keeping with horse artilley, I removed these, reducing the swords to sword bayonets. The other detail not right are the epulettes, which like the infantry should be fringed - although I guess in the field soldiers would have ditched them.

Overall though, a nice addition to the range which look good when painted and based.

British Siege Artillery - Strelets

Having made the gabions it was time to finish off the guns and crews. This is the remainder of the British siege artillery set from Strelets, consisting of two heavy cannon and crews. Here is gun number one:

Gun number two:

The positions were made to sit together to form a battery. Others could be added:

Gabions

Continuing the work on my British siege artillery, I have been trying to develop some redoubts in which to position two large naval guns and their crews. Rather than just building earthworks I wanted to add some gabions - huge wicker baskets, filled with soil. I have some resin ones, but they are needed for my Russian guns, so I thought I would try and make some.

The biggest challenge was finding the right material to make the wicker basket effect. I tried all sorts of wire and plastic strip. In the end I settled for the wire off an old computer mouse cable, which contained four very thin wires about a meter long each.

The wicker basket is supported by wooden stakes driven into the ground and then held in place with soil. I needed to make four and began the first pair by cutting out two rough squares of 2mm thick card.

 I then marked out where the wooden stakes would go

After this I drilled holes in the markers and inserted small lengths of wood cut from cocktail sticks:

Once this has dried (I used super glue), the fun bit began with weaving the wire around the stakes to create the basket:

Finally fine sifted sand was poured into the basket, which had a layer of PVA glue in the bottom. The sand was soaked with diluted PVA, with a dash of washing up liquid and the whole thing was left to dry. It took about two days to dry thoroughly, after which I painted the whole thing in dark brown:

I was quite pleased with the results. The next stage will be yo mount these on a base and add the guns and crews.

British Siege Mortar

Thinking ahead to the battles around Sevastopol I have started to work my way through the Strelets British Siege Artillery set. First up is a large mortar. I cut off the wheels that come with the model as most mortars would be set onto the ground. The crew are in light order, but dressed very smartly for the siege lines. The earthworks are knocked up from some cocktail sticks and a bit of sand mixed with pva glue.

British Royal Horse Artillery

There are no British horse artillery figures in the Douglas Miniatures Crimean War range and so the options are to source figures from elsewhere or convert those that are available. I am keen to have as many Douglas figures in my collection as I can, so I opted for the conversion route. Using parts entirely from the Douglas range I think I have produced something that is acceptable. For the figures, I used the Douglas British foot artillery crews, with their coatee tailbacks and some other uniform items carved away. I also did a head swap from the Napoleonic British hussar figure. The heads were fixed by drilling small holes and using thin metal pins, along with super glue. For the limber I used the one in the range without modification, but had three outriders with six horses in the team.

Here is the result. I Troop RHA enters the battlefield:

British Artillery - Limbers and Gun Teams   

At long last I have completed the British artillery by adding two limbers and a second gun. The limbers and horse teams took a while to assemble and paint, but the result was worth while. Here are the teams, the guns, with their newly appointed commander, a Strelets plastic figure: