What to do with a dull, overcast Bank Holiday Monday, at the end of the dullest, most overcast August? Well, given those conditions I felt very little guilt about staying indoors at my desk and working on some of the model kits in the 'plastic pile'. After rather too many hours, I have at least completed the build of the above two : the Puma armoured car acquired the other week, and the 'Wespe' self-propelled gun, bought about this time last year (oops!). I'll admit it was quite a challenge. Most of the kits I have built previously were by Armorfast or Plastic Soldier Company, and very simple to assemble - for example the suspension usually being moulded as one piece per side, just cement it to the hull in one operation. Not so these - for the Puma, each wheel assembly had 3 parts to put together before cementing to the hull, and of course there are no less than 8 wheels. Doubtless all this is great fun for dedicated modellers for whom the painstaking build is the whole point, but of course I just want to get something more or less recognisable onto the gaming table, ASAP! Factor in a surprising number of very tiny parts ( e.g headlights and smoke grenade projectors ) and my pudgy fingers and middle-aged eyesight, and the time and frustration increased many-fold! A lesson learned, and I may be looking harder at resin-cast or 3D-printed models in future. I have the M7 Priest to build next - with 116 parts, to the Wespe's 54 and Puma 69, it may be a long haul! But at least the above two are built, and can now be painted, ready for action. I like them both, and was surprised by how compact the Wespe turned out to be. Of course the chassis was that of a Panzer II, so I should have realised it would be relatively small. The Puma rather dwarfs it!
Another project that has been ongoing far too long also came to fruition - a second unit of Austrian Cuirassiers for the Seven Years War. Work on these started while sat in the garden on a sunny day - in February! It's been a funny old year. I think most of my limited hobby time was used (as it probably should be ) on gaming, so painting took second place, and the Prussian infantry primed at the same time as these remain resolutely uncoloured ( like a regiment on some sort of 'punishment parade' in their underclothes!), looking at me balefully from a shelf. I am going to try, now, to have a regular 'hobby hour' ( or half-hour might be more realistic ) and get on with painting and modelling for at least some of that time. A strange side-effect of the pandemic is that despite working from home and not having to commute, work and domestic 'stuff' seems to take more time than it did before - I can't explain that. These chaps won't win any prizes, of course, and the dry brush and 3-layer highlight remain unknown in these parts, but given aforesaid fingers/eyesight combination and a lifetime of manual incompetence ( school metalwork classes still a traumatic memory ), I'm quite pleased with them. One advantage of solo gaming is that no pesky opponent is going to pick up the figures and look at them too closely - they will always be seen at 'battlefield distance'.
Somehow, more books can always be acquired - a week's 'staycation' resulted in visits to Bury St. Edmunds and Woodbridge, both of which boast Oxfam bookshops. Thus the above two for under a fiver altogether. Gary Sheffield will be known to many readers, as he is not only a military historian by profession, but also a hobby wargamer - a semi-regular opponent of Bob Cordery, for example, and I've heard him guesting on both Henry Hyde's 'Battlechat' and Al Murray's 'We Have Ways' podcasts. I've started his book, and it promises to be worthwhile - he begins by outlining the rather simplistic 'Lions and Donkeys' view of 1914-1918 handed down to most of us, and no doubt aims to challenge those ideas. 'The Full Monty' has potential, too - I have only a rather superficial idea of him, and this promises to give the back story, since it covers his life up to 1942 - the making of the man, so to speak.
Finally, one that I didn't actually buy, but was interested to see , in a charity shop in Sudbury this very afternoon. C.C.P. Lawson's 'Uniforms of the British Army' - volume 2 of 4. Originally published in 1941, I think, and this looks to be a 1970s reprint. It features many rather charming sketches by the author ( himself an artist, I gather ), and it does appeal, given its 'old school' connotations - I bet Peter Young would have had a copy in his library. Someone at the charity has done their homework, though, and the asking price is £14 - which to be fair looks about what you'd pay on Abebooks. Does it need 'rescuing', and to be 'given a good home', do you reckon?
It must be time to get back to some gaming, soon, perhaps that should be the subject of my next post. Meanwhile, keep well, and safe, everyone.
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