Turning Japanese Part 5 (and a bit) The Sasebo Special

While painting Tim's Japanese tanks I was scanning the web and came across a mention of a Type 97 Chi-Ha armed with a 120mm gun. I was a bit surprised as I had never heard of this before. A bit of research showed that it did really exist, and that after the war at least a dozen were found at Sasebo Naval base, held presumably as part of the SNLF defence force there. There is only one pic I can find....

and it poses more questions than answers, such as "what the hell is that gun?"

One of my pet subjects is the Japanese Navy - mainly the Russo Japanese War (memo to self- got to get those painted) and I have a fair few books. I think it is a fair guess this is a Naval gun mounted in the turret of a normal ShinHoto Chi-Ha. It doesnt look anything like any of the IJA guns I have seen, and the Army didn't have a 120mm gun on the books as far as I know - jumping from 105mm to 150mm. 120mm is however 4.7", a common calibre of naval gun, so I think this is a local project. Next question is the barrel length and whatever that is on the muzzle. That's a very short gun for ship use, but looking through the books, the Japanese did have some 25 and 40 calibre 4.7" mounted on old Coast Defence ships dating from the turn  of the Century, so it is not inconceivable these are something similar, dragged out of stores and jury rigged into the Chi Ha turrets. That leaves the thing at the end, which is inconveniently covered by a tarp. I dont think it is a muzzle break - it doesnt look right and you don't get them on naval guns because they don't develop high velocities - at least old ones don't. What it could be, however, is a counter weight, similar to that used on the 95mm Close Support Howitzer the Brits fitted to some Churchills and Cromwells. The counter weight is there to help balance the weight of the breach block inside the turret - see this pic

It sort of makes sense that this could be a counterweight - particularly as the original ShinHota turret was only designed to cope with a 47mm gun, so mounting something this heavy would need some compensation.

Anyway, part of the order I am painting for Tim was a Type 97 from Gaming Models. They had snapped the original barrel and had included a spare turret. I also had a Type 97 hull in the spares box - this time from QRF. Neither the hull or turret are particularly nice castings, but with a bit of plastic rod, and a bit of squinting, I put them together to make my own take of the Sasebo Special - here escorted by a Te-Ke Light tank from PeterPig

I'm quite happy with it, although I think if I were to make another I would use an Old Glory hull & turret as donor as they are much crisper.

7TV Wheely Evil Genius

I may have mentioned a while ago I am building a cast for 7TV based on Big Trouble in Little China.

Here is the Evil Mastermind himself David Lo-Pan, in his "little old letch" avatar. Still a work in progress - doesn't look chinese enough for a start, but I'm struggling to get him right. In the film he has an electric wheelchair but this is supposed to be him in the 1930s so it is hand pushed - thats my excuse, mainly as I couldn't find anything suitable. The figure is from the excellent Bob Murch's Pulp Miniatures range

Turning Japanese Part 4 - wherein much progress is made, but mostly without pictures.................

The aim as stated was to match some models I had sold to Tim a while ago. Only problem was trying to remember how I painted the originals. Thankfully I still had the pics I used to list them on ebay, so with a bit more thought I cracked on.

Once assembled everything got a coat of black undercoat. Once that had thoroughly dried I reached for the paint I had planned to use as a basecoat – to discover it was not only empty, but also the last tin of FoW “British Armour” in the Northern hemisphere!

Colour matching - Dont'cha just love it

Luckily Plastic Soldier Company has released a spray that is claimed as an exact match, so with trepidation I decided to try that. I was pleasantly surprised as the PSC paint seems to cover well and be a very close match for the old FoW one. 

My second problem then raised its ugly head, remembering which damned brown I had used - a matter complicated by the fact the original had run dry. Fortunately a quick run through to our local "Boyes" store rectified this. As an aside, Boyes is a VERY strange but useful store, a small chain department store that sells PSC, Perry Plastics and Zvezda, all at competitive prices.

I should add that while I appreciate the recommended FoW colours are a khaki undercoat, all the photos of “the real thing” look much greener to me, so I went with green.

The plan is to paint irregular areas of a brick red (Vallejo Saddle Brown), then add stripes of yellow. To get this rather garish combination to blend I’m going to drybrush with buff then wash the lot in a thinned sepia, which gives the yellow about the right effect. Then ink in the engine decks, paint the tracks and MG barrels German grey and highlight gunmetal. That’s the plan anyway

With about 20 to paint I decided a production line would be too long, so went for batches of five, starting with the Type 95 HaGo light tanks.

Zvezda Matilda I quick build

I'm loving the Zvezda Art of Tactic range. These models are selling at under £3 and are great to build. Here is a particularly nice kit, and very useful for Blitzkrieg British - the Infantry Tank Mk I, A11 Matilda I

As with all the Art  of Tactic kits, the box is pretty standard with the instructions on the back

The actual kit is a single sprue, with only six parts

The bits clean up pretty well with only the track units needing care

And the whole thing went together easily and quickly. In theory these are snap together but I use a small amount of Liquid Poly "just in case"

The finished article! The camera angle makes the mould line on the hull look more pronounced than it actually is. For the next one I think I will leave the track units off until after I paint it.

All in all a very nice little kit. From a wargaming perspective the only issue is the turret hatch is modelled closed (as on all Art of Tactic kits) so you would have a problem trying to fit a commander. To balance that, these cost about half the cost of the equivalent metal \ resin versions and are at least as detailed.

Ongoing Projects

I have a series of ongoing projects which I will detail here, mainly to provide comfort to similar souls who have too much unpainted toy soldiers and not enough time, so here in no particular order..............

Battlefront WW2 (Fire & Fury) in 15mm
Still the best Battalion level WW2 game out there, and much beloved here in the Kommisar House. I have a number of 15mm projects either stalled or making slow progress. I'm building up a couple of Manoeuvre Elements (ME's in BFSpeak, or Companies in English) using the rather nice Zvezda 1:100 Art of Tactic plastic models for the Blitzkrieg period, with the aim of doing a Panzer Battalion for France 1940 that can also double up with some replacements to be used in Russia in 1941. Then there is the much delayed Cromwell Squadron, and the other "Funnies" to finish the Breaching Team, and the Recce Squadron.....

.....and the Katyusha Battery (more Zvezda, with some Peter Pig crew). This one is pretty much 95% done, but has been for over a year.

Moving away from the figures and stuff, I have two outstanding scenarios to finish, Operation Clipper, which is a full on Regimental attack scenario, and The White House, a follow up to a scenario I wrote re the assault on the Administrative Building at Stalingrad

Phew this is cathartic :-)

Then I have some stuff to paint for Chain of Command. I have to finish up some British support options - mainly a 6Pdr and crew from Valiant Miniatures and some Rapid Fire \ Ready to Roll Universal Carriers. Then I have a platoon or so of German infantry, and then a US Platoon, and finally a platoon of Finns from the Baker Company Winter War Kickstarter. I'm sure more of that will come later.

Dropzone Commander
My current priority is to get some more games of DZC played and finish painting my Scourge Army. My UCM Army is about done, at least until the next new toys arrive...

I really like DZC. The pace and urban setting are so unlike other games, and the models are very nice

Impetus - 28mm Ancients
Not a lot to do here ;0) Finish my Hussites - these need another 4 war wagons painting, and some crew (memo to self get some female Hussites from Kingmaker Miniatures). Then the Thracians. These started out well just after Christmas and I got 31 of the target 100 painted, but then distraction has set in. We have a tournament in November that these guys are entering so I may have to revive that particular production line. Then finish my War of the Roses "Uncle Dicky" army - basically add another 100 points or so

7TV
We like the lunacy that 7TV creates. My cast is based around the bad guys from Big Trouble in Little China. Currently got enough basic Wing Kong thugs painted, plus a version of David LoPan as my villain. I have another Avatar of LoPan to paint, plus some serious Martial Arts guys. Then I need to build the warehouse that acts as a cover for their underground secret lair.............

So as you can see I'm pretty busy, or rather I have a lot of plans. Just about all the lead needed for everything mentioned is bought and currently resting gently. If I can complete a couple of these projects by the year end I think I will be content.

Unless of course something else grabs the attention of my butterfly like mind..............

Cheers

Intermission

This is something else I like, just to show I have other interests.................

Turning Japanese Part 3

The part where I stick my fingers together a lot!

These models are not quite as bad to put together as I feared. I've always rated Evan Alan as a model designer (and a thoroughly nice chap to boot) and the detail is excellent. They also fit together fairly well and mostly are idiot proof as far as part fitting goes - even those pesky tail skids went together without too much fuss. They do however show the limitations of  the mixed metal & resin components, in that the BF Type 89s have 10 metal parts and 2 resin (plus optional commander). I happened to have an old Quality Castings Type 89 spare that I never finished so I dug it out to compare. QC managed the same model with broadly equivalent detail in metal alone in just 5 parts - mainly because they cast the trench crossing tail as an integral part of the hull and covered it with stowage. What really surprised me was just how close both models actually are. You would have to look very close at them on table to see the difference. Here is a pic of a completed BF one and the QC one from the spares box. I'm not sure which I prefer - I suspect that pesky tail skid may well be a weak point on the BF model, but there are some areas on the QC one that are not as good as the BF - the insides of the front track units are blank for instance.

Anyway, 5 Type 89s assembled without too much fuss, so I called it a night there.