Further Adventure In Soviet Biplanes, Aviation USK I-15 series

  

 

       Continuing my effort to get all of my Polikarpov I-15 series models done in one push I sat myself down and confronted the pile of USK models. These kits were far from what current standards are but they are thirty years old and short-run kits of aircraft with limited appeal. Even with those caveats in mind they are frankly rather rough. Molding quality is below average, detail is foggy, parts fit is dodgy and the instructions are vague. The kits do have rather nice decals. They are the only option unless you want to spend thirty bucks a kit for I-15s.

 

 

yes, that is the sum total of the instructions

With the holidays behind me it is time for another Mass Build; The Polikarpov I-15 series

        Rumors of my demise are greatly overstated. The blog and I are not dead, just overwhelmed by the hectic pace of the holiday season. To start the new year off in grand style I decided to build the complete selection of 1/72 Polikarpov I-15 series that I had stashed in The Vault. These would provide aircraft for the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Spanish Civil War, The Nomonhan Incident, the Winter War and the early days of Operation Barbarossa. While the kits come from two different manufacturers (and thus demand separate builds) the painting process will link up nicely and I shouldn't spend too much time watching paint dry during this exercise. 

       First seeing the light of day in 1995 the Encore kit was originally released by ICM, the different versions on the box-cover matter little as all the parts for all the versions come in each box (all being molded on the same sprues). By modern standards these kits are primitive, requiring a lot of clean-up of mold-lines and putty on the gaps. Counterbalancing that are the very good quality decals that are usually found in Encore kits, which is happily the case here. The Aviation USK kits, circa 1992, are frankly crude, parts molding and fit are dodgy, and the instructions are scarcely more detailed than Mesolithic petroglyphs. Pretty much all that can be said is that building them is easier (slightly) than scratch-building. On the flip-side the decals are excellent.

 

there was another USK kit that I was still looking for when I snapped this shot

Merry Christmas To All

I would like to wish you all a merry and joyful Christmas season!

May the coming year find you all happy, healthy and wealthy!
 

Just a quick PSA announcement

 Hello All,

I just wanted to alert everyone that Spartacon also known as "Deathcon" for the STAGGERINGLY bad weather events customarily associated with it, is FAST approaching.  

Wargames Atlantic28mm Conquistador Cavalry and Renaissance Heavy Cavalry

 

 

 

       Long promised and at last they are here. Wargames Atlantic has released their Conquistador and Renaissance Cavalry boxes. I picked up mine from Michigan Toy Soldier the day after they came in (I have been waited for these for some time now). These kits share a lot of common parts so I'm going to combine the reviews. As usual they are molded in a medium hardness gray plastic that exhibits no flash and minimal mold-lines. All the sprues have excellent detail and crisp lines. The anatomy of the riders, horse and dogs (yes dogs!) is excellent, natural and realistic, no wild gymnastic poses and the horses display a powerful look (as one would expect from a horse carrying a man in plate armor). All-in-all this is top-notch stuff!

Gettting ready for another test of Never Mind the Matchlocks

 

 

the table, viewed from the Blue side

        Having rather enjoyed the last test of Never Mind the Matchlocks I decided to expand the group of guinea pigs, erm, playtesters, and run another game. The armies are essentially the same, the Red side is smaller but (mostly) better trained while the Blue side has the advantage of numbers. The battlefield layout is similar but slightly different and the Generals in Charge will have freedom of deployment this time. The only significant change to the rules is the lifting of ammunition restrictions as by the 1680s most troops had some sort of cartridge-box. 

        Each of the Brigadiers have been issued two Orders Tokens but we will roll before the game to see if there are any Amateurs or Experts in the ranks. In the case that such brigadiers are created the General in Charge will be allowed to re-assign the commands. They will also be allowed to reorganize the brigades if they see fit. I made cards with each units pertinent data on it to flatten the learning-curve for the new players. Please excuse the unsightly mess they create, please also forgive the unfinished General figures, they are a source of deep embarrassment to me.

A First Try Of Never Mind The Matchlocks

 

     I was intrigued by the free issue of Never Mind the Matchlocks that came with the latest issue of Wargames Illustrated . I had enjoyed the prior editions of the rules and thought that there were some interesting mechanics. I lack armies in the period of the War of the Roses so I never had a chance to give them a try. I do have armies in the period 1660-1690, just after the ECW, so I decided to give the rules a try with some tiny modifications. Pikes were pretty much a done deal by the end of the ECW/TYW so I left them out and increased the resistance of infantry to reflect the increasing availability of bayonets. I also dropped the ammunition rules as troops carried cartridge boxes of up to forty rounds instead of the "Twelve Apostles".

        I set up two generic armies; Red on the right and Blue on the left

 

the initial phase wherein players move units alternately and artillery is allowed to fire was an interesting difference to most rules, we found that the cavalry swept around the flanks while the infantry endured the attentions of the enemies guns, a cavalry clash (at the bottom of the screen) brought an end to this phase, Red's cavalry that charged were crushed and sent fleeing to the rear, musketry and cannon fire broke out across the board   

A Great Big Thank-You to all our veterans!

 

there is no greater honor than to hazard life and limb for the safety and freedom of others

        I would like to extend a great big thank-you to all our veterans. They all deserve recognition for placing themselves at risk so that we may enjoy the liberties enshrined in our Constitution.  Most do not get the recognition and honors they deserve so I would like to personally thank the ones that have impacted my life:

         George, my grandfather, the Great War. A first-generation German, he enlisted the day that we declared war on the German Empire in 1917.

         Wesley, my father, he was scheduled to be drafted for the invasion of Japan. The atomic bombs saved him that ordeal. As an Army National Guardsman he was activated to fight in the frozen hell of the Korean War. 

       Viktor, my father in law, he fled the fall of Germany as a child and found a home in the USA. He served six years in the Army and then twenty-four more in the Army Reserve, retiring as a CSM, the Cold War

       Tom from Texas, US Army, Cold War

        Brad the Unlucky, US Army, Cold War

       Trunkmonkey, US Army, Cold War

       Mike Reese, US Army, Cold War

       OldSarge, He fought in Vietnam  as an infantryman and then enlisted in the Navy and served as an airman on P-2 Neptunes during the Cold War 

       Bob Webb, US Army, Vietnam, Cold War

       Brendan Moore, US Air Force, Cold War

       Honest Dan, currently serving, US Army, GWOT

       The Hutch, US Army, Cold War

       Joe, currently serving, US Army, GWOT

       Paul daMarine, US Marine Corps, GWOT

       Rick Jones (not THAT one!) US Navy, Cold War

       Zhodani Commando,  Company F 425 LRRP., Cold War

       You are Good Men, one and all. I ,and the Nation, owe you all a debt of honor and gratitude!

Pilots for my planes

 

 

ah, the Good Old Days, when models came with crew figures,

 Monogram, Airfix and Revell usually did a good job with the sculpts

 pilot figures from the recent HS-123 build

       I have to admit that I preferred the days gone by when model aircraft came with crew figures. Now I am expected to spend several dollars each on 3D printed minis. Granted modern kits are worlds away from the primitive models that we were being served back in the 1960s-70s. However I am a wargamer, nobody that I'm gaming with is terribly concerned about our models having the right sort of throttle or the correct seat-belt latch. Empty cockpits, on the other hand, are a bit of a distraction. The lack of crew figures has driven me to desperate measures, even going so far as to steal seated infantrymen from my half-track models and carve away their rifles and helmets. 

 

infantry that have volunteered to become pilots

 

 

with some judicious knife and file work they make passable crewmen...

 

 

... especially when compared to some of the pilot minis provided

 

frankly, some are simply terrible

 

       There are some sets of pilot figures available in soft plastic but they are almost always dismounted and I find that the soft plastic kits often have significant amounts of flash and prominent mold-lines that are very difficult to clean up. Additionally, once you divide the price by the number of usable pilots figures they cost nearly as much as resin figures online. What I really need is a basic pilot figure that I can print using my Bambu Mini. Just shoulders and a head.....is that too much to ask?

Meanwhile, back in Germany; HS-123s join the Luftwaffe

        Having completed the hard paint jobs (Spanish and Chinese) I got cracking on the Luftwaffe units. These are in the standard green/black-green over light blue color scheme. I was careful about making sure that I used decals to indicate different units (although I'm not at all certain that the markings are correct chronologically or geographically).  Things went smoothly and most of the decals were good (aside from the lack of tail swastikas). My penchant for mixing my own colors slowed things but not too badly.

 

having learned the hard way  that yellow paint covers nothing except white 

I got the cowlings sorted out first then moved on to mixing up a batch of Helleblau

mass build, HS-123 by Airfix, Let the Painting Begin!!

        Having assembled five Airfix HS-123s in record time I got to the task of painting them. The group is being split up; one is headed for the sunny skies of Spain, another to the distant shores of China while three will serve with the Luftwaffe. As the two foreign-service aircraft will have distinctly different schemes I decided to do them first. The China-bound aircraft would get the dreaded "squiggle pattern" while the Spanish plane would sport the almost as difficult "Picasso pattern". In comparison the Luftwaffe birds will be pretty plain-Jane.

 

last we saw this project it was "in the white"

Enough of the monkeying around! Mass-building all of my remaining HS-123s

 

        It occurred to me that most of the time I spend modelling is wasted waiting of glue or paint to dry. As a remedy to this I have been swapping off between building models and painting minis. This is less than effective because I have to have both all of my modelling tools and all of my painting supplies out at the same time. Inspired by my BF-109 build it occurred to me that I should do the "Henry Ford" thing, in other words go all-in on mass producing models instead of building them one at a time. 

        A quick review of the Pile of Embarrassment showed that my most prolific model airplane was the Airfix Henschel Hs-123. Frankly I was a bit surprised by that fact but, in my defense, I had purchased them before I started tracking my inventory. As it is an excellent kit and was used by three different air forces it was a perfect model to test my theory. So I cleared my decks and dove into the five of them. In an effort to see just how effective (or inefficient) this approach was I kept track of time spent on this project. Normally it takes three to four days to complete a model, so we shall see how this pans out.