A bit of this and a bit of that

This weekend, I've been kept quite busy with the "honey do" list, which Mrs. History PhD produced with almost satanic glee, so hobby related activities have been at a bare minimum. 

However I did manage to sneak in a platoon of West German Skorpion Minenwerfers (in English, that's "mines thrower"):

These are from National Cheese Emporium on Shapeways. I think they're slightly sub-scale (or maybe O8 vehicles are slightly over-scale), but they are very nicely detailed, although exorbitantly expensive for being just four tiny slivers of plastic. Hopefully O8 will get cracking on putting out other vehicles for my projected West German engineer company. 

And for my East German panzer pioneers, I finished a platoon of BTS-2 armored recovery vehicles:

These were based on a T-54A chassis and oddly, the dozer blade was mounted on the rear. Similar western vehicles always mounted the blade in front. For 1981, I should be using BTS-4s:

with their massive snorkel, but Marcin has provided only BTS-2s thus far. 

Actually, ARVs were not part of pioneer units in the NVA (nor in any other army, as far as I'm aware), but clouds of them would've followed any WarPac armored unit and attaching them to my pioneers seemed reasonable, at least for storage purposes. 

That's all I've been granted time to do this weekend. When I said that hobbies were far more important than chores, I got this face:

Hmmm. More next weekend (hopefully)!

A Shapeways shipment arrived!

Today a small box from Shapeways turned up on my desk:

Whenever I get a hobby stuff in the mail, I feel like Steve Martin:http://youtu.be/-rTcfKfXwqo. I always have anything hobby-related sent to me at work, for reasons that I'm certain I needn't go into:

In the past, it's taken a fair while from the submission of my order to arrival, but this time it was reasonably quick.

Anyway, I received a packet of army tents (8x large rectangular and 4x small square), 4x West German Skorpion minelayers, and 6x IFA Sachsenring P3's, all from National Cheese Emporium, as well as 5x Trabant Kübels from Dragoman's Depot, everything being in 1/600:

Everything looks very good, especially the items in "frosted ultra detail", which really is by far the best material in which to have things made. However, the one HUGE drawback to 3D printing is very evident. You see those few tiny bits that take up very very little of my hand? With postage - $34!!!!! That's nosebleed territory! 3D printing will never get far until they get the prices under control. 

3D printed items always have an oily coating which isn't as easy to remove as you might expect. It's quite important to get it fully removed, as it causes primer and paint to flake off or at least bubble up into a "curdled" appearance. So, in addition to a stout scrubbing with an old toothbrush and undiluted dish washing liquid, I afterwards "paint" each one with old-timey paint thinner, then allow it to fully dry. Considerable care is required when priming these things. They weigh less than nothing and it is alarmingly easy for the primer can to blow them clear across the room, where they disappear forever into oblivion.

Here's everything primed light grey:

Anything in "frosted ultra detail" really is stunningly detailed for being so tiny. 

If you are old enough (as I am) to remember those wretched little US Postal Service jeeps of the 1970s and 80s, the P3 looks just like one:

And the Kübel comes in two versions, 3x top up and 2x top down:

I feel like it's a bit sub-scale, as its smaller than 1/600 ought to be, but it's not "in your face" obvious, so it'll look fine once it's on a base. 

The Skorpion platoon will become part of a company of West German combat engineers, while the Kübels and P3's will just be used to pretty up East German command stands. The tents will become a couple of field hospitals. More on all these little guys once they're painted and based. 

Some recent 1/600 additions

Over the last several months, a number of new 1/600 scale models that are of interest to early 80's Cold War enthusiasts (they interest me anyway) have appeared on Shapeways, so I thought it would be timely to mention them.

Firstly, Dragoman's Depot on Shapeways has a West German DKW Munga:

Next, in addition to the East German Army's Trabant Kübel that I've already mentioned (my post of July 7, 2014), National Cheese Emporium on Shapeways has added four different versions of the M548: with and without canvas tarp and with and without 50cal. and mounting ring: 

And as variations on that theme, there are also West German Skorpion minelayers:

And US M139 Volcano minelayers:

There's also a West German Roland 2 SAM antiaircraft vehicle based on the Marder:

As well as the Green Archer counter-battery radar, used by West Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Belgium, among others:

And after a chat with the designer, he has completed an East German IFA Sachsenring P3:

In addition, Kokoda Trail Models, also a Shapeways store, is offering a full Pershing II battery:

Although the Pershing II didn't enter service until 1983, the visual differences to the Pershing IA (the version in service in 1981) at this scale are negligible. The main issue for me is the IA usually had a tracked prime mover and the II had a wheeled one. 

So there we have it. Some very valuable additions to the models presently available in 3mm. More from me next time!