French Harbor Town – Part IX

So finally I finished up the impetus for this project – the Brigade Games U Boat.

Being a gaming piece first and foremost I wanted it to be easy to store and transport, so decided to not go overboard (see what I did there) with the detail. I made the decision early on to leave it as a three piece affair and to magnetize as many pieces as possible.

The kit came with a single 20mm, the 8.8cm deck gun, two periscopes, an UZO pedestal and the posts for the railing at the aft of the conning tower. Surprisingly missing were the iconic (to me) horseshoe shaped life rings. I was able to find some 1/48th scale ones on Shapeways along with a more detailed UZO and a circular range finder.

Assembly of the guns was pretty straight forward, and I magnetized the bases of these along with the periscopes and the UZO. I then used some solder to create the aft railing. I affixed the life rings but decided to leave off the RF antenna. It was housed in a box and I didn’t want to sacrifice any more real estate in the conning tower as I wanted to cram some based figures in there.

After that it was a matter of firing up the airbrush and giving it a coat of paint. The markings are hand painted and are my interpretation of the U-201 coat of arms and snowmen.

Additionally I scabbed together a couple of gangplanks from basswood strips. The rubber dinghy is from Bandai and the supplies are from the scrap box.

Finally I’ll put the finishing touches on the figures for the orders of battle and gin up a few play aids.

French Harbor Town – Part VIII

We finally had a short break in the weather, so I was able to fire up the airbrush and finish the Opel Blitz and the sea wall. The truck is from Rubicon and built straight from the box.

I created the sea wall by 3D printing the stone cap pieces which I then affixed to lengths of 90 degree angled styrene. I then created the wall by cutting sections of G-scale corrugated sheet and gluing them to the angled pieces. The backside of the plastic sheeting had the shape I wanted for the wall corrugations. The dock cleats are an O-scale model railroading product. I may circle back and airbrush the stonework a bit more if I have enough time.

Up next I’ll start working on the U Boat.

French Harbor Town – Part VII

Happy New Year everyone. I was able to work a little over the holidays to add some details to the board.

I’m sure it’s somewhat hypothetical, but I wanted a cart with some torpedoes on it. I took a chance and bought a Sarissa Bomb Trailer Set in the hopes that I could modify it to fit some 1/48th scale resin torpedoes I found. Thankfully it worked out pretty well. I only had to shift the cradle pieces up a bit to accommodate the length of the torpedoes. The “fish” are probably meant to be for aircraft, but they work for me.

 

To add some more weapon supplies to the dock I ginned up these mines. Again not very historically accurate, but that’s okay by me. I took some bits and whatnot from around the house and painted them up. I have an Opel Blitz that I’m going to put these in, but it has been so cold here that I am unable to airbrush in the garage.

Up next I’ll start working on the sea wall and some electrical poles.