An Allied convoy

The idea was to put together some British soft skins. I like to mix up vehicles in a casual way so we have here a couple of Airfix Quad, an Airfix Jeep, an Airfix Matador from the refueling set upgraded with Matador kit, an Airfix Sherman with Culin device from Matador, a Sherman ARV based on  Airfix plus Matador upgrade, a couple of Bren Carriers by Cromwell

Some German soft skin vehicles across a village

We have a variety of items here, an Airfix SdKfz 7, a VW and SdKfz 222 from the same manufacturer, a few 251s by Hasegawa and Esci and one by Alby, a Heller (ex Airfix) Opel Blitz, a Milicast limber, a MMS SdKfz 10, a Fujimi sidecar, a SdKfz 11 HKL.
I have been trying to stick to 1:76 scale so the Alby was very much an exception.

An artillely stronghold

This little scene was really aimed at seeing how different models look like when put together. The Matador comes from Airfix plus some load from TP Model, the Airfix quad had its top cut  and the Bedford, from the refuelling set, was upgraded with a Matador kit.

Figures come from a variety of producers:AB, Milicast, Airfix, etc

German wagons 

I used some old cart wheels and added horses from different sources, The two Germans on horseback are from MMS. The other are from a full variety of manufacturers, Preiser, AB, Retrokit, etc

A Fashine(ting) Sherman

I have been interested to convert an old Airfix Sherman into one carrying a fascine for a while and it has not been very easy to find reference pics or comments.

I learned that basically you have some Sherman II coverted into turretless vehicles used by New Zealander engineers in North Italy in order to cross the Senio River. It is not difficult to find pictures of these tanks approaching the creek on April 10^th 1945. Some of them had a pair of simple rails above which the fascine was meant to be released.  More often I found reference of a rotating structure placed above where the turret  was and holding one or two fascines to be released when the case. In the beautifully illustrated book Armour Color Gallery n.3 by Jeffrey Plowman we find few interesting shots like these: 

On other hand it seems that Shermans MKIII carrying fascines were adopted by the 1st Polish Armd Div in France and  Holland in 1944. Apparently the Canadians also utilized the tank.

For as much as Normandy is concerned John Tapsell very kindly explained to me that the Staffonrdshire Yeomanry  (27^th Armd Bde) had one troop of the reserve sq. (B) with these vehicles. Very accurately he pointed out that three tanks were operative on D-Day and two were hit in the afternoon of the 6^th of June. They had a cradle fitted in front of the turret though, more or less as in Italy, while the model used by the Poles was simply  with rails.

For sure it was not a part of the Funnies of the famous 79^th Armd Div. My desire was to go for a version without the cradle and here it is.