1/500 SMS Seydlitz WIP #2

Since the last post way back when, I've completed some improvements over this build. 

Jazygian Armed Forces M3 Lee

There is no reason, other than personal preference, to include an M3 Lee in the Jazygian army. It might have been a Lend-Lease Russian vehicle passed over, or one salvaged from a Northern African battlefield. 

It's roughly 1/35 scale, and is made from cardboard, pink foam and balsa wood. There are some improvements over my scratchbuilding since the last piece, but the main goal is still not to overcomplicate these models - that would look silly next to plastic army men.

 

Roxolanian P-555 Sanktos Prokopios medium tank

To counter the Jazygian armored threat, the Roxolanian Armed Forces have come up with their own design. It is much more advanced and looks somewhat German-ish.

Kontot Kombatot G-93 - Some More Versions

I've finished the model and added some quirks and features. This is the standard G-93, with a driver/commander and a HMG in the second seat.

WIP - Jazygian 'Kontot Kombatot' G-93 tankette

 

The problem with vehicles that come with toy soldier sets is twofold: they are usually way too tiny compared to the army men, and they completely lack functionality.

To solve both of these problems, the Jazygian Armed Forces developed this rather handsome vehicle, basically a cardboard box on tracks, which can house two or three crew members and can lead the Jazygian spearhead into enemy territory.

The R&D process was relatively trouble free. I took a piece of cardboard, drew the shape of the hull, cut it out, scored and glued it together. The front mantle received a piece of strengthening stainless steel, and one of the windows were cut out to house a HMG or a 3pdr anti-tank gun (sold separately, also known as a piece of 2mm copper rod with a counterweight). There are going to be experiments with bolting a mortar to the underside as well. I covered the edges with strips of paper to make painting easier and protect them somewhat. The tracks were placed under the hull, otherwise it would have been too wide, and a pair of 2mm balsa skirts were added.

Once the glue dries, I'll paint it in the traditional Jazygian war colours - green, brown, grey and pink. 

Shapin' the Seydlitz

I've had some more free time recently, so I delved into this build. I worked a little on the core of the ship's hull, which should be 22mm tall with an added 2mm deck. It is a composite of 2x10mm and 1x2mm layers. I roughly shaped the bottom and sides, but more should be done once higher tiers of the hull (the casemate gundeck and the upper deck) are built. 

You can see the steel slabs installed for ballast; she must be back-weighted a little because the forward superstructure sits a lot higher and is more crammed.

It's time to get more rough sandpaper, because currently I'm not very content with how the fore and aft parts of the hull are looking.

Age of Sail printable ships

While work and studies have taken a toll on my hobby time, I've been doing a few things at my leisure. I sort of got tired of making intricate ship models, and ideas about mass producing cheap alternatives came into my mind. 

One possible solution to do this is the good old Jenga block way. I tried it a long time ago with good results. I also did very much like Master Crook's exploits on the subject of simple and good looking warship models. 

However, I'm a lazy sod, even lazier than that, so I picked up MS paint and drew some ships that can be cut out and pasted on two sides of a piece of cardboard, plasticard sheet, wood or MDF, and some rudimentary bases to support them.

Now, the period I recently became interested in is the 17th century, so the shape and colouring of these ships might not be especially to everyone's liking, but for a simple game using multiple ships, they suffice. 

Here are the completed ships for everyone's access. The folder now includes two different two-decker hull types in two fleet colours, and one three-decker. There are also four blank templates for two-and three-deckers, and a sail template. The models are mirrored, and I suggest re-scaling the images for printing: my small two-deckers are going to be 35mm long, the larger ones 40mm, and the first rates are going to be 45mm. This way, eighteen two-decker ships fit on a single A4 page. 

When I was tiny, I remember making about a hundred or so folded paper ships, drawing ship-of-the-line features on them, and fighting a large battle; that is somewhat the goal with these. I often wonder how I could play with my ships and toy soldiers without a good set of rules, but my guess is youthful imagination can easily replace charts and pages long explanations and whatnot. Anyway, just for fun, and for people who absolutely hate dice, I came up with a card mechanic to decide naval combat in the age of sail as well, and here it is, to be used with my "Simple Age of Sail" rule set acccessible from the Rules page of this blog.

Building the Swimmin' Seydlitz

 

Swimming, and not sinking. Seydlitz was actually one of the best ships when it came to not sinking, which I intend to simulate.

Here's my next project once I'm done with the finals: an 1/500 scale full hull model of the good old SMS Seydlitz. The ship should be about 40cm long when completed. As I learned a lot about stability and waterproofing when creating the Derfflinger mock-up, I thought I could make this one able to swim as well.

Enough With the Skeletons Already - a Solo Campaign of Exploration

So here's the thing I came up with after the previous post.