Big Spanish Civil War Project Part 3: Foreign Vehicles

 Another batch of things I finished a while ago. 

As in many other civil wars, foreign powers became involved in the Spanish conflict. This was in contravention of a Non Intervention Pact, largely a creation of Britain and France. This pact intended to avoid the coming Second World War, but it was powerless while Britain continued its policy of appeasement, as it could not be properly enforced.

The Soviet Union supplied the Republicans while Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy aided the Nationalists. This support was very valuable to both sides. German planes allowed the Nationalist Army of Africa to cross the Straits of Gibraltar, ignoring the threat posed by the Republican Navy. Soviet tanks and aircraft provided the Republicans with an advantage in both areas.

The first foreign aid to arrive in the Spanish Civil War was a shipment of T-26s in October 1936, early in the war. Germany responded by sending Panzer I tanks several days later.

This is a T-26. It's 1/100 scale, made from a Zvezda kit. I really like how it turned out, although the painting the markings was the cause of much cursing!

I painted it with the colour modulation style. It's quite "cartoony" and is based on idealised lighting conditions. But I think it matches well with the way most figures are painted. 

I recently got an airbrush, but I'm still not very confident in highlighting with it. I paint my tanks by brush. It isn't as hard as you might think. I used the layering technique and some simple blending on each panel. After the base colour and markings were finished, I gloss coated the whole tank and got out my oil paints. I used an "oil dot filter", a really fun and simple technique used by armour modellers. 

These are Panzer Is, the German response to the T-26s. They're both by Minairons Miniatures. The camouflaged one is a "Breda", modified with a more powerful gun to give it a better chance against the T-26. The standard Panzer I was not well equipped for fighting against other tanks.

These were painted in the same way as the T-26. The camouflage was done with Blu-Tac masking and an airbrush (though a brush could just as easily be used). To do this, I sprayed the model with a base colour, then masked the relevant areas with Blu Tac and repeating the process.

A bit of extra research after I was finished showed that all Panzers had some kind of camouflage in Spain. Silly me. But I still like the grey model, I don't think I'll repaint it.

Edit: further research seems to show that some Nationalist Panzer Is may actually have been grey! 

A Polikarpov I-15, in 1/72 scale, from ICM. Most people use smaller scale aeroplanes with their ground troops, but I've gone for 1/72 for its lower prices, range of choice and greater detail. I'd love to have had 1/100 scale planes, but there aren't really any being produced. 

I suppose planes should be larger than troops because of perspective. If the players are looking at the battle from high above, planes would be closer to them and would thus appear larger. If that even makes any sense! 

Sometimes I feel like Dougal when I'm trying to understand wargame scales 

Anyway ... This kit wasn't amazing. It had a few problems with parts not fitting correctly, and very few of the parts were keyed. It's made of a funny plastic that wasn't very easy to sand. The detail is quite good though. 

I didn't make the build any easier by adding a flying stand. I drilled a hole into the bottom of the plane and glued a magnet onto the inside of the fuselage. I put a corresponding magnet into an acrylic rod on a big base. It's a very sturdy way to mount the plane, because both the hole in the underside and the magnet hold it in place. The only issue is that the plane is a little bit close to the ground for my liking, but it's fine for wargames, especially when the plane is at low altitude. I might make more flying stands of different heights to show the plane's altitude in games.