I came across this image as I was doing other research. It's a painting from the Canadian War Museum's collection, painted by William Ogilvie at Dittaino, Sicily during Operation Husky.
Further research brought me images like this one, of a jeep ambulance later in the Italian campaign.
So of course I needed one! I took a jeep from a previous project, and constructed a superstructure from styrene rods and a stretcher from brass rods and green stuff. Some figures were easily converted into casualties.
A dab of paint, et voilà! A jeep ambulance, with a couple of nurses from Perry Miniatures' "Lukewarm in Cairo" set:
I was going to make a joke about my AEC Matador 4-ton lorry, and tie it to the famous ¡Olé!cheer from Spanish bullfights. And then a Google search for Olé and Matador took me to Eurovision and France's entry in 2010:
Anyway, silliness aside, here is my new AEC Matador, a 4-ton lorry that seems to be best known as a tractor for the 5.5" BL medium howitzer. However I've assigned it to my version of the 2nd Canadian Field Park Company RCE, who use it to deliver Bailey Bridge components to where they're needed!
I ordered this from Perry Miniatures. It comes with a pair of benches in the back, which I rather clumsily tried to hack out. It was pretty ugly, so I am relying on the canopy to hide the damage.
But at least it now has room (almost) for a pallet of Bailey Bridge panels!
Despite the mess during assembly, I am happy with the result.
This sapper is very optimistic if he thinks he can pull that pallet of 9 panels out of the truck. As they are 600-lbs each, for a total weight of around 5400 lbs or just shy of 3 tons. He's gonna need some help.
I also picked up some artillery crew, with the idea of repurposing them as sappers. Several of them fit in nicely, but these two are pretty much gunners.
I recently saw this newsreel, that clearly showed a Black gunner with the RCA in Sicily - that's when I realised I needed to add some diversity to my Canucks. You can see him starting around 4:19 in this video:
I also picked up the 'Luke Warm in Cairo" set, and here are the three blokes.
I picked up the Perry Miniatures Daimler Dingo, because it's a neat little armoured car and I wanted one. I decided that the commander figure that comes with the Dingo looks like Chris Vokes, who was the Brigadier commanding 2 Canadian Infantry Brigade (2CIB) during Operation Husky. I understand that Brigadier Vokes had a jeep during Op Husky, so I re-purposed a Rubicon jeep that I'd done previously and assigned it to the brig.
The jeep should have Brigadier Vokes' pennant, which was a grizzly bear on a blue background. This pennant was the result of a competition launched by Vokes to inspire the 2CIB's morale, to give the brigade an emblem.
Now here is the Dingo. The vehicle commander is also a Perry Miniature, brought in to replace Brigadier Vokes. Hugo was the name of a Dingo serving with the Three Rivers Regiment. However, I've cheated here, the '172' number is actually assigned to 1st Canadian Army Tank Brigade HQ, rather than the TRR. But I'm banking on the idea that no one will notice ;^)
Posing for the cameras: the Dingo crew are reporting to the 2CIB commander.
These telephones were a very easy little side project. They come straight from Pat Smith's Setting the Scene Vol II, which I've referenced before. The poles are made from dowel cut to 4" lengths, hot glued to some washers from my big box o' basing stuff. Sand and gravel added to the base. Cross bars are match sticks. I first tried gluing the cross bars with white glue, but the bond was poor so I used the hot glue gun instead. This leaves a bit of a blob at the joint, but it is stronger.
My original plan for the insulators was to chop up the inside of a ballpoint pen, but that ended up looking a bit rubbish, so I picked up some styrene rods and cut them to lengths of a few millimetres.
So here they are!
I ended up making 21 of these poles. That was a bit overkill! I set them out on my new Sicily terrain board, and figured that half a dozen would have been plenty. Anyway, it means I've got plenty of extras if I want to make a power plant or something.
I'm still working on my LAF BSC2021 entry, but the contest rules are that I cannot post photos once I start painting. I've got the base coat on the boards, so no more photos for a while. Don't worry, I'm still taking photos and I'll post an update after the contest is resolved.
In the meantime, I've been assembling some sappers, aka the 3rd Field Company RCE. These lads will be responsible for building the Bailey Bridge across above-mentioned the terrain boards.
For starters, they do some surveying. These figures are kitbashed from the Perry Miniatures Desert Rats with extra bits from the Perrys' Zulu War British. The Dumpy level is assembled from two heliographs. These men take arms and equipment (like the notebook and binoculars) from the Zulu War pack but are based on the Desert Rats. The level rod started as a pair of arms carrying the colours.
And here they are with some paint:
These men are carrying a 600-lb bridge panel. They make it look easy! They should be standing straight, like these ones from the manual:
My modelling skills being a bit limited, my lads look like this:
These men are carrying the transom: it is normally an eight-man load, so these four men are obviously quite buff.
To add some interest for gaming purposes, I've taken the extra sprues and built an 'under construction' version:
The angled portion in front is called the 'launching nose'. It consists of a couple of bridge panels, and is lighter to help the sappers on the receiving end to direct it onto the base plates on the other side of the gap.
I added some sprue segments to transform the base plates into rollers:
