So after putting this project on hold for several years, I’ve finally gotten around to reviving it. It will feature an Egyptian SU-100 that I built around 5 years ago, a British Para jeep with recoilless rifle and some Para figures.
I started with the base, which is a 2 inch high block of styrofoam. I used some thin 1/32” bass wood to frame it. I’m trying something new ( to me ) for the base. I started seeing these at model shows and on you tube and I really like the look. I’ll probably paint it black. I am depicting a scene based on some famous photos of the battle, I’m not trying to replicate it precisely. I am using Miniarts brick wall set, a mostly scratch built light pole. I think the surface in the picture is asphalt but not totally sure. I have an AK product for that. Here is the pic I’m loosely going off of. I’ll be adding 3 Egyptian tank crew members surrendering to the Paras. I’ll be adding a curb to the lower right corner of the base where the light pole will be.
The wall section from Miniart is nice but fiddly to assemble due to it being two hollow section of wall with thin edges to glue together. Be careful when cutting them from the sprue sheet- this is a vacu- form kit and the plastic cuts easily. I don’t know if anyone else has built this kit before, but there’s two brick sections that go together on top of the wall (see above instruction sheet). There should be six total for the three wall sections but my kit only has 3. I have another kit of this wall but can’t find it at the moment so I just made up some concrete cap stones for the top out of plastic.
I added some putty to the seams of the wall sections after gluing them together, airbrushed with a mix of Tamiya Hull Red and Yellow. I’m in the process of picking out some individual bricks with various tones.
I remember this! (not Suez itself - I was two) but the project; I look forward to the rendition of the ‘44 pat webbing, but that Jeep looks just great.
Great stuff Richard; remarkable too, in the turn of world events, that the SU-100 would also be employed crushing the Hungarian Revolution at just about the same time.
Yes Brian I’ll do my best with the ‘44 pattern webbing, I found some resin canteens I can use. I think I just have to add some putty to beef up the cloth canteen holder itself; it’s definitely different than US models. I have some resin haversacks I think I might be able to use- I’ll show pics when it comes time to do the figures to see what you guys think. I haven’t found any ‘44 pattern stuff in plastic or resin yet.
Right now the main components of the jeep aren’t glued together yet. Just mocked up for the pics and composition trials. Lots of work to be done on it, I don’t like the color and may do a light sand overspray then I’ll weather it. It looks too dark to me. The decals are already in so I’ll have to be careful. The recoilless rifle just has a black case coat.
Probably a bit difficult to do in Milliput or whatever. I would advise against the versions that come with the Tamiya Stretcher Bearer set - it’s just wrong. I’m pretty sure you won’t find much that’s commercially available - just too obscure!
If you fit a backpack, a bonus is you won’t have to depict much of those pesky 4 straps on the figure’s back. Mind you, arguably it all depends on how adept you are with Milliput/Magic Sculp, lead foil whatever - so good luck!
I’m pretty sure the Jeeps would have been freshly painted for the op, so in regards to weathering, I’d be inclined to keep it light.
As an aside, one of the Generals who commanded 3 (UK) Div when I was there in the mid to late 70s, had jumped at Suez when he was a Captain.
No worries at all Brian, you are correct though. I planned on some light dust at the most, very restrained for me which is welcome given I usually heavily weather my models.
I must admit I would also find light dust challenging - my normal solution is to drench everything in Tamiya Buff; see my ancient Chieftain here - which I only really show because I actually had an airbrush mishap - think runaway gun - yet all and sundry sort of opined “Yeah - great - that’s just how it was”(!)
You’re not hijacking Brian, totally relevant with respect to weathering.Tamiya Buff is a very good possibility for the jeep. I will be doing a brown pin wash on the details too.
Well thanks; I think it was around the second or third model I built when I got back into the hobby after 20-odd (some very odd) years in the Army. That must have been around 94/95 (the build that is), and I still rate Tamiya Buff(!)
I have a French radio jeep conversion for the Italeri jeep I think from Azimut in my stash. I was going to make a companion piece to this with the French part in the operation. I have a few resin figs also but I’m not sure they would fit this time frame, I think they’re from Algeria but I have to do more research. Lots of ideas from this campaign including French M47s, and Amtrak’s, Centurions etc.
