RAPID FIRE! ....................

 

Painting Plastic Figures II

A Plastic British Infantry Battalion

A major feature of the new Rapid Fire! rules book is the collection of pictorial organisation charts. These cover the most common British/Commonwealth, American and German units in action in June 1944, with a Russian force included to remind people that something called the Eastern Front was happening at the same time!

Amongst these ‘orbats', the British infantry battalion is one of the most versatile and features in Rapid Fire's! instructional scenarios. For the play tests of both games we used a battalion made up entirely of easily available plastic figures, to show what can be done with these inexpensive, but often high quality models. So, what is this plastic battalion made up of and how can you create your own for a minimum outlay?

The Figures

The Revell ‘British Infantry WWII' set offers 48 figures, including PIAT and 2" mortar teams, officers, submachine gunners, Bren gunners, and riflemen, and currently costs £4.99 in the UK.


I must admit that when I first opened the box I was a bit disappointed, as some of the figures seemed to fall into the ‘weird pose' category, unfortunately common amongst some plastic figure sets. This can include the ‘Swan Lake' syndrome – where the figure seems to be gracefully leaping between shell holes – and the ‘I'm still on parade' blight – where the soldier stands bolt up right to fire, load or just hang around, oblivious to enemy fire.

What we have to remember is that plastic production methods have limitations and that the sculptors have to make their master models rather ‘flat' (i.e legs, arms and weapons have to point in more or less the same direction) or the little fellows get stuck in the moulds.

My opinion on the Revell figures changed after a visit to the Miniature Zone website at:

http://members.lycos.co.uk/miniaturezone/A-Z-GUIDE/

This carries a review by John Michael Murray of the Revell British infantry - including photos of painted figures - and after looking at the pictures and reading the reviewer's comments I began to reassess their value.

The first thing I realised when I re-opened the packet and took a closer look was that there were nearly enough figures in suitable poses to produce a battalion. In this case the designer seems to have done their homework and has produced the figures needed by wargamers and - even more miraculously - in almost the right quantity. The figures also wear the late war British ‘Tortoise shell'- shaped helmets (particularly useful for Canadian troops) and sport other typical NW Europe apparel, like leather jerkins and cloth bandoliers for ammunition. They are also quite big for plastic figures and I could see they would fit in well with my Raventhorpe Miniatures and other largish metal troops. We were in business!

Organisation

Before you start painting a box of plastic figures it's a really good idea to work out the unit's organisations. Quite often you'll find you need more than one box, or even a box from a different manufacturer to make up the number and/or type of figures required. Painting 40 plus figures and then finding you're one rifleman short to make up a unit is not to be recommended. The RF! British battalion (1944) is closer to the real-life unit than our earlier orbat and includes a designated Carrier platoon. To duplicate the battalion you will need the following figures:

An officer (CO)

A radio operator

A junior officer/NCO

Thirty two ‘company' figures (mainly riflemen, but with a Bren and Sten gun-armed figure for each 8-figure company)

A two-figure 2” mortar team

Two, two-figure PIAT teams

A figure for the Carrier platoon (the rest of the three-figure platoon is made up by the PIAT teams)

A three figure mortar crew

A three figure 6pdr anti-tank gun crew

This gives a grand total of 48 figures; exactly the number in the box! The set includes an excellent officer figure (in fact two) and a large number of riflemen, as well as a couple of 2” mortar teams and plentiful PIATS and Brens. This only leaves the radio operator, and a 3” mortar and AT gun crew to convert.


The latter, however, can be provided from the Airfix carrier and 6pdr set (still the only source, in plastic, of this common WWII vehicle and the standard infantry battalion AT gun) as long as you don't mind its smaller and less detailed figures. Taking this option makes creating the rest of the battalion from the remaining figures in one box just about possible. Constructing a reasonable 3” mortar is covered at the end of ‘Painting Plastic Figures'.

As I confess in the next section, I chose to add a handful of figures from another set so I could use the PIAT crew figures as company riflemen and officer/NCOs. I also avoided using more than one of the excellent prone Bren gunners because they are difficult to fit in trenches and foxholes. You may be less picky and make even fuller use of the box's contents.

Conversions

These need a sharp, narrow-bladed modelling knife, long jawed tweezers, boiled (very hot) water, some glue and a great deal of care. Carry out all conversion cutting work prior to preparing the figures for painting, but leave gluing till afterwards.

Mortar crew figures: Converting figures into a 3”mortar crew is largely a matter of removing their guns, which means some delicate knife work The PIAT operator makes a good standing crewman by removing his shouldered PIAT and Sten gun. The kneeling Sten gunner makes a passable crewman by removing his SMG and bending his left arm to look more like he's just dropped a mortar bomb down the barrel. This is where the boiled water comes in.

Bending soft plastic figures.

• Pour some boiled water into a bowl.
• Place a bowl of cold water next to it.
• Grip the figure you want to bend with the tweezers and carefully dip the part needing bending into the water for about 10-15 seconds.
• Remove the figure from the water, remove the tweezers and then, gripping the figure between your fingers, quickly bend and hold the arm, leg, other part well beyond the point that you want it to stay at.
• Still gripping the figure, hold it under the cold water for 10-15 seconds. Remove the figure and dry. The ‘bent' part should stay in its new position.
• If the bend is insufficient, repeat the procedure.
  
  Finally, the spare 2” mortar bomb loader makes up the third member of the crew; demoted from loading to passing a bomb. Leave the bomb in his hand (it's undersize for a 3” mortar, but I won't tell anyone) and remove the rifle.

Radio operator: I cheated and used an Italeria (ex Esci) British infantry radio operator with his helmet carved to represent the Revell late-war shape. I could, however, have used one of the kneeling Revell Sten gunners, cutting away their gun and pack and replacing the latter with a block of plastic to represent a radio. To do this, score the back of the figure and the face of the block you are going to stick and use a contact glue like Evostick or UHU (wash the figure first to make sure the surface is grease-free). An aerial made from a piece of piano wire or a pin stuck or glued into a hole in the radio will add a finishing touch.

More Cheating

Although the Revell set has four PIAT operators and four riflemen carrying three-bomb containers (making four PIAT crews) I was a bit dissatisfied with the PIAT man's pose. Strolling along with his PIAT falling off his shoulder seemed a bit too laid back for a guy who will probably need a Heroic Action test every time he springs into action.

Cheating again, I used the two prone PIAT gunners from the Italeria (ex Esci) British Infantry set, shaving the helmets to shape. This had the bonus of leaving the Revell PIAT men to use as really good Company officers/NCOs by removing the AT launcher but leaving the Sten. The choice is yours.

Painting

Follow the methods described in the previous article (apart from the radio operator, who should be washed before gluing) to prepare, paint and finish the figures.

All the British battalion figures used in the new Rapid Fire! were painted using the ‘wash' method (see previous article), which, interestingly, was mentioned by the great Steve Zaloga in the April 2005 edition of Military Modelling magazine as an alternative method for painting 1/72 nd scale figures for display: so it must be good. Check out the photographs here and in the new Rapid Fire! rule book for the effect. On the wargames table these figures really stand out.

Basing tips

To best protect your figures, multiple bases are recommended. I made sure the most ‘balletic' figures were on two-figure bases to avoid snagging their out-stretched arms legs or guns in the storage box. It also a good idea to ‘ground' the second foot of a running figure by building up basing material/small stones underneath it, thus preventing the main supporting leg from flexing and stripping paint.

Now, off to the model shop with you and let's see some plastic on those table-tops!

Next time:

What happened to those Pegasus SS infantry figures?

AND

Revell US Marines.

Richard Marsh