I thought it about time to give an update on my current activities. Following completion of the batch of GS wagons, as described in the last post, I have now started building a batch of limbers. Once again I will take photos as construction/painting progresses and publish the whole as a single blog. Limbers are fairly simple to build so the post will not be so long as that for GS wagons.  In the meantime I have just completed the painting of another infantry battalion, the 52nd of 60 planned. This unit will be shelved on Friday which is my next scheduled "play" day. I often tend to build an infantry battalion alternately with other types of battalions to keep work interesting. The next battalion being painted is a medical unit where the two coats of uniform green have already been applied. Next steps on Friday will be application of rank and arm of service markings. I will also count out the screws for another battalion, not quite sure at this time if it will be infantry or something else. I will be photographing the making of this battalions flags for a suitable blog later. I will also consider what batch of vehicles or equipments will be built next and maybe start building preparations.  In terms of blogs I am  also planning to write something soon about the organisation of my armies  which I hope will be interesting to the reader.

This is an  update on work in progress. I am still working on the batch of GS wagons, they are almost complete and I will then publish a lengthy article covering both construction and painting. In the meantime the Cavalry regiment has been completed as discussed in the previous blog. Additionally another Infantry battalion is well advanced,  in fact so much so I have just completed the first stage in the painting of a medical battalion.

Painting Cavalry

This article follows that on the construction of Cavalry. The starting point is, using the horse as a holding area, to paint the whole soldier uniform green. When dry apply I apply the arm of service and rank colours. Lastly for the soldier, I apply the coat of varnish. This stage is shown in the photo below. If you look closely, the uniform paint and varnish do spill over onto the horse. This is more or less unavoidable.

The next stage is to prime the horse using the soldier as a holding point.  This will require a steady hand as you run the paint around the soldier and also cover the spill over mentioned above. The results are shown below.

The final stage is to apply the brown horse colour. All my horses are brown, Humbrol Burnt Leather actually. Despite my wife's view that horses are many different colours , I long ago decided that in my army only brown horses would be acceptable !!!!!!!  The final result is a regiment of Cavalry as shown below set out on the display shelf. Also to be seen is the foot soldier contingent that provides medical, administrative, signals and quartermaster services. These men ride the various limbers and trailers with which the regiment is provided. The only item of equipment missing is a light GS supply trailer which will be constructed in the near future. This is the 17th of 18 cavalry regiments in my armies.

I am still working on the Cavalry regiment previously mentioned. I intend to publish a post covering the whole painting process just as soon as its complete. In the meantime, after finishing the Heavy Weapons battalion, I started a Quartermaster battalion. This is now complete and has been laid out on the display shelves. QM battalions are one of only two battalion types ( the other being QM Transport battalions ) that take two shelves. The first photo shows the command company on the right, the usual utility trailers, ( still awaiting GS wagons )  then there's a gap for the remount ramuda. Next on  the left are the light GS trailers of the yet to be made forge vehicles belonging to the Veterinary and Farrier company. On the far left are the vehicles and light GS trailers of the Workshop company.

This photo below shows the two QM Transport companies that complete the QM battalion. As can be seen each company comprises 8 GS wagons each with a heavy GS trailer.  These transport companies are used to move supplies from railhead to battalion supply vehicles and are historically based on the German army heavy transport companies of WW1. The construction and painting of GS wagons will be covered in a post in the near future.
In the meantime the reader may wonder what historical precedence exists for the  heavy GS trailer.  I have two such references. I have got photos of German WW2 horsed transport columns where two wagons are hitched together to maximise carrying capacity. However my main reference is from the USA where tandem wagons were a common feature of the Old West. They were regularly used by commercial wagon train masters moving supplies from the East to the new western townships before the advent of the railways. Even after the railways they were still used to supply isolated military posts.  In fact one company, Peter Schuttler of Chicago, specialised in building such vehicles. If the reader wants to see such a wagon watch the film  "Dances With Wolves " starring Kevin Costner. Fairly early in the film the hero is delivered to his new fort by just such a vehicle.

Another type of vehicle I have in service in my army is the house bodied wagon , that is to say a solid walled, rather than canvas sided vehicle. These wagons are used as ambulances and workshop vehicles. I have also taken that concept a little further by use of house bodied tandem wagons for office, medical and signals use. Shown below are a few examples. Front to back on the left is a mobile hospital unit, a headquarters unit and at the rear a command wagon towing a heavy signals trailer. On the right is the GS tandem unit. My tactical view on these tandem vehicles is that they are only used for rear service units which would normally use main roads only.

The historical references for house bodied wagons are fairly broad and a bit tenuous. Certainly there were motorised office/workshop vehicles in most WW2 armies. I have seen a single photo of a WW2 German horse drawn house bodied wagon although without any identification of the vehicle and there is of course the rather small British office wagon of WW1 . There is also  the US Army  late Civil war era Rucker ambulance wagon which was heavily used as an office/ headquarters vehicle. However the main inspirations come from the German WW2 C/87 ambulance wagon which seems to have a solid box body and pictures in my Bristol Wagon Works catalogue of removal type vans. I guess taking all these references together tells me that if there was not actually such a vehicle , there should have been !!!!!!! I will continue to search for a vehicle type that fully supports my models, I am sure it existed somewhere.