Room on top

Things have been pretty busy here chez moi, what with the cheese shifting and the giddy social whirl my wife insists on including me in. Nonetheless further progress has been made on my 1926 General Strike project so I thought I’d share a few more piccies of the things that have recently passed across the painting desk. All items shown are Pendraken 10mm - apart from the plane which is Wings of Glory 1:144th scale.

First up is this little fella:

A London bus pressed into service as an improvised troop transport. The advertising signs (which I think help tremendously) come from the Sankey Scenics N gauge railway range.

The same bus from the other side. Old Calabar is a dog food product in case you were wondering. Oh, you weren’t wondering. Okay. The Scottish infantry section seem very annoyed they’ve just missed their bus. Never mind lads there’ll be another along in a minute!

A British Whippet tank of WW1 vintage which remains in service up until the mid 20´s due to defence spending review cutbacks. Britain had declared it would not be involved in any war for at least 10 years and consequently declined to do much in the way of research and development. It boasts several machine guns but only one of them could be fired at any one time.

An Airco DH4 bomber. Introduced in 1917 and Intended to be replaced by the up engined DH9 the DH4 continued to serve as an Army cooperation aircraft until 1930 in some theatres! This one sports a red fuselage band and the designation B1 indicating it is the 1st aircraft in the Birmingham Corporation Air Defence Force.

A Seabrook armoured lorry. Originally used by Royal Navy land units this armoured heavyweight had a very poor cross country performance but fielded a useful 47mm (3pdr) gun. I suspect this one will be supporting my mutinous matelots.

You can stick yer ruddy King Tigers where the sun don’t shine mate! Seriously, who the hell doesn’t love a little Renault FT17. A contemporary of the Whippet (see above) it was exported all around the world and featured a number of different turret styles and armaments. In 1926 Chinese warlord Zhang Zoulin ordered 15 war surplus FT17’s for his Manchurian army. In my counterfactual history one of the ships carrying 3 tanks and 2,000 Lebel rifles is forced to divert into Liverpool due to mechanical failure. Striking dockworkers quickly seized the ship and its cargo and soon added them to the Workers Defence Force arsenal. Later named Faith, Hope and Charity, Faith is shown here after the application of its WDF red ID turret band.

An Earnhardt armoured car. Produced and used by Germany this one was captured by the Italians during WW1. When pressed, Benito Mussolini sent this one as a token of his support for the British Fascists in 1926. Named Carlotta (she’s a whole lotta car!) she’s shown here painted with the OMS / Fascist white turret band.

A motorbike / sidecar combination plus mounted troopers. I intend to use these for recon work and improving a forces overall command and control. I’ve kept them deliberately non faction specific.

And finally. Who’d have thought that these Ohio based rockers would have been so into WW1 British light tanks that they’d name a song after one?!

Take it away boys.

Blue on blue

Just a quick painting progress update this week.

A combination of catching Covid 19 and reduced blogging effort has seen a bit more progress than I’d expected on my interwar General Strike project, so I thought I’d share a few piccies. All minis are 10mm Pendraken.

A squad of British Fascists or “blue shirts” as the Daily Mail would refer to them (in my alternate timeline). Forces on the left soon began to call them “bennys” in mocking reference to their apeing of Benito Mussolini’s black shirts. Secretly armed and uniformed they eventually emerged as the militant wing of the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supply.

Note: The Irish and Spanish fascists of this period had blue shirts. Like all “good” fascists my chaps wear identifying  armbands. White for the OMS overlaid with a black central stripe and an embroidered branch name. (Smethwick in this case). The ice cream salesman hats have a black felt square on the front with a silver empire roaring lion badge. Anti Semitism had yet to rear its ugly head - these early fascists being all about the Empire and the establishment of a corporatist state. Think Scouts with a Lewis gun.

Two 4.5 inch howitzers without obvious factional affiliation (so I can get more use out of them). A very popular weapon that according to Wikipedia even saw early WW2 service.

Two command stands (one per side). They can be either command or they can double up as forward observers at a pinch. Sorry about the Dandelion seed blowing past (left).

Same boys from the back in order to show off the radio’s. These are from Pendrakens WW2 range but radios were actually being used in the mid 20’s army despite being clumsy and unreliable.

Vickers HMG and a mortar team. One per side at the moment, though playing on a 3x3 board I can’t think I’ll need any more than that.

Another squad of matelots - two in total now, for a bit of variety. This bunch have an officer or senior rating amongst them. 

Angry pro government middle class members of the OMS with their white armbands and assorted shotguns. Pretty good at writing letters to the editor of the Times, not so good as it turns out at blue collar work. If only the proles could just do as they’re told. 

I’m currently finishing off two cavalrymen and a motorcycle with sidecar combination for recon work. Next on the blocks will be 12 jock infantry though I’ll need to do a bit of experimentation with painting kilts. Wish someone made a tartan paint, lol. 

I should be onto vehicles within a week or so, and boy have I got some weird and wonderful looking things to assemble and paint up. I think you’ll like them.

Lastly for this post, an unexpected advantage to 10mm figures is their comparability with railway N gauge scenery. Nissan huts in cardboard are just part of a massive range of interesting (and cheap) buildings I’ve got on order. 

Nissan hut. I’ve always thought of them as a WW2 thing but they were first produced in 1916, so entirely applicable to 1926.

Toodleooh for now.