Finished - Howitzer and Morris Quad truck - 1/72

[bianfuxia]

 

I decided I should do this truck and howitzer alongside my Churchill bridgelayer tank (in the Matchbox GB). For a long time I thought it would be cool to have this thing parked behind the tank waiting to continue the advance into German-held territory once the bridge was laid down. Historically accurate? Who knows, but I feel like it's certainly within the realms of the possible.

 

I had glued about six parts of this together when I began it today, way back maybe ten years ago when I bought this. Today when I started it again, I didn't photograph the sprues until I'd already started painting. But it was basically new and certainly within the 25 per cent.

 

 

 

Since I took that earlier this afternoon I've painted everything in Vallejo US dark green. Not fully convinced it's the right colour but as long as it's not the same colour as the Churchill I think it's ok. You can see the little Italeri US infantry who may figure in this later on.

 

I'm adding this because the howitzer is for ground targets and I think that makes eligible - happy to remove if not!

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by bianfuxia

[Col.]

Good to see another less common subject in our GB

[Andrew Jones]

Be aware , that although the box calls this a Morris Quad , it is in fact a model of a Canadian CMP Ford Quad.

[bianfuxia]

51 minutes ago, Andrew Jones said:

Be aware , that although the box calls this a Morris Quad , it is in fact a model of a Canadian CMP Ford Quad.

Thanks - but I'm not too worried. I'm just going to build it OOB to sit next to a Matchbox tank - I'm not too worried about the finer points on this one! 🙂

[desert falcon]

Interesting subject @bianfuxia 👍

[bianfuxia]

Made a little headway on this one tonight:

 

The howitzer itself is a nice little model, especially for the vintage of this kit.

 

 

It needs a lot of touch up paint still.

 

The limber, or little trailer that must have carried the shells, is also kind of cool. I need to do some touch up paint before I put the wheels on:

 

 

I've also done a little of the chassis of the truck, but no pic yet.

[Col.]

That certainly has a lot of detail in a small space

[bianfuxia]

I've been beavering away on this. I finished up the cannon and limber a while back and then over the last few nights did some more on the truck.

 

first, windows made from clear plastic. The kit instructions include a template you can cut out. I used this for the weird shaped front windscreen, but eyeballed the other windows.

 

 

I didn't really bother with the interior too much:

 

 

 

One of the rear seats was missing a part - I've had this kit a long time. Once the roof is on you can't see much inside anyway. I did add the controls and steering wheel though, but didn't photograph it.

 

Then I again had to use superglue to get everything to stay in place:

 

 

Despite the strange design, it's actually a pretty cool looking truck.

 

 

 

While there are undoubtedly more modern vehicles, I could totally see myself using this truck and the trailer - but not the howitzer - on some kind of awesome long distance cross country trip across Australia or a similarly massive and harsh land. 

 

 

Now by this point you'll have realized that I am not that into armour and i am certainly not your go-to-guy for amazingly detailed and weathered vehicles. I just enjoy building them occasionally for a change of pace.

 

With that in mind, this one is nearly finished. I want to do some touch up paint and also paint some black splodges on - the camo scheme in the instructions has that. I may then see if I can get at least a little bit of weathering to happen.

 

But I think it's looking pretty cool for the moment.

Edited March 27, 2022 by bianfuxia

[arfa1983]

4 hours ago, bianfuxia said:

but not the howitzer

 

How else are you gonna catch your dinner? 

[bianfuxia]

5 hours ago, arfa1983 said:

 

How else are you gonna catch your dinner? 

If you took that howitzer into the outback to catch a crocodile, there'd be some grizzled local next to you saying:

 

Mate, you're gonna need a bigger gun.

[dogsbody]

I started one of the ESCI 1/72 Morris Quads years ago, before Italeri re-popped it. For some reason, I didn't finish it and it was reduced for reuse.

 

 

 

Chris

[bianfuxia]

Well, I'm signing this one off as done. Did some final touch-up paint tonight, used superglue to fix a few bits that fell off, and did the decals. According to the instructions, it's from the British 7th armoured division June 1944. Better pics in the gallery soon.

 

 

[81-er]

I'll look forward to those gallery pics, you've done a grand job of that 

 

James

[bianfuxia]

9 hours ago, 81-er said:

I'll look forward to those gallery pics, you've done a grand job of that 

 

James

thank you!

 

Here are the final pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Australian backyard doesn't have much by way of Normandy scenery...and I heard a distinctly snakey sounding rustling from the nice sunny spot I'd first thought to pose this in. I saw a brown snake in the yard not long ago and I'm afraid a 1/72 scale howitzer is not much defence against those guys, who are the second-most venomous snake in the world - of course we have the most venomous, too, though not around here, and also many others on the top ten list (as we Aussies never cease to enjoy reminding those of you from the Lands of Feeble Serpents, haha).

 

Anyway so here it is trucking its way through a recently bombarded landscape on the way to defeating Fascism...

 

Judging by the truck's performance in this video, I think it'd have no trouble with this mossy field.

 

 

thanks for looking!

Edited April 15, 2022 by bianfuxia

[PeterB]

Well done. 

 

The Morris quad is not the most attractive of vehicles, but this is the first time I have seen the Canadian version and it is downright ugly because of the way they have cut down the back end! Still it did its job anbd that's all you could ask. Nice take on the Mickey Mouse camo pattern.

 

Pete

[desert falcon]

Very well done, they look great in your backyard 👍

[81-er]

It looks positively at home in our garden there! Nicely set up shots, showing off your build perfectly

 

James

[bianfuxia]

Thanks everyone! It is pretty amazing what sunlight and a good backdrop can do to elevate a model! 😁

[Toryu]

Very cute! (if you can say this of a gun). There's a lot of fine detail in the painting for the small scale. Looks like Tom Thumb going to war in your garden...