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Just picked up a couple heavy weapon squads for my vaguely British WWI themed army. I'm doing 4 autocannons and 3 lascannons and they just don't look right on a tripod. I'd like to do a field gun sort of thing with them, but I'm not quite sure how to build/convert a carriage. There's an abundance of things in a bitzbox for wheels, but how to mount it?

I suppose I could always mount them on the carriages for Ork zzap guns, or order the OOP original autocannons, but that would require costly bitz orders that would take a while to get here. I know the ubiquitous Colonel Gravis of Praetoria has had some success, but I can't for the life of me figure out how he did it.

Any suggestions?

Have a look at this article on the British 18 Pounder field gun of WW1.

You will need to build limbers as well as carriages. The limber was used for towing the gun as well as ready ammo storage.

The basic components of the carriage are the axle tree, the vertical frame suspending the trunnions and sighting equipment, the trail, and the shield. It should be reasonably easy to make all those components out of plastic card, rod and so on.

Forgot your link there, Kilkrazy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance_QF_18_pounder

I did some searching, and came up with a pretty cheap military model from taimya... its German 75mm Anti Tank Gun Kit, model number 35047... its 1/35 scale but you should be able to kitbash leftover heavy weapons onto the carriages. The only real problem you might have is finding them... it seems everybody is out of stock atm.

FoxPhoenix135 wrote:I did some searching, and came up with a pretty cheap military model from taimya... its German 75mm Anti Tank Gun Kit, model number 35047... its 1/35 scale but you should be able to kitbash leftover heavy weapons onto the carriages. The only real problem you might have is finding them... it seems everybody is out of stock atm.

Do you mean this model?

http://www.aaronshobbies.com/Tamiya-135-German-75mm-Anti-Tank/M/B000WN8AQG.htm?traffic_src=froogle&utm_medium=organic&utm_source=froogle

If so, that's WAY too big to convert into man-portable 28mm heavy weapons. 1/35 scale is almost 2x larger than most 28mm minis....

Try searching for 1/48 scale field pieces, which size up well to 28mm minis...

Thanks for your help guys. I took another look over my army list and it would seem I'm going to need yet more heavy weapons. Needless to say, the prospect of scratchbuilding 10+ field guns is pretty daunting.

I'm currently browsing through 1/48 scale field pieces, does anyone happen to have a picture of what a kit scaled to this size looks like next to a Cadian, or preferably a Warzone Imperial trencher?

If no viable kit is found I'm just going to save my pennies and invest in the collectors range heavy weapons.

WWI Field guns?

George Spiggott wrote:WWI Field guns?

Holy hell those are cool. Can I get some context to that image?

Also, after a few hours of google-fu I have failed to find a suitable model kit. The closest I got was a 1/48 scale Flak 88 which is OOP and therefore expensive, and much too large for a field gun anyway.

There's a 1/48 BOFORS on modelhobbie.co.uk

Admittedly it's not an earthshaker, but it's pretty fitting.

I need some of those for my Orks... I smell a conversion coming on.

Sprue pieces can work well for making the gun limber.

I think there're WHFB Empire guns with spoked wheels, but I might be imagining things.

The other thing you could do is just buy the FW Krieg Heavy Weapons if you have the cash.

Alright, I've done some soul searching an discovered I'm far too cheap to buy collectors heavy weapons, and if I start buying DKOK stuff I'm going to drop all my projects and start a Death Korps army.

The hunt is on for wheels and limbers. Mostly wheels, because as my friend with fine musical taste Metallifan so aptly stated, the limbers can probably be fashioned from sprue or card/rods with minimal fuss.

Check the local toy section... nowadays they are making toy cars in bigger sizes than the hot wheels we grew up with... and some of them actually have rubber wheels! A lot of times they are already on a metal "axle" too, which would be of some benefit I imagine. A local garage sale or dollar store might yield some fruit too.

Also in toys are us there is a world war range , they look like pre painted minis , I know they had some field guns that would work .

There is a WWI IG army out there called the 33rd Genswick Rifles and Dave Taylor converted his heavy weapons using the ork big guns as a base:

Lol I actually bought the valhallan squad of those...

What about the little green plastic army men. Cheap and should be relatively easy to convert.

Look at the right corner. Would that work?

Salted Diamond wrote:What about the little green plastic army men. Cheap and should be relatively easy to convert.

Look at the right corner. Would that work?

Hmmmmmm... possibly. Can you link me to the actual product?

I think I've found my solution though! http://www.theassaultgroup.co.uk/store/product.php?productid=448&cat=34&page=1

5 for around $8. Just need the scale independently verified. I know a lot of converters around here have used Assault Group weapons on their guard with minimal fuss around here though. If they're the size I think they are, the little tripod peg on the bottom of the ACs and LCs could just pop right in to the hole in the limber. Plus, free assault cannons...

You may find the Assault Group Maxim carriage rather small for 40K size weapons.

It might be worth thinking of using a 54mm scale carriage. The models shown here give you an idea of the size of the wheels compared to the men, and also a possible source of 54mm bits.

http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/54mmRanges/54mmWorldWar1.htm

54mm is equivalent to 1/35 or 1/32 which is a good size for vehicle kits for 40K.

The Irregular Maxim plus crew is rather expensive, but they might let you have just the carriage parts, if you asked nicely.

I used the mounting bracket from the dozer blade on the vehicle sprue as the carriage for my heavy mortars. I mounted the ammo box from the same sprue and used some Ork truck wheels from the bits box.