If you ask me, Flanagan, there's a lot of very peculiar blokes on this beach: Making Ford F30s for the LRDG

Ford F30s for Chain of Command

Before I start, an apology. This is the third and final part of a set or articles that I started back in 2013. I know, I really have taken far too long to finish this. My excuse is that I had originally made the Ford F30 models for Flames of War, and it was around this time that I lost interest completely in that rule set, mainly because I object to having to fork out for new books every few years - but also that we started playing Chain of Command in 15mm and (in my opinion) it's a much better game.

This meant that my F30 models have sat around primed and ready to paint, along with a load of 15mm 8th Army and Afrika Korps models, for a quite ridiculous number of years. It has taken lockdown (and the promise of playing some Chain of Command desert war games) to bring them to the painting table, and finally they are done and I am writing this post.

I said at the end of the second post in this set that the third one would show the all-important finishing touches, but apologise for never taking any photos of the final assembly of the vehicles and the stowage added. Where I can remember, I've described this in the notes under the images. This, then, is a short post to show some pictures of the finished models. I have not added specific unit markings to the vehicles, though. If decals had been readily available I might have and maybe I will do this in the future, but I like the look of the vehicles as they are anyway so let's leave it there.

Here then are photos of the finished figures, along with images of the rest of the vehicles in their units, and their crew, who are now based for Chain of Command rather than Flames of War.

One of the finished models on the painting table

I painted the F30s in a camo scheme plausibly used by the LRDG of Canadian sand (Vallejo green ochre with a lighter highlight) overlain with sharp-edged bands of azure blue (Foundry tomb blue). Stowage added to the vehicle comes from items in the bit box, and rolled canvas made from Milliput.

Another of the F30 models on the painting table

Camo netting within the stowage is fine cotton netting that has been soaked in PVA glue before attaching to the model. As well as looking good this is very effective at hiding minor errors! I based the trucks on spare Flames of War infantry bases which were slightly enlarged by cutting two bases and gluing them together to the required length. These were textured with a mix of filler, PVA, water and fine sand and sprinkled with chinchilla dust to give surface texture. When dry, bases were painted with cheap emulsion paint - Crown Brown Sugar, dry brushed when dry with Crown Biscuit.

Truck #1

Truck #2

Truck #3

When I painted these models I also painted the rest of my LRDG models, so here are some pictures of them as well.

Officer's car (left), Ford command car (centre), Ford radio truck (right)

Early patrols in which the Ford F30s were most likely to be used would not have been equipped with jeeps but would have used older vehicles such as the Ford patrol cars above for their command vehicles.