Sally 4th Type 24 Pillbox.

At Salute 2017 I bought two pillbox kits from Sally 4th. The Type 22 pillbox was assembled and painted last year. I decided to assemble the Type 24 as a concrete box, so covered the outside with a thin layer of Milliput. If you went to Colours via Reading, you might have noticed a similar box near Thatcham station.

I used Rustoleum Rust effect spray to provide some texture. I used masking tape to prevent the roof from sticking to the walls. The metallic effect paint was then covered with Halfords grey spray paint.

The final base colour was Army Painter Stone Golem acrylic, brush painted over the grey. This was then washed with first with Citadel Nuln Oil followed by Citadel Agrax Earthshade. It was then dry brushed with Citadel Terminatus Stone.

 The door still needs to be painted.

Detail of the texture.

The roof texture.

The Naked Pillbox - Sally 4th Type 22 pillbox

Sally 4th have recently released a range MDF kits of British pillboxes.

The kit is constructed of slices with pillars for alignment. As some pillboxes were constructed with either a brick facing or brick formers, I thought this would be an interesting appearances.

The method of construction gave me an idea on how to represent the bricks.

I numbered each of the slices then divided them into piles of odd and even slices. Using a razor saw I then scored representations of the vertical mortar lines. The two piles are shown below, stacked on top of each other.

The base plate and slices have location holes, The fit of the location posts is a bit sloppy, so assembly had to be undertaken while the glue of the first slice was still setting.

A glass plate was used for levelling the slices. An engineers square is useful. You can see the numbers identifying the slices. Slice 8 is the last one before the window slices are added.

Here are the pieces that make up the window layers.

Here is the assembled box. The top layer has a locating hexagon glued in place.

The parallel lines at the edge of the faces above and below are the attachment points left when the parts are cut with the laser. William Killian for scale.

With the top removed you can see the internal height. The box is 72mm across flats and 46mm high. The walls are 10mm thick. This scales out at 4.02m by 2.58m and 0.56m thick. This is actually thicker than the shell proof version, but that might not include the brick facing/former.

The body and the top were first undercoated with Halfords grey primer. The inside of the top and the top of the box were masked, as was the door and windows. The two parts were then sprayed with Citadel Roughcoat textured paint. The final coat was Humbrol 237 for the top and Halfords Red Primer.

Two coats of Citadel Agrax Earthshade toned and darkened the rather alarmingly bright colours.

The door was painted with Citadel Deathworld Forest. Citadel Golgfag Brown was dry brushed over the brickwork. The corners were also edge highlighted, Citadel Terminatus Stone provided a top level highlight. This was applied both to the brickwork and the concrete.

Here is the pillbox with an Empress Miniatures FT tank.

Now, during World War 2 the pillboxes were camouflaged, but this one has not yet been painted.

Pillboxes

With Warlord Games releasing the Operation Sealion book for Bolt Action, there has been a renewed interest in Britain's defences.

For a general overview, this Wikipedia article is a good start:

British hardened field defences in World War 2

Here are a few photographs of pillboxes I have seen.

This circular pattern pillbox overlooks Swanage harbour.

According to the above article, this is probably a Type 25. The corrugated shuttering leaves a distinctive shape to the outer surface.

This Type 24 pillbox is now being used as a shelter for bats.

This particular example's external brick shuttering with a  concrete core.

 This is the same pillbox photographed at a different time.