Booklet n°6 V1.0 - March the 19th 2025

At first the idea was to develop the Morris CS8 light truck, which could carry the 2-pounder antitank gun in portée. While I had to postpone the development of the too complex 2-pounder, the idea to leave space for the axle in glueing layers of cardboard was taken from the radio development and applied to the Pak 36 antitank gun instead.

While the booklet on the Pak 36 was being made, it appeared that three to four pages out of twelve would be blank. Both the Marmon-Herrington MkII and the Panzer II were developped to see if they were simple enough to be included, which led to two new booklets (see below).

At the end of February, three developments were very advanced, yet no booklet was in sight, so I decided to focus on an eight-page long Pak 36 booklet. It could be possible to edit a second version later, twelve pages long, which would include the soviet limber as well as other antitank guns such as the Bofors 37 mm.

Booklet n°7 V1.0, Panzer II - May the 12th 2025.

The standard road wheels of this design are made with the "spiral" method, which gives satisfactory results but takes a long time, about 2 hours for 11 wheels. The elaborate suspension takes at least an additional hour to make.

The Ausf b road wheels are simpler to make and inspired me to look into the development of a "generic light tank" design that would be faster to make than accurate models.

Note: due to a measurement error right at the start, this Panzer II design is 93% of the size it should have at this scale. This will also affect the Marder II / Pak 40 and Wespe/ 10,5 cm LeFH 18/2 booklets that are scheduled for 2026, although the corresponding artillery pieces will be at the correct scale.

Test Video 02 - A new setup - May the 22th 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Z83mlDypo

It took one year to make a camera crane and add features to it, which are all explained in detail here. The video also provides several scenes to illustrate these features. At long last detailed views of the miniatures and the battle mats are shown.

Work-in-progress version of Booklet n°8, Marmon-Herrington Mk II - July the 22nd 2025

What I anticipated: "While the development of the Pak 36 was going well and quickly, I thought I could develop the Marmon-Herrington MkII in parallel, because some of those were using captured Pak 36 guns. It turned out that there was a special version dedicated to mounting the Breda 20/65 antiaircraft gun. It would make more sense to dedicated a separate booklet for these two."

How it turned out: the Marmon-Herrington Mk II and its variants turned out to be historically more versatile than anticipated. In a way, it is the perfect example of a modular design. Some were captured by Germans and Italians (the Japanese captured Mk IIIs in Singapore), making it a good choice for "Toothpick Miniatures" since one booklet could cover so many possibilities.

During development it appeared that the booklet would be over twelve pages long, this enabled me to add two "substitute" models sharing many ressources of the platform, one being an equivalent to the Soviet BA-10, the other an equivalent to the German SdKfz 247 armoured car. I don't intend to develop another armoured car until at least 2027, so this was an opportunity to widen the catalog for wargamers, even if those models are not historically valid.

This is a very modular booklet, it uses modules from four other booklets (n°2 for the seats, n°6 for the Pak 36, n°9 for the Breda, the Hotchkiss 1934, the radios and possibly the MG34 & Vickers MG, n°10 for the BA-10 turret).

Second half of 2025

What I anticipated: " During the summer, I intended to make videos again, to increase the visibility of this website and also to illustrate its creative potential. This will be very time-intensive for me, therefore I won't provide a release schedule for now, it is probable that a new booklet will be available in September."

How it turned out: the video made about 140 views in two weeks then stagnated, whereas the website audience kept expanding. For the time being, it is more important to work on the booklets in order to offer a wide catalog of models.

The booklet n°10 "Projects 2025" is under development, it will offer plans and details for several designs that can be made using previous booklets as reference. While it won't be as detailed as the others, it will broaden the catalog. A developmental version of the Vickers "six ton" / T-26 tank will be included, with substitute suspension similar to that of the T-20 Komsomolets tractor. The original Vickers suspension is much more difficult to develop, if at all possible, but by providing this substitute version it will allow wargamers to use this ubiquitous interwar design.

Booklet n°11 V1.0 - Renault AHS, AHN and AHR - November the 28th 2025.

The original design was very modular, it allowed to make three types of truck with many components in common and few curved components.

Since I decided to avoid any window materials in my vehicle designs, except when folded down (Marmon-Herrington, possibly also the Morris CS8 in the future), there was the risk of have large rectangular openings that looked out of place. In this design, this is somewhat mitigated by having the front shield horizontally divided in two, which is also visually interesting.

This was a project I wanted to make for a long time. I would like to thank Piet Van Hees for the wealth of information about the AHN on his website ( https://pietvanhees.nl/ahn/index.htm ) and for having provided me the PDF for the "Instandsetzung" vehicle.

For those curious about the LC-Koffer, the German Wikipedia article about the Kfz. 305 is a treasure trove of information.

Booklet n°12 "AHN_II" - November the 28th 2025.

The Renault AHx series will probably be the only trucks in my catalog for at least the next two years, so I took the opportunity to use it as a base for substitute vehicles.

The Horstmann suspension turned out as complicated and fragile as I expected, but on the other hand I have been able to develop it. This opens up new possibilities, such as carriers (Loyd, Universal) and Light tanks. The cabin of the Opel Blitz seems to be too complicated to be used in these designs so far, so the AHx will have to substitute for many trucks of this kind.

It takes a lot of effort and trials to develop a truck cabin & floor (3,5 pages on Booklet n°11 + schematics), so instead of making a complete CMP Ford F-30 booklet, I spent 2,5 pages to modify the AHS cabin and develop the rest of the substitute "LRDG" vehicle.

Removeable roofs, floors and weapon platforms lead to considerable modularity.

As for future booklets, I will have to return to the n°8, n°9 and n°10 booklets I bypassed with this double-feature release. A new booklet should be available around March 2026.