6mm Soviet megalomania

In a strange twist of fate, I found myself, like a certain presidential figure yesterday afternoon, reviewing my former Soviet equipment.  This for me was ahead of a game in a week or so of Battlegroup Northag using some modified stats for US Army and Marine Corps taking on Soviet VDV and a Motor Rifle Division.  The need for some BMD-1s meant I was looking through various boxes of vehicles and figures.  Unlike my real world counterpart, I put them all back in their boxes and went off to cook some dinner.

The results - all my Soviet kit is aimed at generating forces for the 1980's Cold War, specifically around 1985, although a lot of older kit and some newer kit inevitably have crept in.

BTR-50s, mainly, for Soviet engineers and doubling up as Polish Topaz apcs for their marines, until I pick up enough of the new H&R models. 

Various Soviet and NATO air assets.

BMP-1s and infantry, plus some MRLs.

T-62s and T-80s (at least I think they are T-80s), plus some bridging vehicles.

T-64s, BTR-50s and some VDV or Polish marine special forces.

BTR-60s and Tunguska AAD vehicles.

T-64s, mostly.

T-62s and various command options.

Various engineers vehicles and some assorted radar vehicles.

Infantry and more ?T-64s.

BMD-1s and ASU-85s plus assorted artillery and apcs.

Now, when I've plucked up the courage, I shall have a look through the unpainted lead pile of shame, which I know contains a lot of Soviet kit, plus more Brits, West Germans and US equipment.  Then, of course, there's the new pile of 3d printed kit, which has again come to a temporary halt while I overcome the next challenge of resin curing on the LCD screen, although output up to last weekend has tripled the amount of unpainted resin I have waiting for attention.  I have made a start on painting some of the prints while I explore methods to get the resin off the screen.

As ever, thanks for looking.

WMMS 2020

Richard, Will and I put on a game at WMMS this weekend for the SOTCW, using Richard Crawley's fictional Black Sea country of Andeivia.  So far, we have covered Andreivia (roughly where Georgia might be in the real world) in WW1 and in the late 20th/early 21st Century.  This time, we placed the action in 1943 during WW2.  The game used Battlegroup rules with stats taken from Kursk and Tobruk, in 20mm scale.  The scenario involved the early stages of a German "raid" to secure a valuable stash of minerals essential to their war economy and known to be held at the quayside of Andreivia's main port near the capital, Tcherbevan.  It was also a handy way to test out the loyalty of the local population to the Soviet authorities and any non-Soviet factions that could represent possible Axis recruits.

The Germans paradropped a platoon of Fallschirmjagers adjacent to the quays, while landing an infantry platoon with support from Pz IIs and Pz IIIs (2 of each) along the coast adjacent to the harbour.  The call also went out to various local falangist militias, who seized village centres around the port in an attempt to isolate the area from Soviet reserves.

The Soviets had a platoon's worth of locally recruited units of the Red Army garrisoning the port, including an AT gun covering the beach and a mortar section inland, together with various local militias based on the Soviet partisan organisations recruited from dock workers.  Crucially, the docks also held an NKVD unit with integral armoured car support, helping to ensure the loyalty of the locally recruited troops.  Area reserves included 4 ageing T-26 tanks from the nearby tank driving school, plus a lorried infantry platoon.

The table layout as the game started.

Andreivian falangists in control of a nearby village.

A T-26 from the reserve moves hesitantly along the railway line - watch out for paratroopers in the woods.

The paratroopers dropzone - sadly, the open terrain was covered by Soviet defenders, so between landing casualties and incoming fire, the paratroopers were badly mauled.

Panzers push inland.  A single paratrooper section managed to silence the AT gun covering the beach, which allowed the armour to deploy, although infantry in the quayside buildings and fields seriously delayed infantry deployment from the landing boats.  The same paratrooper section then ambushed a T-26 on the railway, destroying it and delaying the Soviet response until the Panzers were in a better position.

Sadly, the game took up most of the time there, together with some shopping.  By the show's close, the Germans had a single Pz II runner, but an immobilised Pz III covered the direct approach of what was left of the Soviet reserves.  The fallschirmjager were just about wiped out, but had effectively dealt with the garrison troops and workers partisan groups around the docks.  The falangists had been spectacularly ineffective all game, so were in good shape to assist any incoming Axis second wave or disperse quietly if the Soviets reinforced first - as might be expected.  All in all, a fun game, some interesting events and tactical situations and a great try-out ahead of our weekend game at Crisis Point later this month.

There were lots of great games at the show, but I only managed to remember to take a photo of this one, a French-Indian wars table with a great wooden stockade/fort at the far end of the table, but loads of little actions going on all round.

As I've been working on a variety of jeep transports recently for US and British forces, as well as British paratroopers, it was nice to get a couple of shots of the US re-enactors jeep display.  It was quite bizarre at the end of the show as Will and I were heading off to Chester, the jeep, towing a 37mm gun, pulled out in front of us and made it's way through the traffic - I wondered how many passers by would have had to look twice.

As ever, thanks for looking.

6mm modern Soviet airforce additions

I've been trying to get my miniatures collection stored in a more efficient and less space consuming way, so have been delving through the lead mountain.  This has had the side effect of putting a smile on my wife's face as parts of her conservatory come back into view.  For me, it's put me face to face with various unstarted and partially completed projects.  So, I've started to go through them to decide whether they are going to be sold on or completed.  One timely find was a large box of unpainted modern aircraft in 6mm, which had lain neglected since I picked them up on the bring and buy at Gauntlet in 2015.

Without further ado, here are three Mig-21 Fishbeds ("Balalaikas").  I'll use these in the ground attack role in Cold War Commander, so have painted them in a tricolour camo scheme based on some images I found on Google.  I went with a sky blue underside colour, not sure how correct tht is, but you don't really see underneath as a player when you're trying to blast a NATO tank company out of a wood.

Another view.

Then here are three more Mig-21s in a uniform aluminium finish.  I thought these better represent an earlier scheme (1960s-70s) or in a fighter role.

Another view.

And finally, for this post, a Yak-28 Brewer, which I will use either as a tactical bomber or an ECM aircraft.  I again went with a three colour camo scheme of sand, green and earth as random splodges, again based on a 1980s/90s image on Google.

Another view.

A better perspective of the camo scheme.  There is something about this aircraft that really appeals to me, it looks like it was meant to move quickly, which of course it was.

So, that more than doubles my Soviet airforce and trebles my Soviet fixed wing aircraft.  There were many more in the box, which I'm sorting and, in some cases, trying to identify both aircraft type and manufacturer.  I think all of these are from Heroics and Ros.

As ever, thanks for looking.

Soviet 6mm air support

We played a game of Team Yankee on Thursday evening, pitting 200 points of Soviets against a similar points value of British and West Germans.  One of the Soviet players had no 6mm forces, so I made up a battlegroup from my collection, but realised I'd never got round to any fixed wing air assets.  So, I dug out a pair of Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoots (Rooks) and gave them a paint job as recommended in the Team Yankee rule book, which seems to match contemporary images that I could find on the internet.

Although I've got loads of unpainted Soviet aircraft (most the fruits of a Gauntlet bring and buy purchase a couple of years back), the following pictures show the current extent of their readiness.

A pair of Mil Mi-24 Hinds (Flying Tanks), which I've already posted pictures of a while back.

A pair of Mil Mi-8 Hips, again I've posted pics of these previously.

Then the pair of Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoots (Ravens), complete with their hand painted red stars.

I need to add another pair to have the full flight functionality for Team Yankee.  In our game on Thursday, the Soviets took a flight of 2 Frogfoots and 6 Hinds.  The 2 Frogfoots were nuisance value as they came on individually and the West German air defences were able to deal with them.  The Hinds rampaged through the British armour as the Brits had left their air defences behind so relied on their AA MGs, but came a cropper against the West Germans.  The 6 strong Hind flight attempted a strike on an M109 battery in the West German rear, but this was in range of the 3 local defence AA .50 cals on the M109s, as well as 2 Roland batteries and a Gepard battery.  Scratch 5 Hinds for the loss of a single M109.  This seems to reflect a general vulnerability of the Hinds in Team Yankee, which belies the Flying Tank reputation, as soon as they come up against any serious AA assets.

Thanks for looking.

20mm WW2 Soviet Heavy Weapons

To provide some support to my WW2 Russian infantry, I added a pack of Plastic Soldier Company Heavy Weapons.  These are painted and based the same way as the infantry.

Anti-tank rifles on the move.

AT rifles in action.

82mm mortar teams in action.

50mm mortar teams in action.

Maxim MMG teams moving.



Maxim MMG teams in action.

 

A great value pack providing plenty of support options.  I've got another pack of infantry and AT guns to finish off enough for a company for Battlegroup Kursk and a brigade for Rapid Fire.  I'll need to add some specialist scouts and engineers for completeness.

 

Thanks for looking.

20mm WW2 AT bunker

This is an anti-tank bunker I put together using a spare Zis-2 barrel from the Plastic Soldier Zis-2 & -3 kits I posted on a while back (http://sedimentswargameblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/20mm-ww2-russian-zis-2-and-3.html).  You get spare barrels to complete each gun as a Zis -2 or -3, so in my case I had two spare Zis-2 barrels.

I built a rectangular box on an mdf base, using balsa sheet offcuts, and based the barrel on another piece of balsa.  The earth banks were built up with blue high density polystyrene trimmed to shape and the wooden log revetting is made up of barbecue skewers.  The rear door is balsa sheet with a barbecue  skewer frame.  I used some acrylic filler to smooth everything out.  The ground surface is PVA glue mixed with earth paint and sprinkled with sand.  Static grass and various colours of grass tufts were added to finish it off.  The 20mm Russian soldier provides scale.

Quite pleased with this as, apart from a pack of skewers from the pound shop, the only cost was the price of the large base and a smaller mdf base for the roof.

I might add a concrete wall on a smaller base to screen the rear entrance from direct fire, just for completeness.

Thanks for looking.

20mm WW2 Russian Zis 2 and 3

The Plastic Soldier Company ran a VE day sale recently, which convinced me to add some artillery to my WW2 Soviet forces.  I picked up a pack of the Zis2/3 guns and completed two as Zis 2 57mm AT guns and two as Zis 3 76.2mm divisional guns.  I gave the crews of the Zis 2s helmets and Zis 3 crews field caps.  Each gun is based with three crew and I based each fourth crew member and boxes of ammo individually, three per gun, to represent the additional crew option in rules like Battlegroup.  Each sprue comes with spare wheels and barrels to make either gun variant, as well as individual shells, shell cases and small arms (rifles and SMGs).  I have plans to use some of the spare barrels to make into log-built field defences, using bamboo skewers and balsa offcuts.

The Zis 2s, waiting for the fascist armour.

The Zis 3s.

Great models, relatively straightforward and intuitive to assemble, despite the lack of instructions.  A good regular asking price, but in the sale an absolute bargain.  I also have the 45mm AT gun pack to assemble and I'll probably do the same with that kit and assemble 2 as 45mm AT guns and 2 as 76 mm infantry guns.

Thanks for looking.

20mm Modern Russian Spetsnaz AT-4 Spigot team

I've had these on the workbench for ages, but got round to finishing basing them along with the WW2 Russians.  These are from RH Models and provide an ATGM team for my Spetsnaz forces.

A nice sturdy model of the AT-4, easy to assemble and the usual RH Models style.  I tried something different with these, applying a dark sand camo over the Russian green uniform with a sponge to give a speckled effect.  Not sure it shows up too well in the photos, but looks quite good on the actual figures in the flesh.

Thanks for looking.

20mm Zvezda Soviet Motor Rifle AT-7 team

Continuing the Soviet/Russian theme from my last post; basically while I can still find the Russian Green and green grey paint pots, this is the Zvezda Motor Rifle AT-7 team.  Three figures, the AT-7 gunner and two assistants with spare rounds armed with AK-74s, one still carrying spare rounds on his back, the other has dropped his spare rounds next to the AT-7 gunner.  Minor assembly required but nothing too tricky.  Based and primed using my usual style, they are painted with a khaki grey wash, Russian Green body armour, helmets, AT-7 and weapon tubes.  NATO black boots and AK-74s.

Correction added; AT-7, not AT-4 (duh!).

As ever, thanks for looking.

20mm WW2 Soviet infantry

The possibility of a 20mm WW2 game at Gauntlet in July has given me the impetus I needed to dig out all the Works £2 diecast vehicles and the Plastic Soldier Company infantry that I bought in one of their sales a while back.

These are nice figures.  You get 57 in a box for anything between £10 and £15 here in the U.K.  They are hard plastic and come on three identical sprues, which need cutting carefully to free the figures.  Some assembly is needed (sticking on heads and arms mainly) and they can be stuck with poly cement or superglue (I used a Superglue this time).  I based them on 20mm square mdf bases from Minibits and undercoated them using Vallejo pale grey primer.  Uniform is a khaki grey wash, webbing and greatcoats in khaki.  Light brown for leather cases and ammo pouches.  Russian green helmets, NATO black boots and weapons, the latter dry brushed basalt grey, and beige brown for rifle stocks and entrenching tool handles.  The figures are very uniformly kitted out with greatcoat wrapped around their torsos, usually a leather case and ammo pouches, belts and Y shaped webbing belts.  Some wear helmets and the rest wear side caps, except the senior officer, who wears a peaked hat.

First up, the three figures carrying DP28 LMGs over their shoulders.  

Assistant LMG gunners, unarmed except for spare ammo cases.

Deployed DP28 LMG team in the prone position, wearing helmets.

For a bit of variety I did a team in side caps.

Advancing figures with rifles at the ready.

Throwing a stick grenade, armed with a PPSh-41 SMG.

Junior officers/NCOs/observers with pistol and binoculars.

Standing figures firing PPSh-41 SMGs.

Advancing carry rifle across body.

Similar pose with the PPSh-41 SMG.

Unarmed female soldiers, suitable for medics or command/communications groups.

Kneeling firing rifle in helmet.

Kneeling firing rifle in side caps.

Standing firing rifle in side cap.

Running with PPSH-41 SMG.

Senior officer pointing with binoculars and holstered pistol.

Kneeling firing PPSh-41 SMG.

Rifle advancing in helmet.

Crouching with rifle at the ready.

Really nice poses that should mix well with both metal and other plastic soldier manufacturers.  Good value with 19 different poses plus some variability through relatively easy head swaps.  I'll probably look elsewhere for additional troops as I like a bit of variety of poses and I don't think I'll have much use for the unarmed female figure - different if she was armed or operating a radio or some other more useful pose.  I like the look of the Italeri and Pegasus figures, so will probably add packs of these if I go as far as building up a company.  I have a pack of the PSC heavy weapons, which I'm in the process of assembling.  These are proving to be rather fiddly, especially the Maxim HMGs, which don't seem to fit together too smoothly - in fact they are something to be a real pain in the ass, but I'm sure they will be worth it in the end.  Plus, in the pack you do get 6 AT Rifles (3 deployed and 3 moving), 3 50mm mortars, 3 82mm medium mortars and 6 Maxim HMG teams, 3 firing and 3 moving.  More of these in another post.

Thanks for looking.