Challenge Submission #18 - Another Mixed Bag of WW2 Vehicles

 

Last November fellow Conscript Dallas and I were discussing the idea of a France 1940 scenario for Bolt Action. We had played 'The Battle of Stonne' scenario from the Bolt Action campaign book 'Germany Strikes' in October 2021, and were looking at another chance to pit French and German armour against each other. We settled on 'The Battle of Orp' where the 3rd Panzer Division met the 3^e DLM (3rd Light Mechanized Division). A few of the vehicles needed were not in either of our collections, plus I had been looking at ordering some German and Soviet trucks to transport troops on the battlefield, as well as some more early Soviet armour. In the end  I ordered 3 GAZ AAA trucks, 3 T-26 tanks, 3 Krupp Protze trucks, 2 Panzer III Ausf E tanks, and a Hotchkiss H39 tank from Rubicon Models. They arrived just before last Christmas.

 

A group shot of all twelve vehicles

A size comparison of three tanks in the same scale

The GAZ-AAA was a truck produced at the Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod (Gorky Automobile Plant) from 1936 to 1943 as the company's first 6-wheeled vehicle. During that time, over 37,000 trucks of various patterns were built. The Rubicon kits were easy to assemble, and  could be completed with or without a driver in the cab. (I went with the driver option.) It comes with a one-piece tarp that can be snapped into place, so I can field them with the tarp on or off. They will provide some necessary transport for all my Soviet infantry.

 

GAZ-AAA truck with tarps

GAZ-AAA truck without tarps

 

The T-26 tank kit comes with all the necessary parts to build one of ten different variants of the tank, which was based on Vickers E Six Ton. The T-26 entered active service for the Red Army in 1932, and it was used in many conflicts of the 1930s as well as during the Second World War. When production ceased in 1941, over 10,000 tanks of all variants had been produced. Of all the options available, I went with the M1933 turret, and assembled one with a radio aerial along with a commander that came with the Warlord Games BT-7 tanks I had painted in January. 

 

The German Krupp Protze was a truck used by the Wehrmacht to transport troops and tow the 37mm anti-tank gun. While I have a number of German 251/1 half-tracks, the reality is that most Panzergrenadiers rode in trucks. Using Bolt Action rules, the cost of a truck is less than half the cost of a half-track. The Rubicon kits can be built as the troop transport variant, with the tarp either up or down, or to tow the PAK. I built all of mine as transports, so I may end up ordering another as a towing vehicle.

 

The German Panzer III Ausf. E was an early model of that tank armed with a 37mm gun in the turret. It saw service in Poland and France before being replaced by upgraded versions. The Rubicon kits supply enough parts to build one of the E, F, or G variants of the tank. I added a commander that came with the Bolt Action Panzer I tanks I built in December as I liked it better than the one that came with the models. I painted up my Panzer IIIs as part of the 3rd Panzer Division with the Berlin bear symbol on the side of the turret.

 

 The French Hotchkiss H39 was an improved version of the H35. Some models were further upgraded to a longer-barrelled SA38 37mm anti-tank gun. The Rubicon kit is a resin model with enough extra parts to build the French tank with either the SA38 or the earlier Puteaux SA18 low velocity gun, as well as a different cupola if you want to build a version of the tank in German service. 

 

 

Thanks for reading. We are planning on playing the 'Battle of Orp' scenario soon, so stay tuned for the After Action Report.
 

Challenge Submission #11 - A Mixed Bag of WW2 Vehicles

I had a hard time focusing during the last week of January, ricocheting around from project to project without seeming to get closer to completion. Eventually things started falling into place, and I ended up with 9 completed vehicles. Some of these have been sitting in my 'IN' box for over a decade, so it felt good to finally get them ready for the gaming table.

First up is a DUKW with a British RASC driver. This was a toy dating from the 1960s that originally belonged to my younger brother. It suffered some 'battle damage' at some point, and my brother was no longer interested in it. I thought I might be able to fix it, and it seemed like the right scale for 28mm gaming. In fact, measuring its length and comparing it to the length of an actual DUKW, it works out to be 1/56. The only 'flaw' is that it only has a single axle in the rear instead of two. I have no idea who manufactured it, but it reads 'NOVELTY' and 'Made in Hong Kong' on the bottom. 

 

The broken pieces near the back and the front right wheel well were filled in using epoxy putty, while the front windshield was fashioned from pieces of clear plastic cut from a CD case. The crates and fuel drums came from a Bandai Maultier kit, and the driver is an old Bolt Action jeep driver that I had in my 'bits box' along with the rolled up tarp. It is now ready to ferry supplies or a squad of commandos across a river or from ship to shore.

 

Next up is a Kübelwagen Type 82/3. This was a mock-up scout car/armoured vehicle with a machine gun-turret atop the cabin. It was apparently built for decoy and training purposes. I bought this from Wargames Foundry decades ago. It came with the Feldgendarm, but I only painted up the 'Kettenhund' as I couldn't decide the colour scheme that would be most appropriate. Eventually I thought Panzer Dunkelgrau would do just as well as any other colour, and now it's finally done.

 

 Third on our list is a Bandai 1/48 SdKfz 3 Maultier that I picked up off Ebay. This was another project where I couldn't decide what colour to paint it, but I finally decided to go with Panzer Dunkelgrau with an Olive Green striped camouflage suitable for the Russian Front. The tarp was painted Tan Earth and given a wash of GW Agrax Earthshade. I then liberally applied Vallejo European Dust wash everywhere. The kit came with a cargo of four petrol drums and two large crates, but since nobody would see them with the tarp in place, I used them for the DUKW.

 

 Next is a 3D printed French Panhard 178 armoured car that was from the same run as the two painted by Fellow Conscript DallasE. I used a different paint scheme that is based on a surviving example in the Musée des Blindés in Saumur, France. I used Vallejo Gunship Green and Chocolate Brown with a sharp black line in between. I left off the fifth wheel, but added a muffler on the right side made from a piece of plastic sucker stick. Sometimes it helps a recce unit to not be heard, as well as not be seen. The decals were all ones that were kicking around in my files, so I didn't have to free hand any roundels. 

 

The fifth item is a group of four M5 Half-tracks to provide some additional armoured lift capability to my 2nd Canadian Division. I am not sure if these were used in any of the infantry divisions, so I may have to mark them up for the 4th Canadian Armoured Division. The models are either Corgi or Solido 1/50 vehicles that all came in different colours and configurations. One was an ambulance version that had a tarp on it, and the back door was cut out. The tarp was tossed in the 'bits box' while the missing door was replaced using thin plastic card. Everything was painted a uniform colour and then 'muddied up'. The verdict is still out on what stars should be added and where, but the vehicles are now ready to take to the field and move a platoon of infantry in relative safety on the battle field.

 

 The last vehicle of this post is a Warlord Games 1/56 resin and metal M10 Achilles mounting a 17 pounder. While this is a newer acquisition compared to some of the other vehicles, it sat on the shelf for a while before being assembled. When it arrived, the tracks were warped and didn't form a clean fit with the chassis. A bath in some boiling water and some careful pressure in the right places straightened things out to an acceptable degree and things proceeded readily from there. Two of the crew in the turret are part of the resin casting while the third crewman is in metal. All came with separate heads which can provide some variety if you want to field more than one. The tarps were added from my 'bits box'. 

The only two Canadian units that used 17pdr M-10s were the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment RCA of the 5th Canadian Armoured Division; and the 7th Anti-Tank Regiment RCA of the 1st Canadian Corps Artillery. Both Regiments would have had two batteries of towed 17pdrs and two SP batteries with 17pdr M-10s

 

 As I said in the title, it is definitely a mixed bag of vehicles, but they are now all done.Thanks for reading.

 

Challenge Submission #5 - За Родину (For the Homeland) WW2 Soviet Armour

Since I had painted up a large force of German armoured vehicles in an earlier submission, Stalin was starting to look at the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with growing suspicion. It was now time to increase the Red Army's tank arm. Ready for this week's report are the following: a BA-20 armoured car, a trio of BT-7 fast tanks, a KV-1, and a Lend-Lease M10 Wolverine.

First up is a BA-20 armoured car, which is a 1/48 scale plastic kit from Ace Models out of Kyiv. I did another model by this company in my first submission as part of my early war Polish Army reinforcements. I found these kits to be finely detailed, but a bit fiddly to put together. Instead of the body being a one- or two-piece molding, it consisted of separate eight pieces. After assembly, the vehicle was primed black with a rattle can, and given a base coat of Russian Green. This was followed by some drybrushing along raised surfaces and edges with Vallejo Olive Green. After the decals were applied, it got a wash of Vallejo European Dust.

 

Up next is a platoon of three 1/56 scale BA-7 fast tanks from Warlord Games. The Soviets produced over 5700 of these between 1935 and 1940, and in 1941 it was the main cavalry tank of the Soviet army. However some 2000 were lost during the first 12 months on the Eastern Front.  These are resin castings with metal gun barrels and turret hatches. The castings were very clean, and came as just two pieces - the body of the tank, including all the tracks and road wheels, and the turret. The kits all included a metal tank commander of which I used one. They also included flame and smoke markers consisting of a wooden base and some coloured wool in white, black, and orange-red to glue on. They were painted in a similar manner to the BA-20 armoured car.

 

 Now we have the "Russischer Koloss" or "Russian Colossus", the mighty KV-1 heavy tank. The Soviets produced over 5,000 of these between 1939 and 1943, with about 500 in service at the start of Operation Barbarossa. This is another 1/48 scale model, this time from Hobby Boss. When first looking at the kit, especially with all the separate track pieces, I was a bit intimidated. However it went together very smoothly, and had a lot of interesting details such as etched brass parts, and fine twisted copper wire for the tow cables. The painting technique I used was the same as with the previous vehicles. I used one of the three options for decals provided by the kit, specifically that of the 12th Guards Armoured Regiment, 1st Moscow Mechanized Division, August 1942.

 

Lastly I did a Lend-Lease M10 Wolverine, which is a repainted 1/50 scale Solido diecast model that I was given by fellow Conscript DaveV. I already had a 1/56 scale resin model of the M10 Achilles with a 17-pounder from Warlord Games, and the size disparity was too great for me to ever field the two models on the table together. The solution was to send the Solido M10 to the Eastern Front. Approximately 52 M10s were supplied to the Soviet Union through Lend-Lease. They were used to form two self-propelled artillery regiments. The first was the 1223rd Self-propelled Artillery Regiment of the 29th Tank Corps, part of the 5th Guards Tank Army. This unit served on the 3rd Belorussian Front in 1944, taking part in summer campaigns in Belorussia, the Baltic, and East Prussia. The 1239th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment was part of the 16th Tank Corps, 2nd Tank Army. It fought in Belorussia and Poland in 1944.

Painting this vehicle was pretty much as per the rest of the vehicles in this post. The only change was the addition of a gun crew, which was needed due to the open-topped turret. The three crewmen were converted from some spare Soviet tank crew that were left over from a Bandai T34 kit plus two sets of 'seated legs' left over from some unused Panzer crews. I also added a .50 cal machine gun from my bits box.  In the end, I had to trim a little off the bottom of their legs so that they would all fit in the turret. I am pretty pleased with the way they all came together.

 

Thanks for reading.

From the Challenge: 1/56 Panzer I Ausf Bs from Bolt Action

 

Well, after playing Fredrick's excellent "Danzig Post Office" Bolt Action game a few weeks ago, early-WW2 fever has flared up again. Fortunately this coincided with a) a Warlord Games order pending from Frederick, and b) the "Tanksgiving" buy-two-get-one-free promotion. So I duly added three Pzkpfw I Ausf. B tanks to his order.

 

The models duly arrived and painted up very quickly indeed. They're 1/56 scale though - unlike most of the rest of my collection - so I boosted them a bit by putting them on bases. The models are pretty nice though - all resin except for the MG barrels and headlight, plus each one came with a metal commander half-figure.

I did them up in grey (Mechanicum Standard Grey/Dawnstone/Administratum Grey) with a Nuln Oil wash and light Celestra Grey drybrush on the panel edges. I did Corax White crosses as displayed in the Polish campaign, and small 3-digit tactical numbers using decals from the 15mm Team Yankee range (they fit).

Tracks were painted Steel Legion Drab, washed Nuln Oil, and drybrushed Leadbelcher. Some light weathering with Steel Legion Drab and the models were complete.

Here's the other two tanks in the Zug.

Here's one of the Panzer Is with an old Bandai 1/48 Pzkpfw II just to show scale. I think that the base really helps even them out.

 

I painted one of the spare commanders to go in the open hatch of the Panzer II. They're nice early-war tankers wearing the "schutzmutze" protective helmet and beret.

The Pzkpfw Is are a good addition to my early-war German forces and are a tank I've always thought looks cool. Glad to have gotten these on a deal, even if they ARE 1/56...