15mm Russian WW2 AT Gun

Defend the Motherland!

In between painting winter stuff, I finished another piece of summer kit for my summer WW2 Russians, a 76mm gun.  The gun and crew are all from Peter Pig, and the large base is from Battlefront. Again, I have to apologize for the bonky lighting on the photos...the grass is not actually sci-fi-neon yellow on the base...

Used for everything from defeating Panzers to opening ration cans at camp...

Unlike most artillery pieces, this actually makes a bit of sense to have directly on the table top. The Russian army had clouds of these things during WW2, some as light artillery, others as direct-firing anti-tank guns (many probably used as both). 

Tried to paint a few chips into the metal here and there to give a sense the gun had seen some action

As always the quality of Peter Pig is top-notch.  I wish their guns came with more little extras, like ammo boxes or shell casings (which you often get with Battlefront), but overall Peter Pig continues to offer the top overall sculpts on 15mm WW2 stuff.

Prepare to fire on the fascists!

This gun is a little lonely in the collection right now - how often did the Russians ever have just one of anything? I did it as an experiment to see how the Peter Pig artillery pieces looked, and I am pretty pleased, so I will need a few more to round out the battery.  And of course, will need to do a few with winter bases now...

Winter Approaches - WW2 Russians in 15mm

For the motherland!!

(Please note this is a cross post from Curt's Analogue Hobbies Blog). In his recent post, Curt unveiled our latest little project - late WW2 in winter on the eastern front in 15mm.  He asked me to share some progress photos on the Russian side of the project, so here is a Russian rifle platoon and tank platoon decked out in winter gear and basing.

You will see in these photos that a) I do not have a light box (one of these days maybe, but anyway) so sorry about the photos and b) that I have not yet cottoned on to Curt's very sensible basing scheme using different shapes to denote different functions in skirmish gaming (hex for officers etc).

Part of my hobby nuttiness is an undue rigidity in my preferences on basing i.e. if the infantry are round then they are all round dammit! This works well enough for skirmishing with 15mm sci-fi figures, where the function/role of an individual figure can stand out against the ambient table background a little better because of crazy painting, large weapons among other factors.

But for skirmishing at 15mm WW2, it's tricky to see the different weapons sometimes (or maybe all the time for some players).  So I have ordered some new bases! But in the interim, labels will have to do for my fellows until I get them sorted on to new bases....anyway, on to the figures!

Russian infantry advance through the snow

A sniper waits in ambush - the snipers were pretty scary when we tried Chain of Command, so I thought it would be fun to include one

The infantry in this post are from Peter Pig (in my opinion the very best WW2 15mm figures out there, if you can figure out their bloody web site).  The only exception is the sniper - a spare from a Battlefront pack.  The infantry contingent includes three nine-man squads, two officers and a sniper.  Enough for a Bolt Action of Chain of Command-type skirmish game.

Another view of the charging Russian troops - beautiful sculpts from Peter Pig

After experimenting with different sorts of snow-flake type groundwork products, I opted instead for gel.  I used a mix of different gel mediums on the bases, painting the snow a light blue-grey, and then dry-brushing various shades of white, before tossing in some dirt and adding some grass.  The photos make the grass look really yellow but that is a reflection of the lighting issues on the photos - the grass looks much less lively in person.

The officers are front and centre in this shot

I have been wanting to do winter WW2 gaming for years, and talking about doing it for years (Dallas, I know, has heard me blab about it many times), but I always hung up on the details before getting started.  I didn't really know how to do snowy terrain.  It seemed pointless to duplicate my existing 15mm stuff. I didn't want to get another set of table terrain.  Lots of reasons (read: excuses) which, oddly, never popped into my head when I thought of doing, say, desert terrain.  So I'm glad Curt finally kicked me into gear on this one.

There are so many compelling campaigns from winters on the Eastern Front - the counter-offensive at Moscow, the counter-offensive around Stalingrad, fighting around Kharkov, the liberation of the Ukraine, the fighting around the Korsun and Cherkassy pockets.  There is something about the winter of the Eastern Front that is extremely mournful...I can't wait to play some winter games.

The NCO is a blurry with the SMG, but you can see the LMG on the right

The tanks are all from the Plastic Soldier Company. Close inspection will reveal I likely put the wheel assemblies on backwards on one of the tanks.  I don't know what it is about model tanks, but that is just something I'm prone to doing. Even the relatively straightforward PSC model tanks are a cluster f*ck in my modelling hands...oh well.  I will never turn heads at the IPMS.

T-34/76 from Plastic Soldier Company

A great thing about the PSC tanks is the spare turret - you can upgrade your drive on Kharkov to a drive to the Oder with the quick switch of a turret!

Quick turret switch and you upgrade to a late-war Guards tank regiment with T-34/85s in no time

Many winter vehicle models I have seen online have a very pristine white paint jobs on them. But that never makes sense to me.  I imagine the life of tankers on the Eastern Front. Who had time to take the tanks for a nice, proper paint job at the depot?  The tanks were needed at the front! The pressure was on to continue the advance! Particularly on the Eastern Front, where the Russian army typically launched shattering counter-offensives and offensives in the winter.  The tanks were driven through all manner of rough terrain, in incredibly tough elements, in combat conditions that to my mind would wear away a rapidly applied field paint job.

Ready to roll toward the Baltic and the Oder river

And winter is seldom pristine on vehicles of any colour.  Snow looks pretty and white in post cards (and at Christmas), but I know from growing up here in Winnipeg, snow gets dirty, mushy, and messy in no time at all.  So I tried to reflect that on these tanks - hard-living and hard-fighting T-34s of the Motherland!  Lots of paint chipping, weathering, soot and mud from the hard work of driving the fascist vipers from Mother Russia.

Soot. Exhaust. Mud. Fun!

I'm really glad to have made a start on the winter 15mm stuff.  I look froward to getting these on the table against Curt's fine late-war winter Germans next month.  I am also going to start on some winter 15mm Germans of my own so we can do some winter games here with the group in Winnipeg.  And the neat thing about winter is that once you have winter Germans, then maybe I can go to some winter Americans...and Battle of the Bulge?  One thing at a time...

Another Control Battalion Vehicle

Control vehicle for Control Battalion

Another random bit from the painting table finished off, and another piece for Control Battalion's motor pool.  Keeping with my whole "The Future Is Now" approach to Control Battalion vehicles, this is an IDF Nagma Sho't, a converted Centurion MBT (see here for what these are supposed to look like). It is essentially the chassis and body of a Centurion MBT with the turret removed and a new superstructure put into place. The model is from Peter Pig's excellent 15mm collection.

Mobile community outreach for Control Operational Groups

I believe the IDF intended this vehicle to be an extra tough IFV/APC, and they saw some action during the invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s. Although it is an old vehicle, I thought it looked sinister and made a good candidate to join Control Battalion on the gaming table.  This will serve as a command and control vehicle, assisting Control Battalion columns with their various community outreach tasks,such a mobile water-boarding of trouble makers, on-site lobotomies, and providing roach-food-pellets for the Control Things themselves.

This model is from Peter Pig's 1980s IDF line of 15mm figures

Once again it is great that Khurasan made tank commander figures for their Control Battalion line - really helps to "sell" the model. It already looks a little creepy, and popping a "Tankthing" only enhances that appearance.

Riflething assisting the Tankthing in keeping a lookout for trouble

I don't know how well this vehicle performed for the IDF, but they seemed to approve of the general concept of switching over old MBT chassis into IFVs - check out the Achzarit.

Peter Pig does a great job modelling stowage etc. on to these vehicles

I am still looking for the right kind of model to serve as the IFVs for my Control Battalion forces...stay tuned for further random entries on that!

15mm British WW2 Paras from Peter Pig

15mm WW2 British Paras from Peter Pig

Well, another Labour Day, and another merciless pounding of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers by our next-door provincial rivals (although with nine straight labour day losses, I'm not sure how much of a "rivalry" it is anymore - like saying a pre-school and a panzer division are "rivals" - and the Bombers are no panzer division).   On the plus side, painting while watching football let me finish off another random batch of figures - this time some 15mm British WW2 paras from Peter Pig.

These Peter Pig castings are top-notch

Is there a single WW2 buff who has not read about, or watched the movie about, Operation Market-Garden and the doomed British paras?  I know all the paras paid a terrible price, but at least XXX Corps managed to connect with the first two airborne divisions...

There is a liberal dose of chaps with berets...just enough to look cool, and get the point across

It's an amazing tale of stupid planning, military intelligence being an oxymoron, bravery, tragedy, desperation, gallantry, sacrifice and amazing drama, really just incredible, with the fate of the British 1st Airborne Division lying at the heart of the story.  Dropping "a bridge too far" on top of heavy duty German troops that were never supposed to be at Arnhem, the Red Devils made a gallant go of it, waiting in vain for a relief column that would never arrive.

Light mortar team

All of this went through my mind when I was cruising around Peter Pig's website earlier in the year, and I purchased a platoon of the British paras for...well, whatever.  I'd figure it out.

PIAT team - they'll be busy when the time comes

The Market-Garden story is a rich background for gaming, and indeed Dallas has staged several great 28mm games with his excellent British and German collections in that scale.  As I dip my toe into WW2 skirmish gaming, individually-based 15mm is the way I am going to try it.  It's how I've done my Golan Heights stuff - although I'm not sure it will stick here with the local group, what could it hurt to try?  Besides, I can always re-base these without too much trouble into a FOW-style collection.

Fellow on a Welbike...kind of pointlessly neat

The Peter Pig platoon pack is excellent - you get some command, three squads, a light mortar team and a PIAT team.  There is even one fellow riding one of those absurd Welbikes. When based individually, this is quite a lot of troops - 37 or so.  That would be a very busy Bolt Action game.

A couple of Bren guns per squad

I started painting a couple of test models earlier in the summer, and finished the lot over the Labour Day weekend.  I am working on some individual German and Russian infantry too - hope to have a game with them in the not too distant future.

Group photo...ready for their first game

Of course, these guys will need a little extra support...a couple of more PIAT teams, a HMG, maybe some mortars or even a 6-pounder AT gun.  One thing at a time...

4CMBG Infantry w/ M113\s

 After struggling with a month of shift work in which morning, noon and night was experienced in a fairly random manner and thanks to some fantastic insomnia while trying to transition back to a dayshift schedule, I've been able to complete the Canadian Infantry of the 4CMBG. All I have left is to finish a U.S. Vulcan for additional air defense and the army is complete.

 Here is an air defense unit with blowpipe missiles. I hope they don't miss!

Here is a TOW unit next to an M113 TOW launcher. The M113 TOW is actually from Peter Pig and is supposed to be for a modern Humvee. Not quite accurate, but I love the fact that a dude is actually operating the TOW launcher.

 

Platoon of infantry and a squad to support the TOW team.

Finally there is the Command vehicle. There is no squad to go with this as I figure the vehicle will most likely act as a marker for command radius and not actually fight. So in all that will make a force of 4 Leopard 1's, a platoon of infantry and support units for air defense and anti-tank. Looks like Greg added some fairly modern stuff (by mid 1980's at least) to his force, so I hope we play with a high troop quality modifier.

15mm Yom Kippur Bits

Egyptian T-55s, kicking off expansion of my 15mm Yom Kippur project

Well I've been on vacation, and it's been summer (or sort-of-summer, but the weather seems to have finally turned back to seasonal norms here in the prairies), and I've been painting stuff, but not really in any sort of sensible way, or discernible pattern. So I can't really call this "progress" on a project, but it's an excuse to post some pictures! It's just a few bits for my 15mm Yom Kippur War collection - an IDF half track, and a some Egyptian "test" models.

IDF 15mm half track

The M3 half track is one of the IDF's iconic armoured fighting vehicles. By the time of the 1973 war, the IDF was starting to phase them out in favour of the new M113 APCs, but the M3s still saw a lot of action in the conflict.

The model is accurate for WW2, but I think I goofed in terms of making it correct for the IDF. MG is not in the right place, for starters

So far my 15mm Yom Kippur project has focused on the Golan Heights front, and the IDF armoured infantry battalions in place there at the time of the Syrian attack had the new M113s. But M3s were still around, so I thought it would be fun to paint one up, act as a command APC, etc.

This is a Peter Pig 15mm vehicle - lovely to work with

There are a lot of M3 half-track models out there, but nearly all are set for WW2. This is a Peter Pig 15mm model, and while it is lovely, I should have modified a few things to match the look of the IDF. I'm not sure the IDF used the cupola for the MG, for instance, and they often mounted another MG in the front plate to the right of the driver. Perhaps those will be conversion attempts for another time. But to try and cover up for the lack of specifics, I threw on a paint scheme that I have seen in some of the photos from the war in the hopes this will allow the vehicle to blend in on the table. But is the marking from 1973? Or 1967? I'm not sure - I'm hoping for the best.

Lots of room in the M3!

I am also looking to expand my collection into the Sinai. Operation "Badr", the Egyptian crossing of the Suez canal, and the IDF's furious counter attack and counter crossing at Deversoir provide a great backdrop for gaming. That will mean getting some Egyptians done, so I experimented with some painting schemes with that in mind. Up first, some infantry.

Peter Pig 15mm "Professionals" painted as 1973 Egyptian troops

Once again, after searching around, I opted to go with Peter Pig 15mm, and hope the scale and brushwork can give some cover to the fact that the figures are not Egyptians at all. The Egyptian infantry in 1973 were issued with a dark tan coloured sleeveless vest/jerkin for the crossing operation. I think it was meant to help the troops carry more equipment across in the assault rafts, but that's just a guess.  They are one of those little details that really "make" the setting, however, so I'm trying to bodge it.

One fellow has an RPD LMG, the rest have AKs

The Peter Pig figures do not have this jerkin/vest sculpted on to them (and why would they - they are meant to represent general infantry in Africa, not 1973 Egyptians) but to cover for this I painted their shirts two different colours. At 15mm size, it looks sort of close...I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. My highlighting made it a little too bright, so in future I will leave it darker to try and up the contrast level.

Should be good enough for 15mm Yom Kippur action in the Sinai

And of course, the real "stars of the show" (with apologies to the hard working foot sloggers) are the tanks! Gaming the Yom Kippur War is a great excuse to cover the table in tanks. I'm surprised more WW2 gamer-types don't get into it, honestly, because so many of them (like me) love gaming with armour. But enough about that for now, on to the Egyptian armour...

T-55s from Peter Pig painted as Egyptian tanks for 1973

I've seen many variations on Egyptian camouflage and general vehicles colours - some all green, some all sand, some all stone, some a mix, some stone with green and brown. No one scheme has struck me as "official". For testing purposes I started out on these two test models using a stone-coloured base with green splotches. I like the look of the pattern a lot, and in theory I think it would help for fighting in the Sinai desert, or in the agricultural areas around the canal where there is some greenery to hide in. These T-55s are from Peter Pig.

I love these Peter Pig tanks!

I really like the look of this camo pattern - still need some practice but it will get better.  And as I expand the vehicle line, I can experiment with some of the different patterns I've seen on the Egyptian tanks.

Ready to take on the IDF in some major Sinai engagements - just need to add another 10 or so....

I have a few more of these Peter Pig T-55s, but to bulk up my Egyptian tank force I am looking at either the Battlefront Vietnam war box sets (the NVA tanks, APCs and the AA tanks from that range would all be perfect for the Sinai and also provide nice additions to my Syrian forces) or the Old Glory products. I despise Battlefront's pricing, but their stuff IS nice. The Old Glory pricing is better, but I'm always wary of their quality, which can be hit and miss - but I have to say I've heard great things about their T-54s/55s.

Special thanks to Nate and his blog for his help and interest in this project. His Yom Kippur War gaming project is top-notch - check it our here and look through his blog. Nate - your advice and tips are greatly appreciated!

4CMBG Infantry

Here are some Canadian infantry for my 4CMBG force. Models are QRF West Germans with head swap from Peter Pig. The head swap was essential and I'm glad I took Greg's advice on the matter. The QRF infantry are definitely bottom rung, but the head swap makes them passable. Note the Carl Gustav models in each group. The one thing I'm intrigued by about the Canadians is just how poor some of their equipment was in the 80's. The Carl G being one example. There were better weapons than the Carl G at the time (milan for example), but the Carl G is what they got. With an effective AT range of 150m (from what I've read) it would have taken some sand to sit there while a T-72 was rolling towards you.
The rest of the infantry will have to wait until I get another batch of heads from Peter Pig. I was also going to post more pics of the Leopard's, but I realized I didn't paint the stowage tools. I'll see if I can get that done tonight and post some more pics.

15mm Soviet Cold War Paras

15mm Soviet VDV platoon

The forces of the Warsaw Pact continue to prepare for their fully-justified preventive-offensive actions in 15mm with the addition of some Soviet Paratroopers.  These are all Peter Pig 15mm castings from their AK47 modern range - the "regulars".

First squad

Another view of the first squad - only one fellow remembered his helmet...

I have no idea how viable large airborne operations would be in a modern battlefield like the imaginary Cold-War-Gone-Hot in western Europe.  The big transport planes seem awfully vulnerable to NATO SAMs, guns and interceptors.  But smaller drops - battalion strength - here and there, or appearing as infiltrators at various vulnerable points ("We thought it was a Greenpeace delegation!"), the VDV troops could help pave the way for a rapid advance of Warsaw Pact armoured formations.

Second squad

Another view of the second squad

Meant to represent the regular troops of African dictators, these Peter Pig figures are fairly reasonable proxies for Soviet paras in 15mm (or at least I think they are).  I expect the real VDV troops would wear helmets for action, but I went with mostly beret-wearing troops, feeling the blue beret, together with a relatively bright, if simple, camouflage pattern would help them "seem" like good VDV proxies.

The third squad in the platoon

There are some holes in the look - many of the troops have their sleeves rolled up, which makes sense in Africa but doesn't quite look VDV.  The other weakness is the fact that many of the soldiers carry bandoleers of ammunition, Rambo-style, wrapped around their chests.  Again, it seems appropriate for certain armies, but doesn't ring with the look of the paras.  But it doesn't disqualify them either! After all, it can get hot in Europe, and what soldier doesn't wish they had more MG ammo handy?

Support elements - a 105m recoilless rifle team, an SA-7 and a couple of command troops

This is a pretty light force - three eight-man squads, each with an RPD and RPG - supported by a trooper with an SA-7 "Strela" man-portable SAM and a 105mm recoilless rifle team.  I have no idea if the VDV used those, but I had a spare one left over from my Yom Kippur War project and thought the VDV fellows needed some kind of heavy shooting power.

Another view of the support elements

This small platoon will be reinforced with some mortars, HMGs, AA guns and air-dropped vehicles at some point this summer. I'm hoping to add at least one infantry AT-missile team.  Finally, I'm also looking into the big AT guns the Soviets often still deployed late into the "modern" period. I'm not sure if the VDV had them, but I love the old-school look of the heavy guns on the modern battlefield.

These troops will be good in "bridge too far" type scenarios, recreating the battles in Iceland from "Red Storm Rising", or perhaps even the battle for Calumet, CO from "Red Dawn" (the 1984 original)! I look forward to getting them on to the table, where newly-painted figures are guaranteed victory - right?