Sukhoi SU-25 Frogfoot Attack Aircraft for Team Yankee

Team Yankee escalation continues with some Soviet aviation - a pair of Sukhoi SU-25 Frogfoot ground-attack aircraft from Battlefront (TSBX20). Greg painted a couple of really nice Frogfoots (Frogfeet?) a few years ago, and since Battlefront's come out with an updated (and cheaper!) iteration of the models that I've just finished, a bit of a compare-and-contrast might be in order.

 

First of all, these are the latest and greatest SU-25s from Battlefront. While Greg's planes were resin, these are injection-molded plastic model kits. Like the Harriers I posted a short while ago, I believe that the sprues themselves were procured by Battlefront from a third-party manufacturer, Ace Corporation. However, while the plastic injection sprue includes drop tanks, rocket pods, and bombs, the Battlefront box also contains a sprue of resin KH-25 (NATO: "Karen") air-to-ground missiles. 

I elected to assemble the models as they would appear at the start of a sortie, with all 10 hardpoints filled with weapons. From inboard to outboard (fuselage to wingtip) they are: drop tank, KH-25, rocket pod, rocket pod, bomb. The canopy that's included is molded in the same grey plastic as the rest of the parts so I've painted it to match the rest of my aircraft. Speaking of paint, for the record I used Zandri Dust, Rhinox Hide, Castellan Green, and Vallejo German Uniform for the camouflage, washed Agrax Earthshade and re-highlighted Zandri Dust with some panel lines put in with Nuln Oil. The underside was painted with Mechanicus Standard Grey highlighted with The Fang (ugh) and Thunderhawk Blue. The canopy was done with Kantor Blue and Temple Guard Blue. Wingtips are Warpstone Glow. Rocket Pods are Leadbelcher washed with Nuln Oil.

The box comes with a full decal sheet as well, including these funky little flashes for the tailplane.

While the box instructions advise modelers to affix a provided clear socket to the underside of the fuselage, I elected to use magnets. The one advantage of the resin planes was that there is a recessed slot molded in to accommodate a magnetized stand, whereas the injection kits have no such feature.

 

All in all a pretty nice box set and should come in handy in games of Team Yankee. Can't argue with the price point either - $39 CAD compared to over $60 CAD for the old resin box set. The only downside of the injection kits is a slightly more fiddly way to mount them to the flying stands - but I'll take that tradeoff for $20 per box. Plus most of the weapons are injection molded and perfect - no worries about the crappy resin ordnance that plagued Greg in his build.

Onward to the West!

1:50 Soviet T-55 Tank

Who doesn't love the T-55?? Workhorse of the Soviet and Warsaw Pact armoured forces for nearly three decades (not to mention a stalwart part of many tin-plated dictators' armed forces even still), the T-55's squat silhouette just bespeaks "Cold War". For awhile now I've had this diecast T-55 sitting in a box, but in a sudden rush of inspiration earlier this week I decided to paint it.

The hull colour is a superb spray - Rust-Oleum Specialty Camouflage ultra-flat green. After removing the tracks, the model was sprayed all over.

This was followed up with Mechanicus Standard Grey on the roadwheel tires, Leadbelcher on the DshK machinegun, and XV-88/Zandri Dust on the mantlet, then the whole model was washed with Agrax Earthshade.

Decals from the GW vehicle sheet were used, and the IR lamp was painted gem-style red. Is that what an IR lens looks like? Who knows, but it looks cool.

I also tried, for the first time, something I've often thought of doing on tracked vehicle models with stretchy rubber or vinyl tracks. These tend to bug me because the track's top run stretches straight from drive sprocket to idler sprocket and don't "sag" onto the roadwheels like the real thing. So I decided to engineer a solution for that (above).

On the T-55 model I drilled holes above the first and last roadwheels on each side, a track's width above the wheels, large enough to fit a stiff wire through. I then ran a wire through the holes and fitted the tracks so they fit between the wire and the roadwheel. This pushes the tracks' top run down onto the roadwheels, giving an impression of sag. Not as good as link-and-length tracks by any means, but works well enough on a suspension setup like the T-55's, or on other tanks like Tigers or Panthers where the upper run of track is supported by the roadwheels.

Some light weathering done with GW Rhinox Hide and Mournfang Brown.

Eureka tank crew make another appearance. Scale of the T-55 looks good compared to these models.

Not sure what kind of game we'd use a T-55 in (as our Cold War 28mm gaming takes place in the '80s or '90s, after the Soviets had pretty much moved on from the T-55), but the model looks good and was really fun to paint. I think the tracks mod worked out OK and I might just use that on other models with vinyl tracks, in future.

Stay healthy gang!

Some More Eureka Soviets

This has to be some kind of record... my wife got me these Eureka Soviet Tankers in Gasmasks for Christmas and I've already painted them!

A nice project for a winter's afternoon off from work, to be sure. These Soviets will make an excellent addition to the Chemical Commie platoon already on my shelf.

Although they differ from the rest of the mob, not being dressed in full NBC gear, I tried to demonstrate some continuity by giving the tankers grey gloves and yellow webbing, same as their NBC-clad comrades.

The tankers were painted with Citadel paints: uniforms XV-88, webbing Zamesi Desert, masks and hoses Pallid Wych Flesh, flamethrower and RPG-7 Castellan Green/Camo Green, "wood" Skrag Brown, gloves Mechanicus Standard Grey/Celestra Grey, and helmets highlighted with Mechanicus Standard Grey. Belts were to be Doombull Brown but it was dried up in the pot, so I mixed up something similar from scratch.

The models were washed with Agrax Earthshade and re-highlighted with the base colours. Done.

These guys are just great little models and have gotten me excited to stage another WWIII game in 28mm!

Team Yankee Battle Report: Soviets vs. West Germans

My current mania is Team Yankee, Battlefront's new "Cold War hot" game set in the 1980s. While Conscripts Greg and Mike have extensive 15mm modern collections, and Conscript Byron is amassing a 6mm horde, my only forays into modern gaming in a small scale has been my 15mm Yom Kippur War Egyptians. However, fond memories of Airfix 54mm Bundeswehr figures I had as a kid, plus the fun of painting NATO three-colour camo, sucked me into collecting a force of West Germans.

Anyway... in honour of my completion of my first Bundeswehr troops (the "Kampfgruppe Mueller" box from Battlefront) Greg kindly brought his toys over for a game.

We set up the first scenario from the Leopard book - "At the Forward Edge of the Battle". This involved the West German forces trying to blunt a Soviet spearhead with a rearguard action. We used the five Leopard 2's and PAH helicopters I'd painted, reinforced by some truly lovely models (Marders, panzergrenadiers and Gepard AAA vehicles) that Greg had obtained from "tacobat", a modern wargaming enthusiast blogger well-known to many of us.

We deployed the West Germans mainly behind the treeline holding the first set of objectives for the Soviets. After a set number of turns, the objectives shift to locations near the West German home table edge. The Soviets have to motor on in order to gain these objectives.
 

Here are the Soviets - a horde of T-72 tanks supported by an entire Motor Rifle Regiment in BMPs (at least it seemed that way). Also seen here is my "period" copy of "Aim to Kill - Warsaw Pact Equipment Recognition Manual" previously owned by one "Captain George". A very cool piece of Cold War memorabilia, the manual comprehensively sets out the WarPac vehicles and equipment of the day, their recognition features, armament, strengths and vulnerabilities.

On to the game... Conscript Hugh rolled his main body of T-72s up on his right flank, aimed at the Panzergrenadiers dug into the treeline and guarding one objective (red die in photo). As the Soviet tanks approached, the Leopards swung the gate and lit them up. The PAH helicopters popped up to join in the fun...

...but suffered the fate of many a newly painted model, shot down in flames before blowing anything up.

The Hinds duly appeared, but fortunately for the West Germans they suffered the same fate as the PAH helos, two Flakpanzer Gepard AAA tanks were on the case and duly evaporated them in a hail of 35mm shells.

But then it started going a bit pear-shaped for the West Germans.  Stuff started blowing up and the weight of Soviet numbers really began to tell. The Marders began to pull back from the woods at left and the Leopards were getting dinged too... a bad morale failure for the Leos sent the remnants of the platoon skedaddling to the West.

Here's how the game ended. The West Germans really didn't have anything left to block the Soviet advance. The remnants of the Leopard platoon, of course, will regroup farther west to fight on (right?)... but for now, the Soviets won the day, but at a high price...

The scenario was the first game in a longer campaign, and of course the results have ramifications later on. I'm looking forward to playing out the rest of the campaign, adding in my own models as they get painted - so far I've added two Gepards and three Fuchs transports. Still need to paint some infantry and the Marders that are now assembled... not to mention the M109G SP howitzers I left in Brandon a month ago (long story...)

Early '80's Soviets

1:100 A-10 from Revell

Soviet Inf from Peter Pig

T-72's from QRF in one of Byron's excellent storage boxes

T-64's from QRF w/ ERA

ZSU 23-4 with scratch built gun because QRF didn't send one. This a blessing in disguise when one considers the quality of QRF gun barrels.

BMP 2's from QRF w/ replacement barrel's

Mi-24 Hind D from QRF. Metal bits are very soft. I think the molds are old as the resin was badly pitted. It is however, the only 1:100 scale Hind out there. There are a few details I had to add using green stuff that aren't sculpted onto the model.

15mm Modern Canucks vs. Red Army Battle Report (HNIC style)

Other than wargaming, one of Conscript Greg's and my shared obsessions is NHL hockey. Of course, being Canadians, we both grew up with Hockey Night in Canada and broadcast personalities like Brian MacFarlane and Howie Meeker. Classic!

However, nowadays we have "the Studio 42 crew" - Glenn, P.J., Kevin, Ron, Elliotte (sic) and the lovely Andi... These guys drive Greg crazy for many different reasons. Glenn and Kevin because they were formerly NHL goalies and Greg thinks goalies have mental disabilities (oh and did I mention I'm a goalie too?), P.J. because he has the intellectual acumen of an "enforcer" matched with the physique of Peter Dinklage, and Elliotte not only because he spells his name with a Smurfette-style extra "e", but also for his fetishization of the "ideal hockey" supposedly played in Europe, where the game is physical but there's no fighting, everyone is skilled but there's room for "role players", and there are never EVER any cheap shots.

Greg calls this "Hockey Night in Chardonnay" and it provides us with tons of laughs while we're background-watching games on Thursdays. So in honour of this motif we're doing a battle-report up HNIC style, with all of the cliches and overdone hockey tropes we love from our broadcaster heroes. On to the batrep... 

The game was the debut of Conscript Mike's gorgeous modern Canadians, replete with Leopard 1's and loads of M113s. The force might be smaller in size but certainly consists of skill players who are going to bring a high compete level to the game.

The Soviets are Greg's work and they are outstanding too. The BMPs provide flexible punch but the T-72s and T-80s are the power forwards that will really bring some needed physicality to the matchup.

The scenario was a home game for the Canadians - they are tasked to defend a small German village against the Russian breakthrough force. The Soviet objective is to punch through and exit as many elements as possible off their opposite table edge.

Soviets start from the top of the photo and have to exit from the bottom. Canadians deploy in a neutral zone trap to clog up the middle and stall the Soviet advance.

Once the game started I seized the opportunity to send one of the Canadian Leopards forward on a flank. The idea was to gain penetration and get some cycles going down low in the zone.

As the Soviets advanced, the Leopard disabled the main gun of one of the tanks but unfortunately the Soviets were able to activate their D and the Leopard was knocked out with a lower body injury.

Meanwhile on the other flank the Soviets are pressing hard getting guys to the net. At this point, the Canadians are really collapsing around their net and have decided to play for the single point as the Soviets really have some good jump in their game.

The Soviets really maximized their zone time as the Canadians hunkered down in the village. Getting pucks to the net was the key to their game as they got the cycle going and pummeled the Canadians from close range. The Soviets went to the hard areas and that was the difference-maker.

In the end the onslaught was too much for the Canadians as the Soviets played an excellent road game. The Soviets played a north-south game and really kept their feet moving. The active sticks from the tanks didn't give the Canadians time or space to get anything going. The one dangle from the lone Leopard was fruitless as the rest of the line was off on a change and couldn't provide any support.

You really have to hand it to the Soviets here as they managed the game well, kept it simple, took it one shift at a time, and played the whole 60 minutes. They'll cherish those two points and move on.

Thanks to Mike and Greg for bringing out their superb models and to Greg for running the game!

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.