Monday 25 May 2020

Rapid Fire! WW2 Late War Eastern Front in 20mm - Soviet tank force up to now


A large Russian tank force gathers around the German village of Karl-Heinz-Rumenigge not far from the twin villages of Klaus Allofs and Horst Hrubesch on the way to Berlin (this one really exists!). 


Up to now this Tank corps has a full T-34/85 brigade, two JS-2 battalions, two SU-85 battalions and one ISU-152 battalion. The T-34 numbers are far from complete and I´ll try to find two more brigades. In fact I have seven other tank brigades that you can see in the Kursk posts about Mid-War made of T-34/42 and T-34/43. These were getting rarer in late war environments but that can still be used. All other material, artillery, infantry, etc can also be taken from my Kursk forces.


For reconnaissance you can see two Scout Companies with a White M3 all from the Lend-Lease program.

                             

The Ford GPA are repainted 1/72nd die-cast models quite common around here a few years ago. I found four and they are nice renderings of the true machines. The figures for this command version is Zvezda (driver), hard plastic Esci (commander) and soft plastic Esci (female radio operator). There must be a problem with the driver as he prefers to look at the Officer's ass instead of the beautiful blond on his back... well. 


This one got a Maxim HMG based on this picture from the fantastic site Engines of the Red Army in WW2 







The Esci White M3 for the Recce command. 


Two of the battalions of T-34/85 are Pegasus 1/72nd scale double kits. For me they are the best way to portray these great machines, cheap and very detailed with very good tracks waving along the wheels. 


"01" is the command tank of the brigade and has extra Esci and Matchbox hard plastic figures as Desant infantry and a Fujimi tanker. 



The third battlion is Fujimi. "203" is Frontline Wargaming and joined the Fujimi models as all are 1/76th scale.


The two battalions of SU-85 from Fujimi. The tankers are Fujimi and Skytrex.


This battalion of JS-2 is Italeri from the its double box. The DShK Mg's are scratch built (c'mon, I had to scratch built something here). 


The other JS-2 battalion is made of beautiful repainted Altaya models. The tank commander is Britannia.


Finally, the ISU-152 are Italeri also from a double model box. 


Next: wether WW2 Soviet naval forces, Part 3 of Arnhem oddities or France 1940.

6 comments:

  1. Is always a great pleasure follow your updates. There is plenty of useful points and stuff. For example you mix 1/72 with 1/76 under the condition that different scale are used for different battalions. This convinced me to get out my old Frontline wargame vehicles. For year I did not want to mix different scale and was about to purchase same models in 1/72 but fortunately I watched your posts! Thanks

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    1. Thanks, you are very kind. Yes I used different scales in different battalions using same basing (sometimes I cheat and glue a 1/76th model with a glue gun giving it the 2mm in height it sometimes needs to be close to 1/72nd) . I even do it with infantry.

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  2. Super! What colors did you use for the uniforms and vehicles?

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  3. Thanks. The tanks are painted with Vallejo Russian Green (originaly its an aircraft colour but it suits armour Ok) and the tankers are vallejo dark Prussia Blue.

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  4. Hi- Wow! You sure have made a lot of Russian Armor- you'd need a sizable Games Table to deploy them all for Battle. I enjoy all your Posts and marvel at your level of accuracy and productivity. Cheers. KEV.

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  5. Thanks Kev. Unfortunately I live in a place were there are no wargamers so I enjoy the hobby by building large armies and placing them in my basement that I'm fortunate to have only for myself.

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