Friday 3 July 2020

Rapid Fire! Eastern Front in 20mm - The South Ozereika landings (part 5)



This post almost finishes the Soviet part of the battle. It regards the two Naval infantry battalions that landed at South Ozereika. The figures are Pegasus which are very detailed and need some building. The box has figures with PPSH-41 sub-machine guns, Mossin Nagant and SVT rifles and even the small 50mm mortar is there. The problem is the absence of heavier weapons so a few Esci conversions were necessary. Still missing are a few Jeeps, one AA HMG, two 45mm AT guns and a 76,2mm infantry gun and respective crews for the Brigade HQ. I`ll go Zvezda for the missing guns so that everything can be Russian! 


The Russian Naval infantry company. The figures are all in the same uniform in order to speed up painting. In fact the Naval Infantry had a mixture of several pieces of the Naval and infantry uniforms. Many had infantry helmets, ushankas and telogreika jackets (more than probable for this battle as it was fought in February) but never left aside their elnyaskha shirts famous for their horizontal blue and white stripes,


Regarding the support weapons, like this Maxim HMG,  a few Esci infantry had their helmets brim cut off and squashed after heating with a lighter. The idea was to produce the Soviet Naval cap, the eskozirka, that comes along the Pegasus figures. The ammo belt is a ExtraTech photo etched part. 

                  

The same stand already painted. 


This is another Maxim HMG stand. After painting the Esci based figures became some reasonable sailors.


The PTRS-41 A/T rifle is replacing the original Mossin Nagant rifle. The ammo supplier comes from the 50mm stand.


This 50mm mortar team is one more Esci/Pegasus mix. 


The other 50mm team has the original Pegasus group. 


The 81mm mortar team has an Esci conversion ammo supplier with ExtraTech ammo belt. The 81mm mortar was slighly shortened as its too long. The figure from the right, ordering to fire, is in fact one of the dead figures of the Pegasus box. I heated the legs for the figure to bend the knees but he still looks  like dancing the Kalinka!


The command group has a converted radioman firing the PPSh-41. 


These are Brigade stands. To the left is the 120mm mortar with a bipod from Atlantic in the normal Esci tube; to the right the radioman is a converted Aifix British paratrooper.


The original plastic stands for the laying down figures were replaced with blobs of glue gun. The PTRS-41 is the MiniGeneral 3d print of the Boys rifle with a few cuts. 


This Pegasus box shows figures all in the same environment, running and under fire, which makes them ideal to leave my homemade MO4´s. You can see some converted Esci figure with the ExtraTech ammo belts, a typical characteristic of Soviety Naval infantry.


Also a few aircraft were built in these days for a What-if of a Glider attack at Ozereika or for any other mission. The Gliders are the G-11 Gribovski from NTI and the YAK-6 is Encore.

Next: the 1QVR in France 1940.

6 comments:

  1. I do enjoy seeing the photos of how you convert figures, all very creative.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Peter. Soft plastic conversions becomes easy with practice.

      Delete
  2. Tielniaszka - I heard that it was the cotton, navy striped T-shirt - used in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to this day as a symbol of "soldiers' hardness" ("desant", desantniki" landing, assault raiders - these have always been Russian special forces), here is an interesting article about the origin of these shirts http://desantura.pl/wpis-2/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tełogrejka - it is simply a warmer, a cut from two layers of material with cotton wool between them, only those who know frosts minus 30 degrees C will appreciate it, probably comes from Asian fabric armor, which was supposed to protect against arrows and protect mainly from cold (in Polish przeszywanica). Tełogrejka usually bears names kufajka, fufajka lub waciak and is associated with Russian "sołdatską swołoczą" and Siberia (basically the worst of all)

    ReplyDelete