Rapid Fire! Eastern Front in 20mm - The South Ozereika landings (part 7); the last bits for the Soviet Shock Force

 

This post concludes the missing equipment for the Soviet Naval Infantry shock force that attacked by sea the Germans and Romanians at Ozereika beach in February 1943. There are three DB pr.165 that carried the artillery (45mm AT and 76,2mm IG) and the towing Jeeps (US made Willys jeeps). 

As usual I used the Pegasus figures to make crews for all these weapons and machines. Included here is a AA Maxim gun mounted on a tripod (left). 

The guns were all scratchbuilt. The 45mm AT guns were made from old Pak 36s that used to be on the top of some Sdkfz 251 until I found many years ago that they were not there in the 1939/40 campaigns. As the Soviet and German are very similar the Pak 36 makes a very reasonable 45mm gun. My only doubt is if the Soviet marines didn´t use the long barreled  M42 model at Ozereika which makes these ones a bit out of date. 

The wheels are 3D printed and the 76,2mm IG came from an assortment of plastics which includes the usual plastic broom bristles. 

The guns and crews in action. 

These kind of models are heavily influenced by the range of Really Useful Guns by Irregular Miniatures which used EverGreen plastics as matrix for many parts.

 The Pegasus figures have several parts and are small kits on its own. As they have detached arms they suit artillery crews very well since you only need to make news arms from Milliput and place some shells in some of them. 

The Maxim AA gun must have been somthing like this as apparently only had one tube. 

The base of the tripod is from FtF as well as the gun. You only need to make a longer support for the gun and some ammunition and box. This tripod is the Finnish M/21 design which I think some may have got through to the Red Army. 

The Willys jeeps are 4D models from China, sturdy and very accurate models. I didn´t use the trailer in the kits as I think they were not used in this action (were they even sent in the Lend and Lease program?). 

The small landing craft were possible to make thanks to the excellent

https://www.o5m6.de/redarmy/db.php 

article in the Engines of the Red Army site which has very good drawings and period photos of this small boat. I made it a bit shorter as I did with the rest of the fleet. 

This boat could be used for a variety of usages but at ozereika it was used with wooden ramps in order to land jeeps and light artillery. 

The DB pr.165 boats were made from carved to shape blue board, pieces of wood, EverGreen and card. 

The drivers are cut down Pegasus figures.

All these boats,including the Bolinder, a Destroyer, the MO-4s, in a total of 10 different boats, are out of the scope of the article in the blue book. Our Masters start the Ozereika scenario with the naval brigade and support already landed, and with discounted casualties in the process. I will change a bit this and start the action with the full Soviet order of battle including all ships. This will force me to built a 3rd Naval infantry battalion in the future, which will be an obvious pleasure. Besides if the Soviets don´t have a third Naval Infantry battalion they will stand little chances against the defenders heavily armed with artillery, as it happened historically. 

Next: the German Gebirsjäger at Ozereika 1943.