The Slovak Fast Brigade at Lipovec 1941 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! - Part 5: The vz.30 100mm artillery guns

 

These ones were a true challenge. After looking at the excellent Brushes and Bayonets blog

http://brushesandbayonets.blogspot.com/2019/12/fow-slovak-artillery-10cm-vz30-battery.html

that makes its fantastic stuff in 15mm, I decided to use the Hat industries box of Ottoman WWI artillery with four excellent 10.5cm field howitzer and plenty of figures that can easily be adapted to Slovak needs. I already made a box of these for my Gallipoli Turks and they are extremely useful as the basis for a number of armies and guns and that includes the artillerymen. 

The figures got British paratroopers heads from the old Airfix set. Another good source of Slovak helmets is the ESCI British paratrooper set as the helmets become bigger and with the correct shape. The only thing you need to to is to cut some camouflage cloth strips and use several layers of paint to eliminate the helmet´s net. You can see one of them kneeling in the top right corner. The figure holding the range finder (below the figure with ESCI head) was originally lazily laying down and was heated with a lighter and placed in a standing position. 

Here can be seen the most important changes on the guns: the shield, including the seat on the right side; the longer barrel and the cradle. The range finder figure is on the more distant vz.30 gun. 

The shield was made from plastic card and bent to shape in hot water (followed by cold water). A number of details are necessary on the shield as some vertical bars along the elevation opening, the vision port and the elevation blockade on top of the shield. 

The cradle is simply a block of polystyrene. The spade box was glued as if stuck on the ground already. 

Some ammunition boxes were added in the end and all was set. 

As you can see the Esci Paratrooper´s head (kneeling to the rear) works better than the Airfix head. The holes in the rubber wheels were simply painted as they looked too tricky to carve. 

A photo of the real thing. Not the easiest gun to scratchbuild as you can see. 

Next: More Slovaks, namely some AA and AT guns and also the engineers. If mail arrives in time there will be extra LT-35 tanks and Praga trucks.