The Slovak Fast Brigade at Lipovec 1941 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! - Part 7: The small cars, new unexpected airplanes and some artillery

 

Making the Slovak Fast Brigade is a funny project as you can´t find many types of vehicles or guns in one place something that forces to look everywhere from plastic, resin, scratch or 3d. In this post you can find a bit of all of them. 

These ones came from Poland (Martola Model Shop) from a 3d resin brand called EMP  which, among dozens of others, has (L to R) these Tatra T82 (instead of Tatra T27 as pointed in the RF! Blue book) with the  20mm oerlikon AA, the Tatra T-72  and the Tatra 57k. The models are true beauties with very easy to clean resin debris from the 3d printing process. The interior of the Tatra 82 is very complete but I prefer to close all windows with pieces of plastic card. I did the same on the other two vehicle´s windshields as they were very detailed but also fragile. The barrel of the 20mm Oerlikon broke  and had to be replaced by a drilled piece of plastic. 

These two, a Letov S-328 and an Avia-534 from KP were very kindly sent to me by the RF! expert Alan McCoubrey. These two are very handy, an extra Avia-534 is always good as the Fast brigade had around 36 of them (three squadrons). The Letov S-328 was also missing in my collection as the one I had was sent to Poland 1939 disguised and converted as a Polish  reconnaissance aircraft. The only change I made in these two was the markings that were hand painted and the two figures on the Letov which came from the Hasegawa Kawanishi H8K. 

The Tatra T82 was used as an AA mobile platform. Not sure it was used in this way in mid 1941 but there is visual confirmation of it around 1943 at least. The figures are Hat WW1 Ottomans with Esci British paratroopers heads which is (I realised that pretty late) the best  plastic heads for the Slovaks. 

This photo is from 1943 and it shows a 20mm AA gun on top of the Tatra T82 (caption says it)  and that is why our masters mention the 20mm AA being towed/carried on top of Tatra T27 and not T82...

The Tatra T-72 will go for the Mixed Reconnaissance Force HQ and the Tatra 57k will be carrying the observation team of the 11th Artillery Regiment.

One more FtF Praga RV was used to pull the 75mm mountain gun of the infantry battalion. This time I camouflaged the truck with the same colors used in the Slovak tanks as shown in Tank Power magazine No 471. 

The 75mm mountain gun was scratchbuilt from an Irregular Miniatures barrel and some Revell XVII century wheels.  The carriage came from an old Airfix 25pdr heated and twisted until in place. The shield and other small details were made in plastic card. 

The crew is again Hat Ottomans with Esci paratroopers heads. The netting on the helmets is no problem as its barely invisible after two coats of paint.  

Next: wether Vietnam or more Slovaks

Yuzhnaya Ozereika landings 1943 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! rules

This Landings at Ozereika project started 5 years ago and is now completed. Most of the models are scratchbuilt, like the case of all boats, but the infantry, tanks, artillery and aircraft are from the usual plastic brands. This is a very heroic action of the Soviet naval infantry which cost them dearly without results, exceptuating fixing many Axis reserves which allowed the "Little Land" diversion to become a sucess that is still celebrated in Russia as one of the biggest Soviet exploits of WW2.

If you want to see the eight part construction of this project go to https://jpwargamingplace.blogspot.com/ and write "ozereika" on the search bar. I also advise everyone to visit the amazing site https://www.o5m6.de/redarmy/index.php were you can have great information on many aspects of WW2 including most of the material that was used at Ozereika.

The Slovak Fast Brigade at Lipovec 1941 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! - Part 2: first tanks and last aircraft

 

The Slovak Fast Brigade had a battalion of tanks (Lt-35, Lt-38 and Lt-40s) and, besides the Avia-534 fighters, also a reconnaissance group of Letov S-328. Still to finish the tank battalion I need three more Lt-35.

All tanks here are First To Fight and the aircraft is KP. 

While the Lt-35s and Lt-38s were built straight from the box these tow Lt-40, a command version sharing almost the same chassis of the Lt-38, that demanded a lot of changes, particularly in the turret and front glassis. 

The shape of the turret had to be altered with lots of plastic and Milliput. 

The commander´s cuppola was also made from plastic pieces. 

The MGs were relocated, some resin jerrycans glued on the turret (in order to desguise some pretty bad scratchbuilding) and two Russian tank crewmen from Xan Miniatures painted as Slovaks were added. 

If you want to avoid all this trouble  and a much more correct model you can have the Attack LT-40. The problem is the price: the Attack models are almost 20 euros while these FtF models are 8.50 euros.

The two necessary LT-38 are done. 

And two of the five LT-35 are also done. 

This Letov S-328 is in fact a Letov S-16 (painted as a S-328), an older and out of service reconnaissance aircraft of the Czech airforce. My Letov S-328 went to the Polish 1939 airforce desguised as a Lublin. Yes, I know, I´ve made a big mess :) 

Next: Maybe some Slovak artillery or trucks, Romanians for Yuzhnaye Ozereika or maybe a return to the AWI. 

The Slovak Fast Brigade at Lipovec 1941 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! - Part 1: Infantry, A/C and aircraft

 

I read the Blue book so many times that recently I had to place tape on many pages. Recently Masters Colin and Richard released the Blue book in digital format, so the tape problem is solved for newcomers! One of the many atractions of the book is the battle of Lipovec, 22nd July 1941 (never heard about it before the book) were I noticed the beautiful camouflage of the Slovak tanks and the blue stripe on the helmets. Probably if these two characteristics were absent I would turn the page to look for a different scenario. Another interesting fact is the Slovak organization of this Fast Brigade with a well balanced force of infantry, tanks and artillery (maybe a little scarce on infantry), including a small airforce and even bykes. 

Finding the vehicles was not a hard task as many of the trucks and cars are not easy to find, and many years ago only Raventhorpe, Fujimi and Esci had some of them. Then one day Esci was gone and the funniest tank of them all, the LT-35, became too hard to get and this brigade was forgotten. Recently the excellent First to Fight came into play and this project came to life again and this brand will be my main source of Slovak vehicles. The artillery is more problematic and I will scratchbuild most of them. If you look for 3D prints you can find also many of these. 

The sole infantry battalion of the brigade is made mainly of Esci Italian Alpini figures, with the carved out feather, of course. 

The Slovak helmet is distinctive with a straight rim. The Italian helmet has a slight ondulation at the rim and this was disguised with several coats of blue color. The SMG was converted to the captured Soviet PPSH as the Slokaks had no SMG at this time. 

The Slovak color was a Greenish Khaki that I tried to reply. 

The reenactement groups are great sources of information as these guys tend to take it very seriously. 

The Italian Breda 30 have a side charger and this was moved to the top for it to look like the ZB vz.26.

The MMGs were mostly the old Schwarzlose vz.24 together with the more modern vz.37. The Revell WWI 08s are good enough to look as vz.24s. The crew is also Revell with a few Hat. The heads of the crew are Revell US marines. 

The mortar is Matchbox with Hat crew and Revell Marines heads. 

The command stand is a mix of StreletsR Italian officer, a Japanese Airfix marching figure and an Esci Alpini with radio and a carved out helmet in order to look like a soft cap. 

The Tatra OA vz.30 is First to fight and its a little beauty. I placed an FJ Airfix torso as a commander as the helmet looks a lot with the one from the Slovak tankers. 

This Avia 534 is KP, a very old and a bit rustic model with a difficult build. But, as usual, in the end gives a good model for your Slovak Fast Brigade. 

Next: Slovak artillery or some vehicles, depending on GLS.

Rapid Fire! Spanish Civil War armies in 20mm

Still far from finished - this one is one of those that will never be finished - you can see here a few models that are enough for some battallion sized RF games on the SCW theme. Together wilth my usual conversions based on Revell, Airfix, Esci and Zvezda there are plenty of proper Irregular Miniatures and some BUM figures. Tanks, artillery and armored cars came from FtF, Minairons, Panzer Garage, Irregular Miniatures and Pegasus. The aircraft are Special Hobby, KP, Azur, Valom, Super Model, Italeri, SMER, Heller and Airfix.