The Soviet VVS in WW2 for Rapid Fire! rules and in 20mm size

This group of Soviet aircraft covers the entire conflict from Barbarossa up to the Berlin offensive. The models are mostly plastics (Airfix, ICM, Italeri, Eastern Express, Gribovski, Revell and Encore) with many Die-Cast (Altaya and Luppa).

Next: the NVA infantry.

Rapid Fire! Russian houses and Orthodox church in 20mm

 

All these houses and church were made from those cheap Christmas houses sold in decoration shops. Frankly, I hate Christmas. And this has to do with our toys. When I was a kid, probably from 8 years old on, I would grab the money my family gave me for Christmas, after waiting for some two days for toy shops in Coimbra´s Adelino Veiga Street to re-open after the "balance" of countability - something the computers finished with - and would bring a good bag of them with me. The problem was seeing other kids of my age looking at the window´s shop without being able to buy anything. Since then Christmas is for me the symbol of unfairness and injustice. If it wasn´t for my kids, my wife and my mother that love this season I would skip it totally, going as far as possible to a place were there isn´t Christmas. Another problem was that I would bite my nails year after year for those two days of balance to be over, knowing that I would see those kids again or others like them, knowing I wouldn´t do anything to change the situation. 

 

I was trying to make a Russian church for a long time together with a few Russian houses as I have only one windmill for the Eastern Front. 

Fortunately there are plenty examples in the web of rural Russian churches and I chose one with a lovely green roof as a starting point. 

This one was made by gluing two of those cheap one euro houses together (the same I used for the Dieppe castle). 

Then a table tennis ball, a cut to shape cross from my kid´s lego Bionicle (this time, offered) and a piece of BlueBoard for the plinth made the rest. 

The houses are pre-made of the type with a turn-on light inside. They looked reasonably eastern and they are a start for my Russian houses. Frankly they didn´t come as good as I expected as I should have exaggerated on the wooden look as I did later with the church. 

The rear and side doors were huge but that was reduced by gluing some flap doors. 

The chimneys are small pieces of BlueBoard. All windows got a piece of card from the interior and painted black. 

Next: The Dieppe casino

Rapid Fire! in 20mm. Filling gaps in WW2 (part 6)

This one is just to complete some Russian OB´s where these four types of vehicles and guns were in short supply or didn't exist. 

The M-72 motorcycle with side-car was one of the two more common motorcycle in the Red Army (the other one was the Lend-Lease Harley Davidson 42 WLA). The models are Zvezda.  Still need to apply some colour on the uniform insignia but not sure exactly which.

For Steve Shann´s book "Seelow Heights" you need a pair of Bren Carriers. The models are 3d PLA prints from Minigeneral and the figures are my own conversions from soft and hard plastic figures (Esci and Revell) with arms made of GreenStuff. 

Two missing straight from the box Zvezda 76,2mm Infantry Guns model 1927. Only the coated figure came from Italeri.

Another Minigeneral 3d print, a Lend-Lease  M17 MGMC based on the M5 half-track, again for Steve Shaan´s book. 

Next: last part of the video on the Germans at Mortain. 

The Soviet Tank Corps, Kursk 1943, for Rapid Fire rules and 20mm size

These large two units, two Russian 1943 Tank Corps, have been on the making for ... hmmm, decades by now. It includes plastic kits made almost 40 years ago and 3d resin prints with a few weeks. The vehicles are Frontline Wargaming, Britannia, Esci, Matchbox, Fujimi, Dragon, MiniGeneral 3d prints, resin 3d prints, Kooperativa, Armoufast, Atlantic (these last two includes some crazy conversions) and Altaya die-cast. The artillery is mostly Irregular Miniatures, Altaya and conversions. The infantry is a mix of all available plastic brands with a few Irregular Miniatures and Skytrex.

Rapid Fire! Eastern Front in 20mm - The Panzer III M at Kursk

A column of PzIII M passes on the Igor Akinfeev mill on the way to the Kursk bulge, intending to finish the Red Army in that famosu pincer movement. 

The M version is one of the last variants of the PzIII. For modellers it has as differences from the J version a deep-wading exhaust, Schurzen side-armour panels and the headlights placed on the fenders. The command PzIII here (with star antenna) was turned into a J version with the headlights reposioned on the front hull and the deep-wading exhaust taken out. 

The models are the 3d prints from my friend Mário Laranja with its usual quality. This blotched camouflage with red numbers is taken from the Squadron Signal book on the Panzer III. 

Another group of PzIII M was painted as in the cover of the Squadron Signal book. 

 I asked my friend to print a few with open hatches on the command turret for some figures from Hasegawa and PSC to be inserted there. Only the antenna insertion was replaced by EverGreen tubing in order to hold more firmly the antenna. 

Next; the PzIII M of the Hermann Goring Panzer Division in Sicily. 

Rapid Fire! Eastern Front in 20mm - The Ferdinands of the sPzJgAbt. 653 at Kursk

It's July and in the last few days this unit was made to back up German efforts at Kursk. The sPzJgAbt. 653, half of the bigger sPzJgRegiment 656, crashes through the first line of Soviet defences at Veselyi Berezhoi being used as the spearhead of the German assault. The way the Ferdinands led the German attacks is considered a big mistake of General Model as they were used like rams and not as long range distance guns were ist powerful 88m guns could knock almost everything behind its 200m frontal armour. Even so the Regiment (two battalions with a total of 89 Sdkfz 184 Ferdinands) is credited with the destruction of 500 Soviet tanks even if loosing half of their own machines in the process. 

The SPzJgAbt.653 had big colourful squares painted at the back of their Ferdinands to identify the different platoons inside the three companies. I just used the most colourful of them for effect. 

All seven Ferdinands are three Esci kits, one Fujimi kit and three repainted Altaya die-casts. The Fujimi kit (number 121), in fact an Elefant model, is very close to the size of the Esci model even if the box says"1/76th scale" with only two millimiters difference in lenght.

The command tank of Hauptmann Spielmann is inspired on a photo from the parent 654 battalion. I chose this scheme because of its striking difference in relation to all other simpler schemes. 

The Esci model is a mix of the initial Ferdinand and the later Elefant. The Esci model carries the round Elefant´s commander cuppola, the same from the Stug III, and not the initial square one used at Kursk. I tried to solve the issue with foliage made of two component paste around that place. The MG of the later Elefant was also left out. The Esci kit also doesn´t carry the driver´s periscope, like the Ferdinand didn't...Well, as you can see we have a typical kit of the 80s´, trying to please everybody!

 Even so its a very nice and detailed model and I remember the pleasure of seeing them for the first time many years ago when I was around 12 in the long gone Joaninha toy shop in my local home town, Coimbra. And as they were slow machines they are still here! 😛

Now the Altaya die-casts. They are true late Elefants. Fortunately the extra frontal armour with the Mg port can be easily detached making it closer to the Ferdinand. Then some foliage was placed in the commander´s cuppola and also in the driver's periscope, another late addition to the Elefant's model, when the Sdkfz 184 were taken to be refurbished after Kursk. 

These Tank Hunter battalions worked together with a swarm of Borgward BIV and StugIII. As I don't have yet any Borgward I used the Revell's Goliath and a Sdkfz 304 Springer. In reality the Springer only showed up in the last few months of the war but its a nice little model from AMBN (All Models Brand New) that was collecting dust for years. 

Next: Scammels for the 1st AD 1940 or Italian trucks for the 12th PzSS in Normandy.

Rapid Fire! WWII Don Cossack Regiment in 20mm.

The RF! Red Book includes the description of the Soviet Cavalry Regiment in p.59 (If it had shown ten pages later I would not dare to write it here, of course!). The Cossack cavalry squadrons were made years ago but all support units and carts were made after I saw an excellent article on Fb by Paul Seeman that really inspired me to finish this unit. 

The figures are Revell and are lively and easy to paint. I glued all horses legs with hot glue to its stand. If you don't do it they will stay 'in the air'and paint will eventually flake as they are very thin.

The engineer cart is Britannia with Atlantic horses from their Ancient Greek range. 

The horse tows for both 76,2mm inf. gun and 45mm AT gun were made from German Esci models with replaced barrels. The horse tows are scratch built. 

The Regimental HQ can be seen here with the three figure stand of the Engineer platoon. The HQ wagon is mostly made of Styrofoam but more on that later. 

The AA cart is another scratch built model using mostly Evergreen plastic card and metal wheels. 

The Tachankas MMG carts are also built in Evergreen plastic card using Esci and Atlantic horses.

The MMG's are Esci and the wheels are navigation wheels from the Airfix MkI WWI tank. They should have the double of the spokes but I was too lazy for that. 

 

Here is the lot minus the cavalry squadrons. 

The officer: - You go first, comrade!

The soldier on the left thinks - (you could f... yourself).

The one to the rear: - (Uff, I got out of this one!).

Two of the engineers are the ones from the Revell Cossack box and the officer comes from the same brand's box of infantry. The head is from the Esci French Napoleonic Grenadiers cut to shape to look like the the Koubanka. 

Plenty conversions here from Esci and Revell. 

The gun carts have the drivers made from the only Cossack torso that the Esci box provides. Legs and arms were modelled in GreeStuff and the original boots were then glued.

The Tachankas were the most complex to built but I tried to make the simplest version I could find in period photos. 

I used the front wheels of this Britannia wagon somewhere else and I had to use some Esci Napoleonic as close replacements.

The AA cart became a bit too big but after painting and mixed with the others it looks reasonable.

The AA quadruple Maxims were made from four Esci guns, plastic, metal wire and a base cut from a syringe cap.  

The HQ wagon was lucky to have some metal wheels I had around and its body is made of Styrofoam.  The Styrofoam was carefully marked with a pencil to give some relief. 

Next: Plenty of stuff in my head: maybe Barbarossa German and Soviets. Modern Iranians, Bussaco 1810 or some more French 1940. More aviation is another possibility as well as the WWII Japanese army.  

Rapid Fire! The Soviet VVS of WW2 in 20mm

This collection started many years ago when I got involved in building the Soviet forces for the Kursk battle. As usual I ended up by building many more than the ones that were necessary. On the good side I managed to get planes for the initial fightings around operation Barbarossa in 1941 up to the last stages of the war.

All markings in all models - excepting the Altaya - are hand painted. I prefer like that as paint is sturdier than decals and no shining exists from decals.

These Tupolev SB-2 from Eastern Express were bought for the SCW Republican side but ended up facing the German onslaught of 1941.

The Polikarpov I-16 are Revell and Altaya and almost had the same destiny as the SB-2s. Slowly I'm also building a Soviet 1941 army that will be shown later in this year.

The Sturmovik is most probably the most famous Soviet aircraft of WW2. These three are Airfix (right) and Altaya (the two on the left).

P-39 Airacobra from the Lend-and-Lease program. Left is Revell and Right is Altaya.

This Ilyushin IL-4 from Revell is the biggest Soviet bomber I have. There are some crazy plans to have a PE-8 but I don't know were such a big thing can fit in my shelves.

 A PE-2 bomber from Italeri...

And a TU-2 from ICM for the same role. 

Yak-3 from Revell and Altaya

La-7  from  KP and Altaya. 

The Yak-9 is considered the best Soviet fighter of WW2. Altaya model. 

This other Altaya Yak-9 is ready for a setting where a Soviet airfield can be under attack.