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.

Rapid Fire! Eastern Front in 20mm - The South Ozereika landings (part 8); the German Gebirgsjäger company and MMG

 

This Ozereika landings have a very interesting bunch of different uints on both sides making a colorful table: you will field Soviet naval infantry with US tanks and jeeps against Romanians, German artillery and Gebirgsjäger. Particularly colorful are these Gebirgsjäger, with their light green parkas, and blue trousers. Initially I had the idea that the Gebirgsjägers were pretty close to standard infantry and in fact they are as they also used the helmet and field grey uniforms. The good thing about this ones is that the battle ocurred in February in the middle of a freezing cold and most probably these mountain troops wore, on top of the field grey uniform and field cap, a green parka and woolen blue trousers, something I´m trying to represent here. The painted glasses on the field cap finishes the thing. I decided to go this way after seeing a nice reconstruction of an original uniform in this YouTube clip: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oDStItpanM

The figures are decades old Airfix copies of the DAK set. They are bigger then the originals and made in a nice sturdy plastic. All figures got a big Milliput backpack typical of these units made. The DAK Airfix figures make very reasonable mountain troops as the positions are much more dynamic than the original Airfix mountain troops which are also a bit small in typical Airfix style and with few positions. 

All stands got one or two bycicles from Hat German cyclists as this was their mount at Ozereika. 

The MMG stand was the most interesting to make as the Gebirgsjäger tripod was apparently able to lower considerably the height of the gun and thus could be fired from a lying down position. I used small pieces of EverGreen rod and plate in order to replicate that. The base is the LMG firing figure of the Airfix DAK set. The No2 is a mix of the previous legs with the body of the classic Airfix German No2, finally with shaved helmet and glued cap. 

This is the Gebirgslafette 34 MMG tripod which looks that could be lowered considerably more then the infantry one. It also looks to me that the infantry model could somehow end up in the same position but I could only find one model for the infantry being fired from a lying down position and that is the small Zvezda set. 

Next: The Ozereika video (damn, Oscars already passed...). 

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. 

Rapid Fire! Eastern Front in 20mm - The South Ozereika landings (part 6); the Romanian force

 

The Romanians at our masters Blue book scenario on the Ozereika landings have a battalion of infantry; a company of engineers and a battery of artillery. 

The figures are all from the Hat Romanian infantry and that includes the artillerymen. Hat also has a box of artillerymen but I don´t have it and, instead, used the mortar crews from the infantry box. 

The Romanian artillery at Ozereika is for me a mistery. The Romanians had at least two  types of 75mm guns namely the French 1897 model and the Krupp 1904 model (not counting 76,2mm, 77mm guns and 75mm mountain guns). So I went for the Krupp version and made it from scratch. 

The officer was placed in a more "artillery" position by cutting the pistol and bending the arm. 

The gun/fun itself started with an old barrel of an Airfix 25 pdr, wheels from Hat and a number of plastic and metal parts all glued together, and that included some broom bristles. 

The shield was made from EverGreen cut and bent to an approximate shape. 

In the end it got close the Krupp gun. 

The radio is another mystery as I couldn´t find any information on Romanian radios so something generic was made and a prone figure firing its rifle was turned into a radio operator. 

When I glue prone figures or equipment parts that tend to be engulfed with the sand/cat litter mix I do the following:

- the parts are fixed with electric glue that will lift it a few millimeters from the base,

- in order to strenghten the electric glue I use cheap super glue to fix the parts permanently, 

- your favorite type of ground texture can be then applied without covering the prone figures or equipment. 

The Hat Romanian infantry box has no 81mm so a FtF German mortar was used. This will look strange as the 60mm mortar from the box is much thicker than this one (not counting the 60mm mortar shell in the left figure that will never be able to enter this 81mm barrel :). 

Next: the last Soviet Naval infantry equipment for Ozereika

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.

Rapid Fire! Eastern Front in 20mm - The South Ozereika landings (part 4)

Around 2am, in a dark February night, dangerously close to the end of the world, feeling the same fear as the Portuguese navigators that overcame the Bojador cape and under a clear and hot sky (WTF??) the M3A1 light tanks of the 563rd tank battalion disembark from a Bolinder at Ozereika beach. 

The PSC M3's are a beauty. There are three versions possible versions inside but you can really make a total of six tanks out of one box as you will see in another picture. The tanks of the 563rd tank battalion had whether white or yellow markings. I chose yellow as it stands out pretty well. 

The figures on the kit are for both US or British tankers so I used some Orion modern Russian Federal Forces tankers that comes along the infantry, 

And here is what you get from this PSC box. I think Will Townshend is the most generous guy in the hobby, probably a Samaritan that live and produce its models in a hidden Monastery for the sake of the  poor and helpless. In fact if you choose one of the three models available you can build them PLUS another group of three at around 80% completion. Besides the Russian M3A1´s at the back you have at the front row three M3 that will join the British ranks for the desert in another post. The missing 20% parts are a new 37mm gun  and mantlet (this was easy as I had surplus ones from Hasegawa), the bottom hull part made from stryrofoam with a few extra details, turret Browning .30 cal, driver's plate and air cleaner pipes made from simple sprue. All the bigger parts are given for free: hull, tracks and turret so with a bit of extra work you can have six M3's of two different models at around 3/4 euros each. 

According to the RF! Bavarian Blue book you need one of these, a Polikarpov PO-2. This is from KP and it makes a detailed model of the real thing. 

The only thing you need to add are the pilots which came from an Encore model with closed cockpit.

Next: I`m still thinking but it won´t take too long. Maybe Desert British.

Rapid Fire! Eastern Front in 20mm - The South Ozereika landings (part 3)

The Glebobva night airdrop was a mission carried by a small group of 80 Soviet paratroopers in support of the Ozereika landings. Apparently they managed some sucess wiping out some German garrisons and five days later a few of them were part of the rescued. Master Richard places 10 paratroopers in the Russian OB which is right. Even if only 80 (6 figures) landed one of the four planes assigned to the mission couldn't find the landing site and returned home cutting the Desant force by 25%. So the 10 paratroopers are the initial force without any incident. 

My biggest doubt about this airdrop was which kind of aircraft launched the paratroopers as I couldn't find any information on the issue. There are two possibilities: The Lisunov 2 (Li-2), a licence produced DC-3 or the much bigger TB-3, famous for the first mass jumps in airborne history. I have both in stock (in fact its a DC-3 Dakota but they are the same) and decided to use the ICM TB-3. Besides by having a Tupolev TB-3 you gain a bomber for the Barbarossa period. 

Its a really big thing with a a wing span of over 55cm. Not only its not easy to place on the shelves as it is a really difficult model to assemble with over 300 parts. The green paint you see is an almost dry GW colour mixed with PVA in order to desguise the many faults during construction. As my patience is not what it used to be I wanted it assembled ASAP. So many interior parts were discarded as well as the engines interior. All flimsy and easily breakable structures were replaced by metal ones. 

The only addition are 5 of the 10 crew members that are visible, two pilots and three machine gunners. 

The camouflage was the typical A2 Green and Black used throughout the conflict and particularly common on bombers. 

A second doubt of mine was the exact uniform of the paratroopers. They used by then a Khaki jumping suit with an aviator leather helmet and that is for sure. But they also used a black printed camouflaged smock in the style of the scouts. Besides that Zvezda (hey, they are Russian) shows their own small box of paratroopers in a greenish jumping suit different in colour from, for instance, Osprey's book on Russian paratroopers. I followed the Zvezda box cover as the green uniform without printed black looks very nice. 

All figures are conversions from three diferent origins. The legs came from the Airfix Luftwaffe figures as they have no boots. The torsos are wether hard or soft plastic from Esci or Revell. The heads are mostly taken out from hard plastic aviators as I paint all cockpits blue and only use aviator's figures if they are in an open cockpit like the case of the TB-3.

Some of them kept the blue paratrooper's beret. One of the paratroopers became a radioman. 

Almost all figures got some extra equipment like bedrools and haversacks made in GreenStuff.

The small 50mm mortar came from the Pegasus Russian Naval Infantry. 

Next: Wether France 1940, USAF and RAF for D-Day, WW2 Italians or another part of the Ozereika landings.