30N6E2 "Flap Lid" Target Acquisition Radar TEL

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

For the past few weeks I've been doing a lot of WW2 painting, but a little something (turned into a slightly big something) arrived in the mail from China and I had to have a crack at building it straight away - so this is my last hurrah for 2015.

I stumbled across a blog where someone was talking about super cheap 4D puzzle kits on ebay - so I thought I'd have a look and see what on earth he was talking about.  I quickly found this:

for a very reasonable price ($10USD with free postage), so I thought why not.  I was a bit dubious as to what it would be like when it arrived.  Would it be like some kind of 3D typical puzzle - with puzzle peices?  A couple of weeks later it arrived and my concerns were erased.  I took a pic of what came to show you if you have the same concerns that I had:

I had ordered the green one - and this is how it comes.  Pretty normal fast build kit.  Not exactly fitting in with the rest of my Soviet stuff so I decided to respray it - clever chap that I am:

After congratulating myself on how clever I am - I started building it...  (You can probably see where this is heading...)  Not half as clever as I thought afterall.  This kit is big and chunky and perfect for wargaming.  I guess it is designed not to need glue so everything is a snug fit.  Add two thin layers of spray and suddenly it doesn't fit anymore!

So instead of going together in 5 minutes like it was designed to - mine took a little longer:

 

 

Mostly built and ready for black lining.  You can also see the bits I missed when spraying.  Another job well done!

Blacklined

Almost finished

Nearly there...

 

Finished - with a Liberation Miniatures Soviet officer for scale.  Now some beauty shots:

So - that's it.  Obviously I love it and have now ordered the Missile TEL and I have a great idea for a little solo game coming up soon (once the TEL arrives, is made and painted)

It may or may not be a knock-off - I honestly have no idea - but it took little effort to put together, painted up rather nicely and is an excellent wargamer's model.  If you want a proper kit, I think PST make one just like this.

Here is an ebay link to a grey Radar TEL from the same ebay seller I bought the green TEL from.

So that's it for 2015.  Another big year in Cold War gaming - more to come next year.

Thanks for your support and input and I hope we all have a great 2016.

Richard

Final Soviet Naval Infantry Troops

My original plan was to be able to run 2 platoons of Soviet Naval Infantry (SNI) along with some attachments, like ATGM, SAM and mortar teams, Forward Observers and of course a Company Command team.

I'll be using the (mostly) Zvezda troops in the SNI black uniforms for 1 platoon, shown previously here and Liberation Miniatures in sun-bunny camo coveralls and helmets like these here as the other platoon.

I laid them all out and realised I still needed several figures, including the Company Commander, a sniper and some radio operators - so I had a look through the stash and found 1 or two useful chaps and made a little order with Elhiem Figures to finish them off (I hope...).

Here's the result - First up the Company Commander plus a couple of chaps with radios:

Now a couple of standard troopers, one of which has a BG-15 underslung grenade launcher attached to his AK-74:

And finally the SNI sniper (I really like this figure):

 

 

And that's it.  Hopefully over the weekend I'll be able to pull everything together and show all my SNI troops and equipment.

Thanks

Richard

Hobbyden M113 Beobachtungspanzer Artillerie

When I need to paint up a model in a particularly annoying or difficult camo pattern I tend to try and paint two of them at the same time - so I should at least have two that look similar, I can paint one side on the first and leave it to dry while I paint the same side on the second etc etc.  It seems to work for me - and so while I was painting the S&S Models Panzermorser I also painted a Hobbyden M113 Beobachtungspanzer given to me a year or two ago bt Simon (thanks Simon!)

This is a particularly funky M113, and although it's not the absolute best model - it is the only one of these I am aware of in this scale - and I'm very glad to have it.  It certainly goes a long way to resolve my "I must have every possible West German artillery observer variant" issues.

So - onto the pics:

So - that's something else finished...

Thanks

Richard

Self-Propelled Mortar Collection

Just for a bit of fun I got all my self-propelled mortars out for a look - now the "set" is complete.  this does not of course mean it won't ever be added to - but the SP mortars for my 4 main forces are now done.

From left to right there are 2 S&S Models US Army M106s, the a single Italeri (conversion) West German Panzermorser, then a Soviet ACE Models 2S9 Nona, a S&S Models West German panzermorser and then finally 2 Britannia FV432M.

Quite a useful little bunch of models...

Thanks

Richard

S&S Models - M113G Panzermörser

Recently, Shaun from S&S Models asked if I would be interested in building, painting and photographing one of their soon to be released M113G Panzermörser models.  Absolutely was my immediate reply and I soon had a lovely little kit to work on.

This is a terrific M113 kit, that is a really useful addition to anyone's Cold War West German force.  The Panzermörser can support Marder or M113 equipped panzergrenadiers and jaegers so is pretty much a must have peice of kit.

Here it is:

Of course as soon as I started loading the photos I had a "Bugger!" moment - when I realised that as usual I had completely forgotten something - this time a rather important step - decals!  Oh well - I'm just going to say they painted them out for the duration of hostilities - at least until I get around to resolving that issue...

Still - I'm very happy with this and combined with the my Italeri conversion Panzermörser shown here my West German self-propelled mortar support is now complete!

Shaun also sent me some of the MG3 mounts as an added bonus and I will definitely be using them for my planned M113G panzergrenadier platoon at some point in the future.

Thanks

Richard

 

Elhiem Soviet Dismounted Tank Crew

This is another relatively new release from Matt at Elhiem under his Miscellaneous Russian's section.  Their code is OBJ15 and title is: "Russian style tank crews dismounted skirmishing".

As soon as I saw these guys I knew I had to get them.  I've always been a fan of dismounted tank crew figures for some reason - even though I wasn't 100% sure what I would use them for.

When I got them the standing figure was perfect, while the kneeling figure needed a bit of work.  The front of the chap was fine, but the rear of the figure was quite pockmarked and mishapen.  I sorted that out and this is how I painted them:

 

 

 

Very simple black uniform so easy to paint with a few highlights - weapons - faces - some insignia and you're done.

I guess I'll be using them primarily as markers - either part of an objective or to show an AFV has been immobilised - that sort of thing.

That's all for now - a bit of a surprise AFV in the next post.

Richard

More Elhiem Bundeswehr Troops

Time for another update.

Another thing I finished recently were some more Elhiem Bundeswehr troops - this time some of Matt's newer stuff, primarily his NATO06/BW07 NATO LAW 72 gunners and NATO07/BW08 NATO NCO with Uzi SMGs.  There is also a mix of slightly older figures with G3 and Pzf 44s in there as well.

Hopefully these figures will complete my Bundeswehr infantry company.  Moving figures around I should now be able to field a Panzergrenadier, Jaeger and Fallshirmjager company - from a figure point of view.

More on that in later posts.  For now - onto the figures.  Pics are a little dark - but I managed to rescue the better blue peice of cardboard from behind the shelf - so happier with that!

 

 

This is Elhiem's NATO NCO with Uzi ("9mm" for Terminator fans) SMGs set.  All the figures are useable for Bundeswehr and are excellent (IMHO).

These are two of the figures (from 2 packs obviously) from the NATO LAW 72 Gunners pack.  I didn't use one of the figures in the pack - as they were not really useable as Germans - better for Canadians maybe - so they got put aside for another project.  Again - great figures.

 

Standard Bundeswehr figures as seen before

3 Officer/NCO figures.  The centre figure is actually from one of the Elhiem Israeli sets with a head swap.

 

A couple more simple conversions - you can never have enough Carl Gustav's can you!  Standard Elhiem figures with S&S Carl Gs added.

 

 

This is the whole mob.

That's it for now

Richard

S&S Models - M106 with Elhiem Crew

OK - so I rescued the blue peice of cardboard from behind the book shelf and cleaned most of my office of find some Tamiya weathering powder - so now I'm good to go with my S&S Models M106's.

As I showed earlier I painted them in Winter Verdant MERDC following the scheme found here.  I armed one with the standard .50 cal and the other with an M60.  Mainly to help tell them apart.  The only stowage on the .50 cal armed M106 is a cam net lashed to the front of the vehicle, while the M60 armed one has a spare wheel and a cam net on the rear upper deck.

So here are the finished photos:

 

 

 

Now some individual shots - starting with the M60 GPMG armed M106:

 

 

And now the .50 cal armed M106:

 

 

 

So there you go - all finished.

Thanks

Richard