Brand New Soviet Data Cards

 Around here it hasn't quite been the weather to hang out for ages in the garage (cough cough - games room) by myself so I won't be bothering you with another CRP mission today.

No - instead I have my just completed revamped Soviet Data Cards with some stat changes and more vehicles.  So here they are:

Soviet AFV Data Cards

Not just the standard set of data cards but a VDV set as well!

Soviet VDV AFV Data Cards

But wait.... there's more!

Soviet Naval Infantry AFV Data Cards

Other WARPAC nations will follow when I get a chance.

As with all of these, let me know if I've buggered up the permissions - or any of the cards.  Always happy for feedback.

You'll also be able to find these by using the Data Cards tab at the top of the page.

Thanks and I hope you find these useful

Richard

Bit of Scratch Building - S-300 Reloads

First up an apology for not posting anything for a while.  I've actually been doing plenty of painting and gaming, including running demo games at Southcon in Dunedin, but all of this has been heavily WWII focussed so I've not posted any of it here.  Cold wargaming doesn't seem to be a thing here, but it's still my go to No. 1 interest - so I'll keep plugging away when I get the chance.

Back in January - here - I posted a review of the 4D Models KrAZ-260B Tractor and the MAZ/ChMZAP-5247G semi-trailer.  I bought it with the intention of using it for some as yet unknown scenario as a tank transporter, but more particularly to create this:

So my first post-WWII for quite a while was to have a crack at it from scratch - just using Evergreen Plastic rod.  I'll warn you, this is the biggest and most complicated thing I've ever tried to scratch build - pretty basic I imagine by many other peoples standards - and I don't have much patience for this kind of thing - but here it is anyway.

That's the basic structure.  Now add some missile Containers:

Now add the set to the semi-trailer:

Now add the truck/tractor:

All lovingly displayed on our kitchen table!

Once the weather here clears up a little, all of this will be getting a basic paintjob and will be ready for the table.  Setting up for a solo game right now!

Thanks all.

See you sooner than this last effort!

Richard

4DModels KrAZ-260B Tractor and MAZ/ChMZAP-5247G semi-trailer Review

 Once again it's been a while.  Preparations for Christmas, visitors and then my wife managing to severely break her ankle just before New Year has meant a pretty busy couple of months for me, and not much time for anything too gamey.

I did have a couple of moments of purchase based stress relief which brings me to today's topic.  For a while now I've wanted to get some kind of Soviet tank transporter/trailer.  I've been looking at the TAKOM offering, which seems quite nice:

and also I say Trumpeter were coming out with this:

which also looked pretty nice.  The thing is, I wanted it for a very specific purpose.  To create this:

I wasn't sure that the S-300 missile tubes would fit on the back of either of the Takom or Trumpeter trailers and I wasn't really willing to pay top dollar for something that may or might not work.

To cut a long story short, one day when randomly having a look around, I stumbled across this kit by 4D Models:

I was a little wary as some of the kits made but this company are basically crap, but when I saw I could get this for less than $22NZD, I thought why not give it a go.  The pics of the completed model looked OK and reviews were generally positive, so I thought the risk of the S-300 tubes not fitting was a risk worth taking.

The box arrived remarkedly quickly from China, a little battered but nothing inside was any worse off.  Here's a look at the back of the box:

Inside were 3 sealed plastic bags of parts and the instructions

Everything was there and nothing was damaged or warped.  In the first bag you got loads of tires.

As you can see they are glossy black with green hubs.  They fit together nicely and are easy to clean up.

The other parts are as below:

and

Interestingly you can see in the second photo that it comes with a transparent piece for the cab's windows and 7 metal rods for the tires.

The tractor goes together very simply and gives a nice simple wargaming standard model.

I couldn't be bothered painting inside the cab - I was in a bit of a therapeutic rush - so I'll be spraying the whole model, only after removing the wheels.  You can see the holder for the spare wheel on the back of the cab.  You end up with 3 spare wheels I think.  You have to make up 17 in all.

The trailer was actually even easier and together, I think they look pretty damn good.

Now of course I checked to see if the S-300 missiles fit on the trailer as they should - and yes indeed they do!  Just for the hell of it I also took out a T-72 to see how it looked on the trailer.

Sorry about the generally crappy photos!

So review time.  First the positives:

• Super cheap
• Ridiculously easy to put together
• Solid wargamers kit
• Scales well
• Basically does what it says on the tin
• If you were really really lazy you could almost get away with out painting it!  Oh the horror!!

Negatives

• It's pretty chunky and there is of course a lack of fine detail, but personally I think the positive of being a solid (rather than fragile) kit outweigh that
• Sink marks.  There are quite a few sink marks on this kit.  Some I'm happy to ignore, but some are in quite prominent positions.  I guess all up I can live with them and hopefully hide most of them!
• The metal rods - while perfectly useful and much better than plastic, unless I'm doing it wrong, they are to long for the wheels on the trailer.  A relatively easy fix, but until that is done it makes the trailer look a bit toy like.

So all in all, for what I want it for I am very happy with my purchase.  Really its a bit of unnecessary frippery but I do have a very minor role in a game planned for it and I just think it's cool to have it.  I'm not sure it would have any real use as a tank transporter in a standard wargame - but will be useful scenery if some "behind Soviet lines" type games.

Now I just need to sort out my many painting issues and get on and paint it.

Thanks and belated Happy New Year

Richard

Soviet Military Police and Technicians/Drivers

In my Wargames Soldiers & Strategy scenario I needed to have a squad of Soviet Military Police manning a checkpoint near the SA-10 Battery.  I also needed some figures to represent either various drivers or armed SAM Battery technicians.  In both cases I couldn't find many options.  Elhiem has a single Soviet MP and nobody I could find did some unarmed support troop type figures.

So I had to do something a bit different.  For the MPs I relied on Elhiem figures - as the actual MP is Elhiem it seemed to make sense.  I got a second MP figure, and then painted up a couple of "random" figures to look like MPs.  Here they are

You can see that the first and third figures are actually the same figure - one just has his arm adjusted.

For the drivers/technicians I used Liberation Miniatures.  They have some chaps in a kind of relaxed summer uniform and I thought (particularly their hats) allowed them to fit the bill.  Here they are

Obviously they are armed - but that is fine - as the scenario allows for a portion of drivers or any non-technical Soviets to be on guard near their vehicles.  To be honest I really just wanted these figures for the photos for the magazine.

More on that in a future post.  That's all for now

Richard

9K31 Strela-1 (SA-9 Gaskin)

I always wanted to have a SA-9 Gaskin or two - principally an ACE Models one if possible.  But alas, to-date, that seems likely to never happen.  I did however snag an ACE SA-13 Gopher (which for some reason it doesn't appear that I've ever taken a photo of it and posted it here).  At one point I decided to use a spare Britannia BRDM-2 hull and marry it with the Gopher SAM launcher turret,  You can see the entried about that here and here.

I was never completely satisfied with that - mainly because you could only have one or the other.

So a while back a friend of mine was putting in an order with Butler's Printed Models and asked if I wanted anything.  I'm not a dive in feet first kind of person, so decided to order 3 turrets - which handily enough BPM allow you to order separately.  I got an SA-9 SAM turret and two M901 ITV TOW Hammerhead  turrets.  I'll deal with the later in another post, but once arrived I cleaned up the turret quite quickly and tried it out on the BRDM-2 hull.  I was very satisfied with the result.

I then painted it very quickly and took just 1 photo for some reason.  Here's the completed model:

Very happy with the purchase.  It looks like BPM does some great prints and others that are not so great based on what my mate ended up buying.  Glad I put my toe in the water, but also glad I didn't spend up big.

Thanks

Richard

Soviet Trucks

It's been a while since I posted some newly completed stuff so today I'd thought I'd post up some Soviet trucks I either built & painted, repainted, or simply fixed up a bit.

I mentioned I recently had an article published in Wargames Soldiers & Strategy Issue 106.  I needed to take some photos for the article so I decided to add a few new vehicles and tried to make a couple of old vehicles look a bit more realistic.

Just over 3 years ago (hard to believe) I bought this Fabbri MAZ 535-A Artillery Truck:

Obviously I didn't want something that wouldn't have looked out of place in a May Day Parade for my photo which was supposed to be in the middle of a war in Norway.  So I repainted it.

That looks a bit better to me

I also had a what I think was a Trumpeter Jiafeng CA-30 fuel tanker which was part of a large swap I did years ago.  It had no instructions - but fortunately also came with Soviet markings.  Well it is an exact copy of a Zil-157 fuel truck.  So I built and painted it to provide fuel for the generators of my SAM Battery.

Sadly the decals were 20+ years old I reckon so they fell apart as I applied them.  All I was able to salvage is what you can see and there is a bit of silvering.

Finally I had ICM Ural Command Vehicle that I built here 10 years ago (geez) and it was very clean so I tried to weather it a little with a couple of new techniques (new to me anyway).  Here's how it came out:

So all in all I'm pretty happy with that lot.

Thanks

Richard

SA-10B Grumble (S-300) Transport-Erector-Launchers (TELs)

Jeepers!!  I've just realised it was way back in December 2015 that I first started this particular little project.  So it's only taken almost 4 years to finish the primary assets I need to run the scenario I've been planning.

So back here and here I showed you the 5N63S Flap Lid B Engagement Radar and the 5P85S TEL.  The 5P85S is kind of the master or smart TEL with the controls and datalink hardware for the entire TEL group.

Today I want to show you my two completed 5P85D slave or dumb TELs - both of which are controlled by the 5P85S TEL.

Here is dumb TEL number 1 - travelling:

In firing position:

And the second dumb TEL - travelling:

and in firing position:

You can easily see there was a fault with this model.  I'm planning on covering it up with a cam net.

Just to prove I haven't just sneakily moved some parts around - here is my Battery:

From left to right they are the 5N63S Flap Lid B Engagement Radar, the 5P85S TEL (smart TEL) and then the two 5P85D dumb TELs.

I've seen lots of pictures of the TELs in all different shades and cam patterns, with matching missile tubes, or grey or white tubes etc.  So painting one with white tubes (for a Norwegian setting) seemed like a good idea and helps make one TEL look quite different from the others.  Likewise the first two vehicles were painted with a generic "Russian Green" while I airbrushed the latest two in MiG 083 (XB518 Zashchitniy Zefeno) which according to MiG paints was the standard basic colour used in the Soviet Union from 1956 to the 1980's - but is still common today.  I quite like the colour.

So that's it for now.  I'm working on an auxiliary vehicle for the battery, and once it's done I'll start playing through the mission solo and see how it goes.

Thanks

Richard