S&S 1/2 Ton Land Rover

OK - trying to jump back on this particular horse after a few weeks of ongoing (and still unidentified) illness - with not much modelling done.  But I have completed a few units and last night I took some photos to share.

I got 6 1/2 ton SWB Land Rovers in three guises from S&S Models a while back for my Royal Marines.  Designed to be air-portable, they were therefore also more easily sea-transportable and you can find out more about them here.

Here's a couple of pics of the real deal to get you in the mood:

My first two completed were the most simple variant that I'll probably be using as a Forward HQ, FAC or FO transport.  Here they are:

Pretty basic stuff - but I think they've come up quite well and will fulfill what I need them to do.

I've decided that my Norwegian campaign setting will be in late summer - mainly to give me a lot more interoperability between all my suitable USAEUR and BAOR kit with USMC and Royal Marine kit.  Hence I imagine these little Landies could possibly be used by Paras or maybe even Airmobile forces?  Not 100% sure but it sounds good!

Anyway - good to be back to "normal" (whatever that is) and blogging again.

Next up - small Landies with guns!

Thanks

Richard

Soviet Motor Rifle Squads - Updated with more content!!!

Ok - let's try this again...

I thought I should start out with some examples of what I want to do in the TO&E sections - by showing the basic Soviet Motor Rifle Squads.  I'll start with the BTR Squad.

Here is the TO&E according to FM 100-2-3.  My wargaming squad looks like this:

 

All the figures here are from RH Models or Liberation Miniatures.  From left to right:  Squad Leader w/AK-74, RPK Gunner, RPG Gunner and 5 soldiers w/AK-74.

The BMP-1 Squad (which I showed the TO&E for in the last thread) is exactly the same:

Again all the figures here are from RH Models or Liberation Miniatures. From left to right: Squad Leader w/AK-74, RPK Gunner, RPG Gunner and 5 soldiers w/AK-74.

The BMP-2 Squad is slightly different:

The only change is one less AK-74 armed soldier in the squad.

Possible squad upgrades include - replacing 1 AK-74 with an AK-74/BG-15, replacing the RPK with a PKM, and adding an RPG-18.  I wasn't sure if it was worth photographing the squad kitted out with all the upgrade options or not...

Up on the Northern Flank, Motor Rifle Plattons are equipped with the MTLB-V.  Here's how I've arranged their squads:

Basically exactly the same as the BTR and BMP-1 squad - as I can't find any evidence about this at all I just went with keeping it the same.  Seemed like the right Soviet bureaucratic appraoch to take!

So that's TO&E 1 - let me know what you think and if it's useful I will put up more.

Thanks

Richard

Table of Organisation and Equipment (TO&E)

So, a word on Tables of Organisation and Equipment...

Starting this week I'm going to begin to a new series of posts on the TO&Es I've been finding/preparing and using in my Cold War games and army lists.  I thought it might be somewhat useful, others might find it interesting and it may allow some feedback which will update my work.

After a year or two of searching the net and books to develop army lists for my Cold War games I've gained a bit of experience into the vagaries of Cold War TO&Es.  You would think it would be a fairly easy task - I mean if you want to find a TO&E for almost any force in WW2, it's a relatively straight forward task.  Forty odd years on and it's not always so easy.

I guess some things are still shrouded with "security" and secrecy and most of the easy to access detail we have of particularly Soviet/WARPAC TO&Es come from de-classified NATO documents which may or may not have been particularly accurate.

Some bits of information on the net can also be slightly misleading.  Take this for example:

This pic is from the very useful Global Security website.  It shows the maximum capacity seating arrangements for the BMP-1 and BMP-2 IFVs.  Green are your dismounts and Blue are your crew.  This picture implies that a BMP-1 has 8 dismounts, while a BMP-2 has 7 dismounts.

Then you look at this from FM 100-2-3  The Soviet Army: Troops, Organization, and Equipment:

Reading this makes it pretty clear that the BMP-1 should have 7 dismounts, with 2 crew remaining in the vehicle.  So it should look like this:

while the BMP-2, with one less dismount, should look like this:

The BMP-1 has 2 empty seats and the BMP-2 has 1 empty seat.  Most of these will be filled up later - more on that in posts to come.

Another issue is the whole reality versus TO&E.  I once read (and I have no idea where so can't find it of course right now) that in the BAOR (and I assume many NATO armies) units that were at full establishment were actually chronically undermanned.  This was due to men being away through illness, leave, training courses etc etc.  I assume that this would change in the lead up to war and that at least for the first few days, many frontline or reserve units would be essentially fully manned.  This may be massive overreach on my part - and I'd be keen to see what you think.

Again re NATO, TO&Es changed quite considerably in the 1980s.  The Brits went from a squad armed primarily with the FN SLR to the SA-80, from the FN MAG and Carl Gustav as squad support weapons to the LSW and LAW80.  In the same period the US Army added the M249 SAW to their squad TO&E and dropped the M-60 GPMG from the squad to platoon level.  So dependent on the year, the TO&E could change dramatically.

These are a few simple examples of how confusing things can be for a wargamer.  I think I've changed my Soviet list 3 or 4 times over the years to try and deal with things I've stumbled across on the internet.  I'm pretty sure my latest version of the list is probably back to the first one!

So - as the TO&E posts come out - bear in mind a couple of things:

• I don't claim to be 100% correct and will appreciate any feedback which is more accurate.
• All TO&Es are one-to-one - so 1 man equals 1 man.
• My Soviet TO&Es are primarily/heavily based on FM 100-2-3
• My "game year" is a hypothetical 1986 (so some equipment only available in '87 & '88 may be available in '86)
• Game mechanics can influence game TO&Es

So that's the theory behind what I'm doing.  I hope this helps makes sense of what you seen in my TO&E posts to come - rather than it being just me waffling on!

Have fun

Richard

A Memorial Post for my Big Brother - For Mark

Well it's almost a month to the day of my last post - and the reason I've been silent for the month is that my family lost our brother/son - Mark.  He was only 55 and passed very quickly from a heart attack at home.  While his death was sudden, he was not the most healthy of chaps and I guess deep down we we all expecting it sooner or later.  What bites the most is that we never really got the chance to say good-bye until it was too late.

Anyway - Mark was a big model maker - and an even bigger model buyer - we found 150 kits still in their boxes in his apartment!  He built almost anything - from planes to armour to ships to cars.  As a kid he inspired me to get into model kits and toy soldiers and I really wouldn't be a wargamer today if it wasn't for him - not that he ever wargamed, but wanting to be like him as a kid meant I got into tanks and planes to begin with.

So it seemed appropriate that I bring home a few samples of his built kits, and take some photos of them to share with the wider community in a memorial to him.  Only then do I feel I can get back to "normal" mundane blogging.

Unfortunately some of Mark's kits had gotten very dusty - which I learnt to my horror (whilst comprehensively wrecking an 1/48th scale A-10 which I was trying to clean) is incredibly hard to get off.  Please bear that in mind.

So in keeping with this blog I thought I should start with a couple of his Cold War era Soviet vehicles:

Here's a BM-21

And a SA-6 SAM TEL

Now a few WW2 kits:

An SAS Desert Jeep

One of my favs - a lovely FlaK36 88mm AA gun

This SdKfz 7...

...and this towed "88" are in my opinion a couple of Mark's best kits, beautifully weathered with a white wash.

Finally Mark gave this Pzr IV to me a few years back and not only will it always be treasured, but it will always have a place in my miniatures display cabinet.

So thanks for indulging me - however briefly.  Here's to my brother.

Love you mate.

Richard

5P85S S-300 (SA-10B Grumble-B) Missile TEL - Part 2

OK - so a couple of posts back I showed some of the construction and painting of the SA-10B Missile TEL.  Over the weekend I set up my "photo booth" and snapped a few photos of the finished beast.

Here they are.  First up - the TEL in travel mode:

Now in ready to fire mode:

The kit comes with four missiles, which fit nicely in the tubes.  Just for the hell of it I painted one and attached it to some plastic rod, which I painted in flamey colours, and added some while fluff.  So - now in firing mode:

So that's it.  Project finished...  Now I just have to read Black Ops and I have everything ready to play!

Have fun

Richard

S-Model - Good News for 2016 - Soviet AFVs

S-Model from China already have a pretty decent range of Soviet AFVs including a couple of BRDM-2 variants:

A couple of BMD variants:

The fairly new BTR-60PB (which I know I'll end up getting to add to my SNI):

And of course my old favourite - the BMP-1:

The good news is that in 2016 they will finally be bringing out this:

That's a big fat YEAH!!! from me.  All I need them to do now is a SA-9 Gaskin variant for their BRDM-2 and my modelling life would be complete... well not really but I'd be very happy!

So - very much looking forward to this release.

And by the way - I'm trying to add a few new things to the blog - will appreciate some feedback when it is up and running.

Have fun

Richard

5P85S S-300 (SA-10B Grumble-B) Missile TEL - Part 1

As promised back in this post - following my purchase and completeion of the "Flap Lid" Radar TEL I decided to buy a Missile TEL as well.

So I went back to the previous ebay seller and picked up this:

 This time - rather than being tricky and painting it all seperately and then finding it no longer fitted together, I decided to glue together all the various main sections and then paint them.

This is a photo of the various sections glued together:

As you can see you get a fair amount of stuff in the box - including 4 missiles - which you will never see as they are inside the missile tubes.  I didn't glue all the missile tubes to the erector arm so I could paint them more easily.  Whilst trying to work out what was what I had a bit of a look here on the AusAirpower website and discovered a little bit more about the Grumble B.

First up - there are 2 different types of Missile TELs.  A master or "smart" TEL called the 5P85S which looks like this:

You'll note it is easily recognisable by the large compartment immediately behind the drivers cabin.

The other variant is the 5P85D - which is a "dumb" TEL and it looks like this:

You'll not the compartment behind the driver cabin is open here.  Both of these photos have been used without the permission of the excellent (as I keep saying) AusAirpower website.

At that point I decided to build the "smart" TEL.

Further study on the Aus Airpower site lead me to this diagram:

Which shows how a whole battery of SA-10B's operates.  Somewhat to my dismay it also shows the missile TELs operate in groups of three - 1 "smart" TEL and 2 "dumb" TELs operating close together.

So... what to do.  The whole idea behind buying these kits - apart from a bit of cheap fun - was to use them as a target of a NATO SpecOps force.  Now it looks like I need 2 more!!!  Not sure what to do about that... I might just keep the one missile TEL as a proxy for the three - or I might get two more.  I think the best thing to do is to carry out a trial game of Black Ops with a command vehicle, radar TEL and missile TEL and see how that goes - then try another game with 3 missile TELs and the two other vehicles and see how that goes.

Anyway... back to painting the TEL.  To further avoid the mistakes I made last time, I put a little blob of blu-tack on the spots that would be major gluing points - or where two parts would need to fit together.

I then undercoated it all in black and then sprayed a basecoat of Russian Green.  Next step was to carefully black-line the whole vehicle.

It's now ready to be finished.

More on that next.

Thanks

Richard