1/72 Die-cast T-28 tank arrive!

Bit of a nice surprise waiting for me on my desk at work this morning. I ordered a couple of die-cast models of the Soviet T-28 multi-turreted tank a good while back and they have finally winged their way from Russia!

Sorry about the rather naff quality of the photos, but I was excited!

I wanted these two tanks for my Continuation War Finnish army project - the Finns captured a number of these obsolete monsters - but as far as I can see there aren't any plastic kits for this novel machine. There was a model made by Solfig available on the Millicast website for a while but this seems to be unavailable now. So I have resorted to these die-cast models instead.

These models, as I said, are from Russia (found them on eBay) and seem to be from a collection of models similar to the De Agostini magazine collection we have here. They are a bit simplified but are no worse that a lot of the war game quality models.

In theory this means that all I have to do is decide on a appropriate colour scheme and paint them. Please let it be that simple!

T-28 tank R-48 (later Ps. 241-4) photographed with some of the crew. Photo taken
in Lappee July of 1941. (SA-kuva photo archive, photo number 24415). 

Historical notes: Two tanks captured during Winter War and five more tanks captured in 1941 - 1942. Even if considered obsolete they remained in combat use until 1944 and the last of them were not removed from Finnish inventory until year 1951. (Source: Jaeger Platoon web site.)

In use these two models will make up the core of my two heavy armoured companies (under the Rapid Fire! rules). Each company can consist of one T34/76, one T-28 and either one T-34/85 or one KV-1 tank. This nicely illustrates the rather eclectic nature of Finnish armoured formations, reliant as they were on captured tanks.

As far as I can see these tanks were painted in the normal Finnish three-colour camouflage of moss green, chestnut brown and a 'blue grey' that inexplicably appears to be a sandy beige in some reference material!

Picture source: Armchairgeneral.com