I'm back...Now keep on trucking!

Italy was fantastic! And while it's always a bit depressing at the end of a wonderful holiday at least I had a couple of parcels waiting for me when I returned to ease the pain!

Zebrano is a Belarus company which seems to specialise in short-run resin
kits of less well known Soviet military vehicles. Unfortunately I couldn't
get hold of their YaG-6, but their YaG-10 can easily be converted.

The YaG-10 is a bit of a monster, and 8 ton load truck which I had never heard of until I came across a rare photo of it's 5-ton 4x2 sibling - the YaG-6 - over at the SA KUVA WW2 Finnish Army archive. The YaG-10 is the larger triple axled (6x4) 8 ton load version, but is otherwise identical to the YaG-6 except for the extra rear axle.

Finnish soldiers look over their latest acquisition - courtesy of the Soviet
Army - and they seem to be very pleased. As well they might, as it's 5 ton
load capacity would have been greatly appreciated. Source: SA KUVA

Two of these heavy trucks were captured by the Finns and were put to immediate use. I'll be taking a bit of a liberty with the historical facts and using this model - once it's converted to the 4x2 format - as part of my Heavy Artillery section. I realize that under the Rapid Fire wargame rules that I am using as a guide to my Finnish Continuation War collection of models that 'heavy' artillery - if at all available - is an 'off table' resource, but as I am not collecting in order to play the game I'm not worried about such technicalities.

The YaG-6, 4x2 version of these heavy Soviet transports. Nearly identical
to the YaG-10, except for the rear axle format. It seemed to me that this
big truck would be ideal for towing heavy artillery pieces.

The Zebrano kit is of the short run resin type, of which I have had no experience making. I do have a Wespe Citroen C-45 in my stash which can also be described as being for 'the advanced modeller' due to it's large number of small resin parts, but the Zebrano kit isn't quite that complicated.

It was a bit expensive at €27.45 - hence it being my only kit acquisition for August - and also a bit hard to find (mine came from Germany) but I really wanted to add a few 'niche' and less well known vehicles to my Finnish collection to illustrate the eclectic nature of their procurement in WW2. It seems to me that the Soviet YaG trucks fit the bill of being pretty niche!

Anyway, aside from the lovely Zebrano YaG-10 I also received a smaller parcel from Australia containing a set of Value Gear resin 'Truck Blobs' (yes, that IS what they called them) - these are two prefabricated and one-piece truck cargo loads. I know I could make my own, but these just looked so nice that I couldn't resist buying a set just to try them out and/or to act as inspiration for my own scratch built cargo 'blobs'.

I opted for their '72GT1 German Truck Blobs #1' set as the tarp covered cargo looks like it will be a suitable load for an artillery truck.