The 'Cat Killers' Are Here!

New to my stash for my 'Battle of Kursk' themed wargame are three lovely 1/100 Soviet tank destroyers. The plastic Zvezda SU-152 and two Skyrex white metal SU-122s...

Although I call them 'Cat Killers' I believe the nickname really translates from Russian as 'Animal Killers' - referring to their intended victims, the German Tigers, Panthers and Elephants - and it really was only applied to the SU-152 and it's massive gun. Still, the SU-122's big gun was nothing to be sniffed at either and had the same function - to get rid of those pesky Kraut Heavies!

These will make up the core of my Soviet force for my planned game of GF9 'TANKS!', as the Soviets fought more defensively in this battle.

Stash Update - More Bad Guys!

Continuing on with my 1/100 'Battle of Kursk' project for my forthcoming GF9 'TANKS!' game, I have added more 'bad guys' to the collection. These are the German's canon fodder for the battle, the venerable Panzer IV F2 - in this case, in model form by Zvezda...

Now, that may sound disparaging, but that's only because the main focus of anyone's attention when talking about the Battle of Kursk is always inevitably the 'new' German big cats - the Tiger and the Panther. It seems that the poor old Panzer IV gets a wee bit overlooked, and yet it was still the backbone of panzer formations at the time and was still a pretty good tank.

In fact, due to the Soviet's muddling about with the - by then - obviously outmoded 'KV' heavy tank line the Pzr. IV could still hold it's own with practically anything the Red Army could throw at it. It had no problem dealing with either of the Soviet's two main battle tanks, the sluggish KV-1S or even it's nippier little cousin, the T-34/76. [In fact, I have heard many people say that had the Germans churned out more Pzr. IVs instead of relying on the new heavy tank 'super cats' - which turned out to have a lot of technical and reliability problems - the outcome of the battle *might* have been different. But that's an easy thing to say and I'm sure it's not that simple.]

But, hypothetical meanderings aside, a German panzer force of 1943 still requires a base of Panzer IVs in it's mix, so I bought two. Once again, I have gone with the budget option and plumped for Zvezda kits. At £3.50 each they fit the bill as 'canon fodder' for my game and I can easily get the GF9 TANKS!' data cards offline.

The Zvezda model is specifically the F2 variant of the tank, which was really seeing it's last hurrah at the the Battle of Kursk (the 'G' variant beginning to come into prominence). But despite this, with it's KwK 40 L/43 75mm gun, the F2 was still superior to the KV-1 and T-34 in terms of ballistics.

As with Zvezda's T-34s - which I am just working on - both PSC and Battlefront do offer more options and the ability to model more variants of the tank with their Pzr. IV kits. But I just don't need this flexibility, so the cost savings was of the greatest importance to me.

Here's a rather nice YouTube review of the Zvezda Pzr. IV F2 by Modeldads...

Stash Update 'Project Kursk' - Part 2

As my tank collection for this project is now into the production phase it's time to think ahead and begin to gather the bits and pieces I need for the playing mat (for a GF9 'TANKS!' game).

Obviously Project Kursk is a 'Russian Front' themed game set in 1943 and although buildings will be sparse for the type of open flat countryside that would be the setting for such a scenario I do want to include a few isolated farm buildings and huts to break up the line of fire. (I will also be including plenty of woodland, but more of that another time.)

I already have a budget option for rural Russian building, as I came across some papercraft designs that are available for free download from the 'Perry's Heroes' site: Eastern Front - Paper Buildings.

As simple and cheap as you can get, but effective for a tabletop game. You will
have to do a bit of math to scale these paper designs for 15mm though.

My only niggle with paper and card models is durability. I'll probably want to play with these a few time for different Soviet games and - crucially - I will want to pack these items of terrain for transportation to my local club. I'm really not so sure how flimsy card models will stand up to being knocked about so I would prefer something along the lines of a MDF building in 15mm (I also ruled out cast resin buildings as, although they are cheap and fairly durable, they are pretty heavy).

Luckily there is no shortage of sources as 15mm wargaming is very popular and the manufacture of laser-cut MDF kits seems to have become a very popular cottage industry...

Star Fort Miniatures make this lovely Ukrainian/Russian rural church
for £14.99 (the roof comes off for infantry placement). They also do a
variety of Russian village dwellings.

Minibits have this 15mm Russian Village set  By Red Vectors for £18.

While all very nice, these would represent a bit of an investment and I have a hankering to make something myself from scratch (to keep costs down). So I plumped to by an single MDF building that I thought was good value from Red Beam Designs and will use that as a scale and style template for my own models.

The Red Beam 'Russian Timber house' seems to be a design I could replicate
easily with plasticard strips.

At just £4.45 plus postage it's an affordable investment, and although a very simple design will give me the scale for my own scratch build timber hovels. Red Beam have a few more Russian houses in the series, by the way.

After just a few days the 'kit' arrived (I *think* they are laser-cut to order). It comes on just one small sheet (smelling nicely of burnt, laser cut MDF) of just ten parts, ready to knock-out and assemble...

Stash Update - 'Project Kursk' Part 1

As my practice IS-2 comes to completion I want to move quickly onto shifting some of the backlog of projects that I had collected last year. Not quite ready to just straight back into my 'Finnish Continuation War' project, I'm moving onto one of my secondary project activities - GF9 TANKS! 'Project Kursk'.

This idea was meant to be a be a slightly more ambitious GF9T game incorporating a greater number of vehicles (5v5 or 6v6) than my first few basic games of 3v3 tanks.

The last two models arrived over Christmas - having anticipated my return to modelling - and my Soviet force is now complete. Here's the 1/100 kit lineup:

• Zvezda KV-1 Heavy Tank
• Zvezda SU-152 Heavy Assault Gun
• 4 x T-34 model 1943 by Zvezda, Battlefront and PSC

The T-34s should be interesting. I have opted to buy examples of each of the three plastic kits available of this tank, from Zvezda, Battlefront and PSC. Strangly enough, I've made the PSC T-34 before, but in 1/72 scale (it's the same kit, simply scaled down). I like doing this sort of direct comparison and look forward to the builds.

Next: 'Project Kursk' Part 2 - German Force.

Coming Soon...More Little Tanks!

Having completed the GF9 TANKS starter set models, I'm getting back on with my 1/72 projects. But, I'm already planning my next expansion of my GF9T inventory and the postman brought these additions to my kit stash yesterday...

These mid-WW2 (1943) Soviet tanks will make up a small Red Army force for a 'Battle of Kursk' themed game I am currently planning. I have already built a German 'Elefant' Tank Destroyer, have a Panzer IV H in construction and have a Tiger I in my stash, so my inventory is in place for the game.

One of the German opposition that my new Soviet tanks will be up against!
My recently completed 'Elefant' (or 'Ferdinand' if you prefer).

I went for the Zvezda KV-1 m41 as it was the cheaper option than buying the rarer - and much more expensive - 1/100 Battlefront KV-1S (£9), even though by this stage in the war the KV-1 had been mostly replaced by the KV-1S. I can get away with this as I know there were at least 22 of the older KV-1 tanks at the battle (and probably more).

It will be interesting to compare the size of the Battlefront T-34 with the Zvezda T-34 I already have, as Battlefront tends to be a little larger than Zvezda's '1/100'.

My Zvezda 1/100 T-34/76 m40. How will this compare in size to my new
Battlefront T-34? Will there be much difference?

Stash additions for January 2017

January is 'Anti-Aircraft Month'! All my 'Finnish' project builds are flak related (either AA guns, their crews or towing vehicles). Above Zvesda kits were delivered today, a lovely BEF Bofors set, Soviet 37mm gun set and little Flak 38 set.

The Finns seem to have been reasonably well equipped when it came to AA guns and there is a wonderful reference source over at JaegerPlatoon.Net, including everything from light anti-aircraft machine guns all the way up to the heavy flak guns: www.jaegerplatoon.net/AAMG.htm

As usual, SA KUVA - the Finnish WW2 photo archive - is an excellent source
of reference photographs. Anti-Aircraft guns seemed to be a very popular subject
for propaganda purposes, so there is an abundance of really good material. If you
do a search for 'ilmatorjunta' - which I believe is Finnish for 'anti-aircraft', you
should come up trumps.

Like many other nations at the time, the mainstay of their AA inventory was the good old Bofors 40mm. Perhaps not surprising as Sweden is a near neighbour. The Finn's used the M/35 & M/39 Bofors, while very similar to the British Mk. I gun, the Finnish gun did not come equipped with a shield (so I will omit that component when I build the kit).

The Zvezda British Bofors set is actually very detailed and not what you would
term an 'easy build' (which many of their 'Art of Tactic' range are).

Actually, the reason I have also bought the Russian 37mm AA gun is so I can pinch it's crew and wheels! The Finnish Bofors has different wheels to its British counterpart, and the British gun crew are too different in their uniforms for me to convert, so the Russian AA crew will be substituted (probably with the addition of German helmets).

I have bought two of the Zvezda Bofors sets so that I can model the gun in both static and mobile modes.

As the war progressed and Finland swapped sides (!), they started to get more and more German equipment. Among this were a number of Flakvierling 38 (or Flak 38 for short) 2cm guns which the Finns designated as theItK/38.

The Zvesda Flak38 is a sweet little kit, with minimal parts but it looks terrific and I can use the German crew as is as they will pass for Finns when painted.

For the towed version (which, because I am using war game rules as my guidelines for this project, I will also need), I was lucky enough to pick up an example of this gun in its mobile configuration with a Deagostini Steyr 1500A/01 car I bought.

I bought this Steyr 1500A/Flak 38 set as I wanted the car to convert into a
Finnish Army command car. Handy.

So I just need to source a suitable Finnish vehicle as the tow (a light truck, like the Russian Gaz AA or Zis 5, which the Finns had in fairly large numbers).

December's stash addition

I said I was going to put the brakes on my new purchases until I started making a dent in my mountain of half-complete projects, and I am trying my best. This month's addition is a single kit!

...Well, technically it's two really. As you will see...

I am starting to move from my auxiliary transport building phase of my Finnish Continuation War project into the - perhaps more exciting for you, my readers - armoured vehicle phase. Last month I bought a beautiful 1/72 Mirage T-26 'Finlandia-45' light tank and this month I follow it up by adding some stablemates.

The Rapid Fire war game rules that I am using as my guidelines for the construction of my Continuation War collection specifies a total of 7 T-26 light tanks for its Finnish (1941-44) Tank Battalion. Now, while it would be nice to have seven Mirage T-26's (they do several variants that served with the Finnish Army) building seven of these excellent - but complex - display quality models seems something like over-kill.

So, I looked around and found that Pegasus Model - who specialise in war game quality 'e-z build' kits - do a rather nice set of T-26s. You get two in the box - which cuts costs drastically - and with only 16 parts to each tank they are (literally) a snap to put together!

A Finnish T-26 Model 1933 on display at the Parola museum in Finland. Note
the distinctive 'cylindrical' shaped turret. Source: Wikipedia.

But I should say that this isn't too big a compromise. Sure, the Pegasus T-26's are nowhere near the quality, accuracy and detail of the Mirage kit, but Pegasus do make some of the best 'war game' quality plastic kits on the market. They include a reasonable amount of moulded-on detail and have the best one-piece tracks among all the war game kit manufacturers (like Armourfast, Italeri and PSC).

The Pegasus tanks are also of a slightly different version of the T-26 - the T-26 m1933 (while the Mirage kit is a T-29 m1939 with the conical shaped turret. The Rapid Fire rules specify a mix of both the 1933 and 1939 models so that's convenient, my only worry is the comparative scale of the two makes.

Good intensions didn't last long!

I've been a bad boy! Despite the fact that I have been trying very hard to restrict my kit buying - having realised that I am a slow kit builder - to just two kits a month, today I fell off the waggon (or the tank, to be specific)...

In my defence, it was unplanned and unintentional as it began because of an unscheduled stop in Bridlington while making my way home on the train. I mistakenly caught the Bridlington train instead of my usual Scarborough train, so ended up having to pass and hour or so until the next train home arrived.

What to do?

I knew there was a model store in Bridlington, which I hadn't had a chance to visit yet, so I decided the least I could do was to try and find it so I knew where to go when I had time for a proper visit. Oh, how we fool ourselves!

I have to say, if you get a chance and are in Bridlington make the effort to go to Cropper Models, on Lansdowne Rd, as it is truly a veritable Alladin's Cave (their website - www.croppersmodels.co.uk - doesn't do their amount of stock justice).

No sooner was I inside ("just a quick look") than I spotted this on the top of a pile of Mirage kits...

Bugger!

I mean, it's so rare that you actually come across a proper kit of a WW2 Finnish vehicle that it's just too good to pass on. Even though I am a little luke-warm about the T-26 light tank the fact that was an accurate model of a specific Finnish version, with nice box art showing the Finn's three-colour camo meant I caved in like a chocolate teapot!

The Finnish T-26
Now this is an interesting tank, even though by 1944, it was horrendously out-matched. Having said that, the Soviets themselves were not above throwing obsolete armour against the Finns (reserving their best stuff for use against the Germans). In fact, the last T-26 captured from the Soviets by the Finns actually took place in August 1944! Unbelievable.

That said, I have been more interested in the more 'useful' tanks that the Finns captured - like the KV-1s, T-34s and T-34/85s. But the fact is, the T-26 (in it's many variants) was still the most numerous tank in the Finnish inventory - and it continued in the Finish inventory many years after the war.

Interesting note: The Finns were not the only ones to field obsolete tanks at this late stage in the war. In the Lapland War, where the Finns (to put it bluntly) turned on their former allies, Germany, their old T-26s found themselves up against German Somua and Hotchkiss tanks (which the Germans had captured during the fall of France)!

The one major attraction of this model, however, is that for once it is a good one. This Mirage kit is highly regarded for both its accuracy and quality, so for the very first time I will actually be making a premium quality kit. (No fettling, no tinkering, no DIY 'improvements' - just a straight build.)

You can find lots more about the Finn's use of the T-26 by following these links:

• Andreaslarka.net - Dedicated to Finnish WW2 Armour (lovely colour reference)
• Jaegerplatoon.net - Finnish Vickers 6 ton and T-26E tanks
• Jaegerplatoon.net - Soviet T-26 variants captured (and used) by the Finns

November's stash additions - Part 2

Well, that was quicker than I thought! All the way from Spain comes this wonderful 1/72 Minairons 1937 Chevrolet 1.5 ton truck...

I really quite like Minairons, they are producing a lot of interesting 'inter-war' models that no-one else is doing (in a variety of scales). The downside of this is they are a little pricey for what they are - they are simplified 'war game quality' kits, easy to put together and minimal parts yet this lovely '37 Chevy cost me £10.67 and then I took a big hit on postage as well.

Still, it gives me a unique little vehicle for my Finnish collection...

Source: SA-Kuva

In the above photo (take in 1941) a Finnish Army '37 Chevy makes it way over a temporary bridge. What's particularly interesting about this photo is that the vehicle has been given a camouflage paint job and it has night driving indicators (the white panels on the fenders and bumper). This is a bit more organised than earlier examples of Finnish commandeered vehicles, as earlier in the war they generally kept their civilian/commercial liveries.

I hate trying to work out what colours were from black and white photos. I'd love to do this camo on my truck but have no idea what colours it might be. (And as these patterns seem to have been an ad hoc unit embellishment there is no record of what they might have been.)

And that's it for this month.

November's stash additions - Part 1

A couple of additions to the stash this month, the first of which has just been delivered. The other is still in transit from sunny Spain!

This morning I am rather pleased to be the recipient of one of PST's more recent models - a lovely GAZ-55 Ambulance (m.1938). Though, there are some mixed feelings attached to this model as I had already bought a similar one from Minirions a couple of months ago. Let me explain...

It all started when I spotted this photo while trawling through the indispensable SA-Kuva photo archive.  The picture shows a captured Soviet GAZ ambulance being used by the Finnish Army.

Source: SA-Kuva [44306 - Gaz 55 Ambulance]

Quite by chance the model maker Minirions had just released their 1/72 Spanish Civil War Ford AA 'Bookmobile' model, a wonderfully charming little kit...

It so happens that the Soviet GAZ-AA truck series - of which the GAZ-55 is a member - is a licensed copy of the Ford-AA Model1929 (hence the similarities). So, I immediately ordered the Minarion's kit with the intention of converting the Ford AA kit into its Soviet relative.

All fine and dandy - in fact, I was going start this project next - but then, a few weeks ago, I saw this on the eModels (UK) web site...

A bit of a quandary. What to do - proceed with my conversion plan or buy the proper kit?

What clinched my decision was that - by sheer coincidence - I happened to come up with yet another 'cunning plan' for the Minairion's kit (based on yet another piece of photographic reference I happened to come across). This meant I could go ahead and buy the PST GAZ-55 after all.

This is quite a nice outcome as I remember having fun making my PST ZIS-6 truck, it was a nice kit and went together very nicely. Therefore, I am looking forward to making this GAZ.

December 2014 stash additions - Finnish recovery trucks

This month's stash additions have arrived! I'm trying very hard t stick to the plan and NOT just get stash kits just because they look cool!

Not just any old truck could recover a Tiger!

Mr. Postman brought me a couple of very impressive super-heavy trucks which will make-up the armour recovery element of my Finnish Continuation War collection. The Finn's - ever short of specialised vehicles - purchased a couple of giants from the Germans - the Bussing-NAG 4500 heavy truck and the even more monstrous Sd.kfz.9/1 'Famo'.

The only wartime photo (1944) I can find showing the Sd.kfz 'Famo' in use
with the Finns gives a glimpse of the huge vehicle taking part in some sort of
army review in front of command staff. You can clearly make out the front of
the Famo on the left, but - tantalisingly - could this be a fleeting appearance
of one of the Finn's Bussing-NAG recovery cranes on the right?
Picture source: SA KUVA Finnish wartime archive.

Under the Rapid Fire war-game rules I am allowed to add one tank recovery vehicle to the HQ Company, however due to an interesting twist of fate I actually decided to purchase models of both the Famo and Bussing-NAG.

Oh my! Braille Scale porn! And, for the first time, a 'premium' display quality
kit...A real beauty!

Yet another cheap Altaya diecast model fresh off eBay!

As it happened, the only version of the mighty Famo that I could find in stock with my usual model retailers was the fully tricked out recover version with the Bilsden 6 ton Crane, while the Bussing-NAG model was the standard cargo version which I found going cheap on eBay. Trouble is that the Finns had the standard version of the Famo and the crane version of the Bussing-NAG!

The solution seemed simple - transplant the crane onto the Bussing-NAG and convert the Famo back into the standard crew-carrying version of the half-track. (Lucky for me Trumpeter include the parts needed to make the standard version of the Famo in the kit!)

Both kit and diecast model look very nice. Obviously the Trumpeter kit should look fantastic but what amazed me most of all about both kit and model was the sheer size of the vehicles! Thus far I have been making pre-war era medium trucks and these wartime goliaths dwarf my earlier models.

The big Bussing-NAG compared to a contemporary medium truck! Oh heck!

Really that big? Oh yes, they really were! OMG!

In the que...OzMods 1/144 MIG-15bis

And the reason for my IL-28 experiment is...

I was given this little kit by a friend at work. I was very excited about it as its one of my favourite planes and I intend to make the best job of this model as I possibly can (hence the practise with the Beagle).

Stash addition - PST 1/72 ZIS-6 truck

With my IL-28 mid-way through I am looking toward what I will be doing next. I picked up this relatively cheap PST ZIS-6 truck which will end up being the engineering truck for my Rapid Fire! Finnish late war army HQ company.

I'll do a full box review later, but straight off the bat there are two things I like. PST supply solid plastic tyres and they also include additional parts by using the sprue parts from other of it's ZIS series truck kits that give you some nice spares for your scraps box!

(One down side is that they do not include clear plastic parts for the windows. But I can deal with that.)

Kit stash - Moonlite Modelwerkes resin trucks

Yes I said I wasn't spending any more money this month, but this was actually ordered a couple of months back (so there)! I recieved my order for a couple of pre/early WW2 American trucks this week and they are a couple of beauties.

My new Moonlite 1936 Ford and 1941 Chevrolet trucks in 20mm.

This is my very first order from Moonlite Modelwerkes of USA and it really was worth the wait. When you consider that these models are more or less made to order and there is some hand assembly done to them (they aren't the usual war game quality one-piece lumps of resin) then you understand why there is a bit of a delay between order and delivery. Besides that they do seem to be up to their eyeballs in orders, and I can see why.

I opted for a test order of just two truck (and now I wish I had ordered more!), a 1936 Ford V8-51 2½-ton truck and a 1941 Chevrolet MS4403 4x2 1½-ton truck. This was initially for my Finnish WW2 Rapid Fire! army project, but I have changed my mind now.

These models seem to be true 20mm (1/76) and won't fit in with my 1/72 kits - even if I kit bash them like my V3000 conversion. But they are just so nice that I may have to start a brand new project just to utilise them (in the meantime they will go into storage).

As I said these are war game quality ready-made models, with solid filled-in windows, so I would feel obliged to only use them with other similar 'ready to rolls'. Despite this the level of detail on these trucks is excellent, I particularly like the way Moonlite makes a proper chassis and wheel base for it's trucks - unlike the one-piece filled in and supported bases like those of Valiant and other resin war game model makers.

Another excellent feature of Moonlite's models is the rather unusual subjects of some of it's vehicles. Along side the usual military types they include quite a few less well know commercial types - like my 1936 Ford - that were common in early WW2 armies (like The Netherlands, Finland, France, etc).

Well, as you can tell I am very happy with my purchase and will think long and hard about how I can utilise these excellent resin models.

Here I compare my Moonlite models with a couple of resin one-piece models
I purchased from Valliant. Aside from the solid one-piece casting you will
notice a lot more fine detailing on the Moonlite vehicles. The Valliant
trucks are also closer to 1/72 scale.

To order from Moonlite you must email David Reasoner in the States and ask for a catalogue, all sales are conducted by email and you pay by PayPal. Postage was reasonable and David himself was exceptionally helpful:  hmsdiomede@aol.com

As an example, my Chevvy was $12 and my Ford was $10, which once you take the hand assembly and short run nature of these nice little models into consideration is well worth it.

Stash Update - Finnish Army Armoured Car Company

Seeing as I am a knat's whisker away from finishing my very first Rapid Fire! army unit - my Finnish Air Group (must call it something else, LOL) - I thought I best prepare my next project in this series. I am working on the HQ unit between the major fighting units so I can get onto more exciting AFVs, so next I decided to get on with my Armoured Car Company.

Under the Rapid Fire! ruleset the armoured car company for the Finns is made up of two units each comprising on one vehicle each. There's a HQ unit and the main company unit and these should be made up with one Soviet BA-20 (HQ) and one BA-10.

Left: Soviet BA-20 armored car, in Finnish markings, , displayed in Finnish Tank Museum (Panssarimuseo) in Parola. Source: Wikipedia

You can read all about the historical usage of captured Soviet armoured cars by the Finns here: Jaeger Platoon - Finnish Armoured Cars of WW2

The smaller BA-20 armoured car is a bit of a chew to get hold of in 1/72 plastic (though there are plenty of examples in 20mm resin), and the only one I could find which is readily available here in the UK is the BA-20 Railroad version from Ace. As the name suggests this is a version of the vehicle which comes with railway wheels so that it could ride on the tracks, but it does come with the ordinary road wheels too.

The bigger BA-10 is a lot easier to procure and there are nice versions by Pegasus (lovely 2 vehicle war game quality box set) and, for example, UniModels. It was the Unimodels version I decided to go for after reading a very positive review over at the SquadPainter blog.

Now I really like the look of this pair of armoured cars, they are sort of quaint in their way and yet I can see how in a war game senario they could be very useful despite their somewhat limited armament. Although the BA-10's 45mm gun would be very handy against infantry, light gun positions and soft vehicles it's as reconnaissance vehicles where I see this pair excelling.

Left: Soviet BA-10 armored car, displayed in Finnish Tank Museum (Panssarimuseo) in Parola. Source: Wikipedia

I haven't even opened the boxes yet so the next post will be the unboxing and will be followed by the building of the BA-20 first of all.

The BA20 was bought from Model Hobbies for £10.32 (yikes!) and I got the BA-10 from Hannants for £7.40.

Featured work & stash update - ICM Zil 157

This is a bit of a happy co-incidence - I ordered a couple of 1/72 ICM ZIL 157 heavy Soviet trucks on pay day and by chance a model of this truck is featured on the MiniAFV blog today!

Above: Gürkan Özkan's 1/72 Trumpeter ZIL 157 as featured on the MiniAFV Blog.

The ZIL 157 was the Soviet Unions standard general purpose 2.5 ton 6x6 truck from the end of the Second World War and through most of the early Cold War. But my interest in it is that it was a direct copy of the American International Harvester K-7 truck, many of which were supplied to the Soviet Union as lend lease during WW2. And - more importantly for me - the Finnish army purchased several of these big K-7 trucks as heavy artillery prime movers early in the war.

Above: Box artwork for my 1/72 ICM ZIL 157 - two of which I received today!

The International Harvester K series trucks were manufactured in all maner of formats, from the convensional 'stake bed' truck (like the ZIL pictured above) to the articulated multi-axeld heavy movers. Information I have found indicates that the Finnish artillery had 23 of the 6 wheeled versions and 31 of the longer (articulated?) 10 wheeled versions.

Differences between the American K-7s and the Soviet ZIL 157 copies were minor - such as the front grills being vertical instead of horizontal on the Soviet version and the front fenders and bumper being a slightly different shape. Nothing too difficult to make, a pretty simple conversion really.

Once converted my two fake K-7s will join my Altaya Steyr RSO/01 diecast model as my Finnish heavy artillery prime movers.

Wespe Models Opel Kapitan & Citroen 45

The postman has just just dropped off a parcel from Romania. Sadly it isn't a dragon egg, but happily it's a couple of Wespe resin models. They are a Opel Kapitan staff car and Citroen 45 3 ton truck.

These are wonderfully done resin models in 1/72 scale, but they aren't like any of the budget war gaming resin models I have bought so far. These are premium display quality moulds with a huge amount of fine detail.

Above: Inside the box, protected by a layer of bubble-wrap, is a bag of
components - a lot of components! Here are the parts for the Citroen 45,
nothing like any of the resin models I have had so far.

These models were bought for my Finnish army HQ Battalion and represent my commanders staff car and my Engineer Company's truck. Finland received a large quantity of Citroen 45 trucks from their German allies (OK, we have all made bad friend choices at one time!) and the Opel will be converted into the similar looking 1940 4-door Sedan as the Finns made use of a large number of American cars of the pre and early war period (mainly Plymouth and Fords).

Above: The lovely 1940 Ford Sedan, suspiciously similar in design to the German
1939 Opel Kapitan. Handy for me as it means just some minor cosmetic
modifications to my Wespe model to turn it into this American classic car.

Above: The 1939 Opel Kapitan. Photo source: Wikipedia

A quick look through the boxes and their contents is enough to impress me. There are a large number of finely made components in each box along with a photocopied inventory of parts and a sheet of 'instructions' (just a diagram of the orientation of parts really).

One thing I liked was that each instruction sheet was hand signed by a Wespe staff member to show that the kit contents had been checked before dispatch.

I can't see any downsides, other than perhaps hat there are no colour scheme suggestions except the one that's on the box, decals of windscreens cut to size (you get a rectangular sheet of transparent plastic instead). But I guess, if like me, you want to buy these niche vehicles you have a pretty good idea about how you want to paint them. Though I guess war-gamers might wince at the price of these models (I did try the SHQ Citroen 45, but this white metal model was so bad that I immediately assigned it to my scrap box).

Above: Each kit comes with an inventory sheet, this being the sheet for the
Citroen. As you can see, some of the parts are quite delicate but there is
an welcome absence of flash.

Interestingly the Citroen 45 has quite a wide variety of possible uses, from 1940 French army to North African Vichy or French colonial and also Wehrmacht (for which an estimated 15,000 vehicles were produced during the occupation), captured Soviet as well as Finnish.

Above: The Citroen 45 3 ton truck. Photo source: Denis Orlov, Moscow.

The delivery time to the UK from Romania took two weeks, but that was during the Christmas period, and I was supplied a tracking code by Wespe. So overall I am very pleased with this purchase

Link: Wespe Models - www.wespemodels.ro