A Five-Year Plan in Two Months

Yesterday I managed to commence work on two more T-34's, so at this point I want to remind myself what it is I want to accomplish, and the time frame I am setting myself.  Which is really the point of having set up the blog in the first place! 

So having set myself the task of building up a mid-war force, here is what is on the table so far.  One can almost hear the clank of cranes and conveyor belts, the rat-tat-tat of riveting guns, and the shouts of the foremen.  Not to mention the stern warnings of the factory commissars, as they exhort the workers to strive to meet the production quotas set by Comrade Stalin.  Or else...

Five T-34's in the front row, two completed, one almost done,  and two just starting along the production line.  Behind them are four KV-1s heavy tanks, one completed.  In their shadow are six BT-light tanks.  One has been finished, the others need some more work but are quick to do.  Not a priority at this stage, though.

In the background is a BA-7 heavy armoured car, a Gaz truck, and the beginnings of the SU-152 Heavy Assault Gun Regiment.

Some village buildings in the far distance.  I really want to get started on these, but I need a large block of free time to work on them, as terrain making is messy stuff.

Look up- way up, and you can see the flying tank.  The Il-2m Sturmovik, on a stand I made from a plastic disk and some Plexiglas rods and tubing.  

I find I prefer to work on many different models at the same time.  This allows me to stay sane by not having to repeating the same  model assembly over and over again in one go.  It also means that sub-assemblies have the time for cement and putty to dry out thoroughly before I start handling them, as in the meantime I can work on a different vehicle.

Here is the plan.  Now, I know from bitter experience that plans have a way of being kicked about like deflated footballs by the evil Gnomes of Circumstance.  But failure to plan is planning to fail, as the saying goes.

Plastic model production, in order of priority:

Phase 1:

• 6x T-34/76' Medium Tanks (one battalion)
• 4x KV-1s Heavy Tanks (one regiment)
• 4x BT-7 light tanks (two companies)
• 1x Il-2m Sturmovik
• 1x quad AA gun 
• 1x 37mm AA gun
• The village!

 Phase 2:

• 4x SU-152 self-propelled assault guns (one regiment)
• 6x Lend-lease trucks (on their way from Hannants)
• 2x Lend-lease jeeps (also on their way from Hannants)
• 1x 76.2mm a/t gun + truck

 Apart from the SU-152's, most of the above to make up the motorized rifle battalion of the tank brigade, along with a headquarters unit. I haven't decided yet which vehicles to use for the latter, though.

When done, this will mean that the following units will be ready to take the field:

• 68th Independent Tank Brigade (1942-43 configuration)
• 12th Guards Heavy Tank Breakthrough Regiment
• 1539th SU Regiment

If these can all be done by our  next BKC game in middle/late October, I will be a very satisfied man.  But I'll settle for getting at least Phase 1 done, with Phase 2 well on it's way by that time.

And of course, I still need to finish off an artillery battalion as well as assorted infantry odd 'n sods, but I should be able to sneak in an hour here and there for painting to break the tedium of being surrounded by liquid cement fumes and plastic shavings.

It's all in the details...

Despite a busy work schedule- and I do mean busy, fourteen hour working days having been the norm recently- I've been able to unwind a bit by working here and there on the tanks.  With the weekend upon me I can now spend an afternoon and evening chugging away at the Soviet armour.

I received the Aber turned aluminum gun barrels within days of getting Cove Model's email reporting them as being dispatched.  Here is one of them which I just epoxied on to the KV-1s. They look good, especially the muzzle opening.

In a moment of madness, and inspired by someone's work on a hobby forum, I also thought it would be cool to add some cast turret numbers that were a feature of the KV-1s turret, as you can see here.

I used a new hobby knife to carefully carve off some of the  raised part numbers from the UM OT-34 kit sprues, and carefully laid them in place on the turret, settling them in with some liquid cement.  This was a lot easier to do than you may think. 

They are somewhat over scale, but the effect is good.  And it is the effect I'm going after here, rather than trying to create a 100% accurately scaled-down replica.  

After painting, I'll lightly dry brush the digits so that they stand out slightly from the turret surface.  But no so much as to detract from the unit markings.  

And that's the first KV-1s all done, bar the painting.  "Only" three more to do, not to mention the three SU-152's that are waiting in the wings.

*****

I was also able to put together another couple of the Zvezda T-34's.  Again, I can't stress enough just how impressed I am with this kit.  And now that I knew how to assemble those fantastic tracks, the models went together quickly and without any problems.  

I decided to take the opportunity to make one of them a commander's vehicle.  The Zvezda kit is of the early cast-turret version with the two "Micky Mouse ear" hatches, but I wanted the commander in a later version, with a cupola.  Not only would it provide another interesting variation on the T-34 theme within my battalion, but it also has a visibility advantage in the BKC II rules.  

Fortunately, the UM OT-34 model- while a real pig to put together with all the myriad of small parts- comes with a lot of options, resulting in plenty of extras for the spare parts box.  These include parts for either a flamethrower tank or normal version, rear-box or cylindrical style external fuel containers, and finally a choice of modelling either the earlier turret top, or the later one with cupola.  So it was an easy matter to take a spare cupola and add it to the Zvezda kit. 

More challenging was modelling the cupola split hatch in open position, but some patient work with a sharp knife did the job easily.  

I then added to cupola to a disc of plastic card to give it the required height to fit the Zvezda model, and drilled out holes for brass wire to give the hatches stronger support.

I may well end up adding brass wire handles to the turret sides as well.  All that was left was to plop an old Wargames Foundry 20mm tank commander into the hatch and there you have it. Onwards to Victory, Comrades! 

*****

The Il-2m Sturmovik has not been forgotten, but there have been many problems encountered along the way, and progress is slow.  The story on that will have to wait for a while.  Suffice to say for now that armour kits are much easier to work with!  But I have succeeded in making a good, strong stand for it, so that I can have it on the battlefield poised menacingly over the Fascist armour ready to do them some GBH.  It does involve some major surgery on the model, though.  WIP pictures  soon, I hope.

*****

Finally, never mind the Party, Comrade Stalin,  Exporting the Revolution & International Communism, or the success of the latest Five Year Plan.  This was what the Soviet Soldier was really fighting for... *sigh*

"Tarting up" the KV-1s

Shitty summer here; typhoons, heat, rain, heat and rain, and just plain meteorological filth as far as the weather is concerned. 

Airbrushing and spray priming are out of the question for the foreseeable few weeks here, but that hasn't stopped me from working on my Soviets.  A bit here, a bit there, but most of all I have been muckin' around with my Pegasus Hobbies KV-1s kits, in particular trying to get one "test model" done.

As I've mentioned earlier, I like these kits a lot, and the KV-1s has long been one of my favourite tanks.  So I was determined to do a good job on the four of them that will make up the 12th Heavy Tank Breakthrough Regiment.  

Here is the first one done, wanting only for the weather to cooperate (hah!) so that I can give it a black base coat prior to airbrushing. (click on any of the photos to enlarge).

Now this is not about to win any IPMS awards, but I think I've managed to capture the character of the beast a lot more than if I had just built it up straight out of the box.

Looking at pictures of the original vehicle, it was amazing just how "rough-hewn" the armour castings were.  Here is an example, and you can see more pictures at this site.

So looking at the models, I decided to modify them.

First I filled in the gaps in the turret assembly and sanded the whole thing down.  Then, using two-part epoxy putty, I filled in the gaps between the turret and gun mantlet. I used a needle to texture the putty to get that "rough cut" look.

 

Using strips of plastic card and rod, I added more substantial side discs and weld seams. For the seams, I soaked the plastic strips in liquid cement, and after about 15 minutes, I took a sharp craft knife and scored in umpteen grooves to get the welded look.

In order to roughen the turret surface, I spread several coats of Gunze-Sangyo's  Mr. Surfacer 500 liberally over the turret sides and faces, using old retired paint brushes to texture and stipple the surfaces.  

As I got more confident with using it, I was able to  vary the consistency of the surfacer with liquid cement.  I ended up texturing  all the surfaces of the vehicle that would have been cast- or drop-forged, such as armour plate, but not on the pressed-steel components such as track guards and fuel drums.  

The surfacer is really versatile stuff, and is just great for getting that unpolished factory finish that was so typical of Soviet mid-war armour.  

All things considered, tarting up the turret didn't take all that long. 

Purists will note that the weld seams are considerably over scale, but for wargaming models they characterize the look of the KV-1s nicely.  Once the tank has been painted dark green and weathered appropriately, they won't stand out so much anyhow.

I also decided to add some more detailing to the tracks.  Because of the moulding process, the tread surfaces on the kits are quite smooth and crude.  After mulling over whether I really wanted to go through with this- after all, there are three more models to do and some SU-152's as well- I decided to bite the bullet and add chopped up strips of plastic to try and approximate the waffle pattern on the treads where they were visible.  

Again, this would not pass muster at an IPMS competition, but I think I did a good job of hinting at the waffle effect.  After the liquid cement dried, I gave the tracks a wash of good ol' Mr. Surfacer 500 again.  

Once that was done, I epoxied some weights into the hull to give the model some heft, and then glued the lower and upper hulls together.  They went together extremely well.
 

The turret hand rails are just suggested using plastic rod.  I was thinking of making them out of brass wire, but in the end decided that it wasn't worth the extra effort, especially as they would easily be prey to clumsy fingers anyway.

Here you can  also see what was the biggest pain in the ass to do- the tow cables which were such a feature in photos of Soviet heavy tanks.  

I could have ordered some of these as resin and copper wire after-market accessories, but that would have added much to the cost of the models, so I decided against it.  Besides, as designed they wouldn't have worked with the way the hooks are modelled on the Pegasus Hobbies kits.

So scratch building it was.  I could find the wire easily enough at a local hardware store, and had thin brass wire to make to tow eyes.  But it was fiddly, trial-and-error work involving  masking tape, lengths of paper clip for hooks, super-glue, epoxy and a mess of cussin'.  And it took many a failed attempt before I had a result which I was happy with and which would be sturdy enough to survive the gaming table.  

It didn't help that I got impatient and ended up breaking off one of the kit tow hooks, which was a bugger to replace.  Now it is placed asymmetrically with the one on the other side, which I will just have to put down to a hasty and inexpert field repair- common enough going by a lot of photos I've seen of Soviet wartime armour.
 

Note the gun barrel, which is from a UM OT-34 kit and is just there for the photo- it hasn't been cemented in place.  I found the barrels on the Pegasus Hobbies kits somewhat anaemic and spindly looking, so I splurged out and ordered some of the Aber turned aluminum gun barrels from Cove Models to replace them.  They are on their way as I type.  Cove Models is an excellent company to deal with, by the way.

So much for what were meant to be fast-build kits!  But having spent so much time on this one vehicle, the others should prove a lot faster to build now that I know what- and what not- to do!  

I'm happy with the results so far and look forward to  getting the rest done, and to giving them a coat of paint and markings (I've just ordered some decal sets for Soviet armour from Aleran).

Providing the weather sees fit to cooperate, of course...

Going "3D"- the IL-2 Sturmovik

Fascists beware!!!

While waiting for various components on my heavy tanks to dry out, I decided it was time to look at some air support for the Soviets, started on the Airfix Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik kit.

Clearly, Airfix thought the IL in the name stood for  "Ill" fitting, and this kit was something of a pig to put together.  

All the parts  are somewhat heavy, and needed some work with file and sandpaper to make them fit properly, particularly the undercarriage doors.  I would have been better of replacing them completely, but instead I used the kit ones and realized that I needed lots of plastic scrap to fill in the gaps.  This one will need a fair bit of time with putty and sandpaper.

Still, to be fair the kit is an old and venerable one from Airfix and deserves to be given some allowances for its age.  And to tell true I've been enjoying working on my first aircraft model for over twenty years.

The kit comes with a load of bombs, but I'm thinking of adding a pair of underwing 37mm A/T guns, as in the version in the video which I found on YouTube.  They shouldn't present any particularly difficulty for scratch building.  A little more challenging is how I'm going to make a stand and base that will be solid enough to support the kit over the table, without looking too ungainly and detracting from the tabletop.

Housing boom, and some suburban transportation.

I've been quite productive recently with making model kits- I've been churning them out at a great pace.  

The weather for the next few months here in Tokyo is going to be hot, humid, and generally unpleasant- which means that any spray painting is out of the question.  So it's build, build, and build in the summer months and once the weather becomes cooler and drier, then I'll be able to prime, undercoat, and airbrush the lot in batches.

I've put together all the Pegasus Hobbies buildings which I ordered recently.  After looking at pictures of Russian villages online, I've cut out some MDF bases and have been planning the layout.

The brown plastic buildings are the ones from Pegasus Hobbies, with a lone Britannia Miniatures resin house in their midst.

The first step will be to plane down the edges of the bases.  Once the buildings have been painted, then I will glue them down and texture the bases with acrylic putty and PVA-soaked offcuts of old cloth to make small potato patches and the like.  I'll then add fences, the occasional duck pond, water troughs, wagons, wood piles and other such farmyard impedimenta so that the bases will look a lot less spartan than they do in the photos.

Yet to be done are the "commercial" buildings.  A railway station and water tower (as at Ponyri), a grain silo, and an administration building for the local Party bigwigs.

Note the BA-6 and T-34/76 prowling the roads for Fascists.  The tank is the Zvezda model.  

This is really a great model.  The best T-34 kit I've built in this scale so far.  It went together fairly quickly (after I corrected my initial mistake when constructing the road wheels and suspension- a classic case of "when all else fails, read the instructions, nitwit!"). 

 

This is the kit just as it comes, built straight out of the box.  The only non-regulation things I did to it were to drill out the gun muzzle and the exhaust pipes in the rear.

The detail is very fine, and the track assembly system is quite ingenious. I was surprised just how easily almost all the parts fitted together.  The 76.2mm gun itself is of very simple construction.  None of those ill-fitting, multi-part gun housing/ mantlet pieces that seem to be the curse of many T-34/76 kits. 

The only parts requiring filling were some mould sinkholes on the gun mantlet cheeks.  You can see one side puttied over in the photo.  Once it's cured, I'll sand them down and texture the turret with Mr. Surfacer 500 for the rough-cast look.  

Curiously, there are no external fuel tanks provided, but I've seen lots of photos of T-34's without them.  And it does make for a faster build (two days.)

I was a little apprehensive as to how the delicate tow cables would fit, and whether they would break while removing them from the sprue, but the whole thing went together really smoothly.

This is definitely my T-34 of choice for 20mm gaming.

Betushkas!

I came home the other day to find my Pegasus Hobbies BT-7's had arrived.  Really simple kits- about 12 parts per model! The track links are a little on the thick side, but nothing to detract from the model.  The Pegasus kit captures the look of the Betushka perfectly.

Here they are, assembled but not yet glued together.  Some filing, filling, and sanding to be done but not much.  Six vehicles, which would be a battalion's worth for service in the Far East, or I can use just four and have them do service as the light companies of the 1942/43 tank brigade.

 *****

In the background can be seen the KV-1s models I'm working on.  I love these kits, and as there are only to be four of them I'm taking the time to "tart 'em up" a bit.  Aside from adding plastic strip stock to suggest more track detail, I want to work more on the turret.  

The turret castings of the real things were rough.  REALLY rough, as you can see if you click on any of the images here.  So I will apply liberal coats of Gunze-Sangyo's product Mr. Surfacer 500 to give the cast parts a really porous-looking finish.  

I may also replace the barrels with more substantial turned aluminum after-market parts, but that may have to wait a while.  I'll also have to add some towing cables, which were such a noticeable part of the KV's equipment.

One of the KV's is of course to be the regimental command tank, so I also "opened" the hatch, and have yet to make the hatch cover itself from plastic card.  Unlike other Soviet tanks, the hatch opened sideways, so I will need to chop up some tankisti miniatures so that I can make a commander who would be holding on the the hatch with his left hand while leaning slightly to the right.

 *****

Quick update.  Received my order of Zvezda's brand new, snap-together T-34/76's from Hannants in the UK.  I'm glad I ordered them when I did- they've already sold out!

First impressions are extremely good. For a snap-together kit, this one is really well-detailed!  Not really a quick-build, but it should take a lot less time to put together than the UM kits!   There are more parts than is the case with the Pegasus Hobbies models, but it has to be said that overall this one is very finely engineered. 

I'm looking forward to getting them done- once I get the current crop of models finished!  I may put one together just to see how it goes. 

Changes in Plan...

While looking for information on Guards heavy tank regiments, I found this .pdf file from Battlefront on their Flames of War site.  Unfortunately, it looks like the 36th Guards Heavies used the Churchill rather than KV-1's, so a change in the force I want to represent is in order.  Bugger.

So I diligently scoured all the Internetz, which led me to come across another article, this one on the 12th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment.  It served with the 9th Guard Rifle Corps in the offensive launched after the Battle of Kursk.  An interesting order of battle, as it had a tank brigade in support as well.    

9th Guards Rifle Corps ( 61st Army)

12th, 76th and 77th Guard Rifle Divisions
68th Independent Tank Brigade
12th Guards Heavy Tank Breakthrough Regiment
1539th SU Regiment (with twelve SU-152s)
16th and 17th Artillery Divisions
13th Mortar Brigade
310th and 311th Guards "Mortar" Regiments (twenty-four BM-13 “Katyusha” rocket launchers each).
310th Army Engineer Battalion

Lots of goodies there. Along with the12th Guards Heavies and the 68th Tank Brigade, I'll focus on recreating the 12th Guards Rifle Division, which stayed with the 9th Rifle Corps for the whole war.  According to R.G. Poirier and A.Z. Conner in their very useful book The Red Army Order of Battle in the Great Patriotic War,  the 12th Guards Rifle Division consisted of the 29th, 32nd, and 37th Guards Rifle Regiments and the 31st Guards Artillery Regiment.  

Originally raised as the 258th Rifle Division, it was used to form the 9th Guards Rifle Corps April 1942.  It saw fighting around Bolkov, on the Dnieper River, Belorussia and Poland, as well as in Riga and Berlin.  It served a number of times as a "breakthrough" division, for major offensives, and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for its combat service.

For the 68th Independent Tank Brigade, I'll be needing some light tanks.  For a number of reasons, I settled on ordering some Pegasus Hobbies BT-7 tanks. 

Now these were on the way out by late 1942 let alone 1943, when they really should be replaced by T-60's, T-70's, or even Lend-Lease Stuarts or Valentines.  They aren't even in the BKC II stats for a mid-war Soviet army.  But there were a number of practical considerations that made me decide to get them;

1. The Pegasus models are cheap- and easy to put together.
2. While absolutely Kat food, the BT-7 looks cool, and has always been one of my favourites.
3. I can also use them in games set against the Japanese, where they were used right up to 1945.

So I ordered three boxes' worth- six vehicles in all.  I can assume that in the aftermath of the high losses taken at Kharkov and Rhzev, reinforcements have been sent from the Far East, and that due to supply and/ or administrative reasons the 68th Tank Brigade has not yet the chance to re-equip it's light companies with something more modern.  At some time in the future I can get some Valentines or T-70's if I want to set the games later in the war.

Summer is here, the heat is increasing, and I'm off on a teaching intensive for a week.  So updates may be slow in coming for July.  When I get back from that business trip the pace at work picks up considerably, and I have to get working on some stuff for July's game as well.  Blogging may well have to take a back seat for a while.