Maybe now I've got enough artillery?, Part 1

During the long holiday weekend, I'm adding to my East German artillery. Lord, I really need to get a bigger apartment for all of this stuff before Mrs. HistoryPhD has a coronary!

I'm working on a 152mm towed howitzer battery. In the early 80's, these were often seen in place of self-propelled 2S3 152mm guns, as tracked vehicles were in such short supply in all WarPac armies:

Given that it was a much heavier gun than the 122mm and had heavier ammunition, it was often towed by a 7.5 ton KrAZ-255B:

So that's what I'll use for my battery too (and there's that grey canvas cover again). If the battery was part of one of the two armored divisions, an MT-LB would often have been the prime mover:

The battery was rounded out with the usual 1V18 forward observer vehicle:

And a BTR-60PU for the battery commander:

And here's my progress of this weekend thus far. The guns have been glued to their bases, textured, and given the "mud" base coat:

As you can see, I've made a start on the tires.

Secondly, the KrAZ-255B's have been painted with East German green and their tires have also been done. The bases for them are finished, including flocking:

I've yet to start painting the tarpaulins.

The BTR-60PU has its base coat, but:

The 1V18 hasn't even been primed yet. It'll get done with a batch of other things arriving from Picoarmor in the first mail after the holiday. Priming just one thing is too wasteful, and I'm nearly out of primer again, dammit!! Another need which is clamoring for money. Sigh. 

Where has the long weekend gone!?!  Mrs. HistoryPhD has been very successful at keeping me buried under chores and household projects, so not nearly as much painting done as I wanted, at least not painting of minis! Stand by for Part 2 of this post, where I'll show you the finished battery. Hope you had a good holiday!