Back in the USSR

I've been feeling distinctly unwell this weekend.

Thank heaven for Mrs. History PhD (and Teddy)!

Anyway, after a couple of weeks of fiddling with other things, I'm back to 3mm Cold War and it's Soviet tanks. We're back in the USSR ("You don't know lucky you are"). Despite my misery (mild food poisoning, not brought on by my wife's Thai cooking!), I've managed to finish the battalion command stand that I was lacking for a T-64A battalion which I had been working on earlier in the week (before I was cruelly struck down):

And the whole thing:

That's what I love about 3mm! Battalions really look like battalions. 

I had planned on using a BRDM-2:

as the second vehicle on the battalion command stand, given that each Soviet armored battalion had a section of them as a recon unit. However, wheeled vehicles mixed in with my tanks just rankles, regardless of the authenticity. So I swapped for a BRM:

which fulfilled the same role. I know, I know! But it's MY Soviet Army!

More after my recuperation!

More engineering goodness

My 1981 East German pioneer company is now complete. My previous post, "Bridging the gap" (March 8, 2015) was the beginning of this unit, showing a TMM-3 bridging platoon:

The other platoons of the company consisted of BAT-M bulldozers:

MTU-20 AVLBs:

A twin-treadway, cantilever-launched, box girder bridge 65.5 feet in length (20 meters) and capable of supporting 50 tons, all mounted on a modified T-55 chassis. 

MDK-2M trench diggers:

Actually, East German engineers in 1981 were more likely to be using the MDK-2Ms predecessor, the BTM:

But I'll have to use what Marcin has provided. I'll just consider my engineers to be extremely well equipped. 

Also IMR obstacle clearing vehicles:

Forgive the last two photos

Photos of the real IMR in action seem to be nonexistent.

IRM "Zhuk" (meaning "beetle" in Russian) engineer reconnaissance vehicles:

Which were specifically designed to reconnoiter riverbeds for suitable sites for bridging:

but also for detecting mines, either on land or on the riverbed, the underwater mining of potential river crossing points being common on modern battlefields:

The engineers themselves were generally mounted in obsolete APCs cast off by the infantry. As my company is to be attached to a motor rifle regiment, the APCs would be wheeled, so I'm using BTR-60Ps:

although BTR-152s or even BTR-40s would be possible for engineers in a reserve or training unit. For a company attached to an armored unit, BTR-50PKs would be the most likely. 

Each divisional pioneer company had its own reconnaissance platoon of BRDM-2s (or possibly BRDM-1s) for scouting and screening:

which for my purpose, is more usefully cascaded down to the regimental level, which is how I represent it.

And finally, the commander of a pioneer company required only a single radio for contact with higher command and so was usually mounted in a 4WD. I chose a UAZ-469:

But other similar vehicles were just as likely. 

And now here is my company:

Engineers, even more so than other types of support units, were prone to have a whole gaggle of various sizes of trucks accompanying them, so to represent that, I added a URAL-375D and a KrAZ-255B to the transport vehicle stands. 

Not a bad weekend's work. Now on to the next project!

East German Heavy Reconnaissance Company

The project for the next day or three will be to finish a heavy reconnaissance company for my East Germans. Ultimately, I want to do two of them and a scout car company to complete a panzer reconnaissance battalion. 

As always, I model units 1:1, so for the heavy reconnaissance company I need a command stand with a BRDM-2U:

Which is easily doable by filing the small MG turret off of a BRDM-2. Then I need a stand of four PT-76 amphibious light tanks:

Also a stand of two BRDM-2 scout cars:

And a stand of two T-55's:

And finally a stand of two KMZ (Dnepr) MV-750 motorcycle/sidecar combinations, each fielding a PKM light machinegun:

For which I'll be forced to use WWII German BMW R75s yet again, as O8 doesn't make any other sort of motorcycle. Luckily, at this scale, the BMW easily passes as the KMZ. 

In the second company of the battalion, I'll replace the BDRM-2s with BRMs, as was often the case:

The PT-76s were sometimes replaced with BMP-1s, which I'll do a stand of to give myself that option:

Here is my 3mm version:

I'm really pleased with how those tiny motorcycles paint up. Loads of detail on them. It's flabbergasting that they're 1/600!

All together for a group shot, one East German heavy reconnaissance company at 1:1:

That's it for this time. More soon!