The Japanese and the East Germans

Not exactly two groups that go together, but that's what I've been working on this weekend. 

First, I finished off the Japanese light cruiser Tatsuta,

sister ship of last weekend's Tenryu, as well as the Kamikaze class destroyer Yunagi:

Recently on TheMiniaturesPage.com, when I mentioned having completed Yubari and Tenryu, someone said I'd soon have the entire line-up for the Battle of Savo Island. While I'm not specifically trying to do that, it seems as good a target to work toward as any, hence doing Yunagi. As you can see from my photos, I've run out of appropriate-sized ship bases, so an order went off to Bay Area Yards on Thursday. I really cannot recommend their bases highly enough!

And now the East Germans. In any WarPac division, regardless of nationality, there was always a radio/radar intercept and direction finding company as part of the reconnaissance battalion. The company's platoons would break down into sections and roam along the division's frontline, attempting to intercept and decode NATO radio transmissions. 

The vehicles used varied quite a bit, not only by decade, but also by unit. Each section was normally two vehicles; an intercept vehicle loaded with radios etc. and a data processing vehicle full of computers and intelligence analysts. In 1981 (my scenario date), one commonly seen combination was a UAZ-452 for the intercept:

And an office-body GAZ-66 for processing:

(but with a lot more antennae than that one). Once NATO transmission sites had been located and the traffic decoded, the information was passed to division HQ for analysis and then immediately on to artillery units for targeting. 

Here's my version:

O8 doesn't make a box-body truck, except as part of the Ganef pack, so I'll just have to use a regular GAZ-66. I really ought to do 2-3 more stands of these guys. Just another thing to put onto the already burgeoning "to do" list. More next weekend!

A bit of this and a bit of that

This weekend, I've been kept quite busy with the "honey do" list, which Mrs. History PhD produced with almost satanic glee, so hobby related activities have been at a bare minimum. 

However I did manage to sneak in a platoon of West German Skorpion Minenwerfers (in English, that's "mines thrower"):

These are from National Cheese Emporium on Shapeways. I think they're slightly sub-scale (or maybe O8 vehicles are slightly over-scale), but they are very nicely detailed, although exorbitantly expensive for being just four tiny slivers of plastic. Hopefully O8 will get cracking on putting out other vehicles for my projected West German engineer company. 

And for my East German panzer pioneers, I finished a platoon of BTS-2 armored recovery vehicles:

These were based on a T-54A chassis and oddly, the dozer blade was mounted on the rear. Similar western vehicles always mounted the blade in front. For 1981, I should be using BTS-4s:

with their massive snorkel, but Marcin has provided only BTS-2s thus far. 

Actually, ARVs were not part of pioneer units in the NVA (nor in any other army, as far as I'm aware), but clouds of them would've followed any WarPac armored unit and attaching them to my pioneers seemed reasonable, at least for storage purposes. 

That's all I've been granted time to do this weekend. When I said that hobbies were far more important than chores, I got this face:

Hmmm. More next weekend (hopefully)!

My first regimental command stand!

This weekend, I completed the third battalion (a T-55 unit) for an East German panzer regiment. It's two battalions of T-55s: 

and one of T-72s:

It's part of my East German 9th Panzer Division (It will be either the 21st, 22nd, or 23rd Panzer Regiment, all of which were part of the 9th Division in 1981, as was the 9th Motor Rifle Regiment). 

That being the case, this is the first time I've ever needed a Cold War-era regiment/brigade command stand. As a visual aid, I go with the number of vehicles on the stand to quickly identify its command level; one vehicle for company command, two for battalion, etc. I have always used 1"x1" (25mm x 25mm) for my command stands. There's ample room for two vehicles to fit quite comfortably (and even a bush here and there):

However, three was just too many. They looked like they were on top of each other! As I doubt that I'm ever going to need command stands for dozens of regiments/brigades, I really don't want to buy a whole pack of a new, larger size square stand. So, after rummaging around in the numerous sizes I already have, I settled on 40mm x 20mm. It's what I use for 1/600 Napoleonic infantry:

Looks fine to me. As this regiment is partly T-72s, I've assumed the regimental commander would refuse to be seen in older equipment. You know how officers are. But the 2IC is still in his T-55. I threw in a BTR-50PK:

to represent a staff vehicle. Also at the regimental level was a forward air control (FAC) vehicle, a BTR-60 R975:

As usual, the best I can do is a filed down BTR-60PB.

Now all I need to do is convert my pre-existing motor rifle pioneer company into one for a panzer regiment (four extra MTU-20 AVLBs, tracked transport for the pioneers, and lose the ditch diggers) and I'll have the entire regiment completed. As soon as I can convince Mrs. History PhD to let me clear off the kitchen table, I'll let you have a look. 

More next time!

An SA-4 Ganef battery

This weekend's post is more antiaircraft for my East Germans; an SA-4 Ganef battery:

Marcin at O8 has very recently put out a pack intended to represent an SA-4 battalion, but I have no need of three batteries, so I'm doing just one. 

The Ganef medium to long range missile:

(Ganef being Yiddish for "rascal" or "thief" and predictably also for "lawyer") is called Krug ("circle") in Russian and it entered service in 1965. It was designed to fit inside an AN-22 Cock aircraft:

Yes, I agree. One of the most unfortunate of NATO reporting names.

The two versions operational in 1981 (the year my scenario is set in) were the Krug A (1971) and the Krug B (1973). The A had a maximum engagement altitude of 88,500ft/27,000m and a range of just under 45mi or 72 km. The B model sacrificed altitude and range for increased performance against lower altitude targets. The two types were visually indistinguishable from each other. 

A brigade (three battalions) of Ganefs would have been an Army-level asset and would have operated 6-15mi/10-25km behind the front lines. Each battalion consisted of three batteries and a technical (radar) company. 

So what should a battery consist of? Three TELs, two of which were armed with Krug B and one with Krug A:

four reload trucks:

and one Pat Hand radar vehicle:

Each battalion was also equipped with eight ZSU-23-4 self-propelled antiaircraft vehicles:

for close-in air defense, two of which accompanied each battery and two for the technical section. And finally, a BTR-60PU-12 antiaircraft battery command vehicle:

The separate radar unit, which served all three of the battalion's batteries, would have been a Long Track:

and a Thin Skin, with its accompanying generator truck:

I chose a simple UAZ-469 command vehicle for this one:

There would also be two ZSU-23-4s.

Unfortunately, some sources list only one reload truck per battery (only one reload missile for a unit that uses six!?!) and that's what Marcin has provided, but in reality, it was four trucks per battery. As the pack has only the three, I didn't feel it was worth $12.50 for a second pack just to get the one missing truck, so I'll just have to have three for my battery. And here it is:

Obviously, in reality, the TELs would never be packed in so closely, but wargaming requires some tweaks.

and the commander:

I added an MT-LB to accompany the Pat Hand, as the stand needed something else and I doubt the radar vehicle traveled alone. 

Here's my radar section:

a Long Track:

with an MT-LB for the same reason, and a Thin Skin:

with the generator truck and the section commander's UAZ-469. 

You generally see the missiles painted a light grey or left in bare metal, but as usual for me, I don't see this happening in real wartime conditions. You can see in the top photo of a TEL that they did sometimes paint the missiles green, which seems more sensible to me, so I have done the same.

That's it for this post. More next weekend!