It's not exactly M*A*S*H*, but it'll do

I bought some army-style tents off of Shapeways not too long ago (see my post "A Shapeways shipment arrived" 3/2/15), so I've been wanting to make use of some of them. What better way than to do a little vignette of an East German forward field hospital?

The tents are a basic military type:

The minis come as large rectangular tents and small square ones. In general, field hospitals are nothing more than quite a few tents, all connected together:

So I used an 80mm x 40mm steel base and constructed my own. It doesn't really have a legitimate use in a wargame, but it's a nice little bit of table dressing:

GHQ decals throughout. 

For vehicles, I put on a Trabant Kübel (with the top down) and a URAL-375D:

Just as miscellaneous staff vehicles. For the field ambulances that would have been constantly coming and going, I used an MT-LB and a couple of UAZ-452s, both having been used in reality:

As this will always be seen from above, I resisted the urge to put decals on the sides of the vehicles. Decals on 1/600 scale vehicles at all seemed lunatic enough to me, without pushing it any farther.

 

The UAZ-452, basically nothing more than a VW bus, was used in a variety of roles, such as post bus and for hauling light cargo:

But its main use was as a light field ambulance. 

Most forward hospitals had at least one helipad for medivac choppers, so I couldn't resist including one, especially when I saw this great camouflage scheme on a Polish Army Mi-2 Hoplite air ambulance:

Thanks to Wings Palette for that. Bright green and dark purple! I've got to have one of those!

As I said, I'll probably never have an actually need for this, but it was fun to create it. In future, I'll use the rest of the tents to do a West German hospital. This has helped me get the long Easter weekend's painting started (I don't have to work on Good Friday! Yay!!), so more as the weekend passes. 

Let slip the dogs of war

Or in this case, the Hounds:

The Mil Mi-4 Hound was the WarPac's primary troop transport and medium lift cargo helicopter from its introduction in 1953 until the Mi-8 Hip entered service in 1967, though it actually soldiered on long afterwards, production not being halted until 1979. The Hound was also the WarPac's first gunship platform to enter service, many being armed with unguided rocket pods and a forward-firing gun in the belly. The Mi-4 was steadily phased out of frontline service through the 1970s and by the early 80s, the Soviets had completely retired it, however the other eastern bloc armies were still using it for cargo transport and medivac duties and their navies for ASW and maritime patrol.   

This weekend, I've been tinkering with East German and Polish versions:

Thankfully, they're big enough to get decals on them.

And as long as I was at it, I also finished the Polish Hoplite I've had sitting around.

As with the East German Hoplite in an earlier post, it's too small for even my smallest Polish insignia, so it will have to go without:

That winds up this weekend. Many more things are approaching the finishing stages, so more posts in the offing. 

Scuds, Frogs, a Hoplite, and a bit of cavalry

This weekend I've again been trying to tidy up several partially completed projects that are littering the wargaming bookcase. 

The first is an East German Mil Mi-2 Hoplite:

The Hoplite entered service in 1965 and Soviet/WarPac forces used it primarily for liaison, reconnaissance, and air ambulance duties. Here's my East German Mi-2:

I've still got a Polish one to go. Unfortunately, once I finished this, I found that the model is literally too small for even my tiniest East German decals. There's just no room for them, so it will just have to go into battle "naked". 

Next up is my very first 1/600 cavalry! I decided to start off by continuing the Saxon theme that I began while doing the infantry a few posts ago, so I chose the chevauxleger regiments:

I specifically wanted to begin with the Prinz Clemens Regiment, but after I began painting these tiny things, I saw that doing the facings was entirely out of the question. Just too damned small!! But then it occurred to me that this was actually a benefit. Rather than have to paint the three individual Saxon chevauxleger regiments, I could use one to represent any of the three! So, here's the finished command stand:

Trumpeter in reversed colors.

As usual, I started out doing the command stand separately so that I could simply switch it out to change what regiment I'm representing. However, at 1/600, the standards of the individual regiments are totally indistinguishable, so the command stand can also be used with any of the units, as long as the trumpeter's color matches. Also as usual, I've deliberately made the pole for the standard overly tall and the standard itself a bit larger than true scale. 1/600 stuff benefits from anything eye-catching. 

And lastly, I'm also trying to finish off the final few stands of Scud B's and Frog 7's that have been lying around "for a coon's age" as my grandma was wont to say when I was a kid:

As with the last time I painted some of these, I went with Vallejo Gunship Green (895) for the missiles themselves. 

Well, that's a few things cleared out of the "to do" pile. Only 5000 things to go! I plan to get it all done in time for my 186th birthday! More BS next time!