A Danish weekend

I felt in a Danish mood this weekend, after slaving over my East Germans for so long, with many more yet to be done. It's nice to break up the monotony of doing endless monotone painting. 

Firstly, I finished off part of a Danish Land Rover-mounted TOW launcher unit. Each mechanized infantry battalion was supported by four 120mm mortars towed by Unimog 1300L's, four M150 TOW vehicles, four Land Rovers with a TOW launcher each, and four reconnaissance Land Rovers each mounting an MG3. Danish Land Rovers usually had the TOW launcher on a pedestal mount in the rear bed, like this:

But O8 doesn't make such an animal, so I use the tripod ground mount:

And a separate vehicle. Here's my version:

The Danes used Land Rover 88's for this, but the closest O8 makes is a 109, so that's what I'll have to use.

Each mechanized infantry battalion was made up of two mechanized infantry companies, one motorized infantry company, and an armored squadron, in addition to the support units mentioned above. In 1981, armored units assigned to the Jutland Division used Leopard 1's:

While armor assigned to independent regimental battle groups or mechanized infantry units used Centurion V/2's:

And here's a Leopard 1A1 squadron that I've finished, three troops and a command stand:

I've also done a full M109 battery. Six M109's, two forward artillery observers, and a battery command stand. In the Danish Army, FAO's and battery commanders used M113's if it was self-propelled artillery and Land Rovers if it was towed artillery. Light (105mm) batteries usually had only one observer, while Field (155mm) and Heavy (203mm) batteries generally had two. The Danes still used the older, basic M109 with the short barrel:

And here's my battery:

Six M109's, two FAO's in M113's, and a battery commander in an M113. 

Well, I hope to get more done over the Easter weekend, so more from me then. 

Some goodies for my Danes!!

No, not THE Goodies (though they were damned funny)!!

Today I got a small shipment from Picoarmor and apart from more BRDM-2's for my East German scout car company, I also received some TOW launchers with crews and Land Rover 109's. The Danes equipped each mechanized infantry battalion with four M150 TOW vehicles (a TOW launcher mounted on top of an M113) and four "man portable" TOW launchers on tripods, with four Land Rovers as transport. Each motorized infantry battalion had four TOWs and Land Rovers and four M150's and each armored battalion had six M150's. I say "man portable" because they were, but only in theory. The whole set up was heavy as hell and you needed several very big, beefy guys to "port" it!!

I just had to show you these little gems. They come cast in two sections to each piece, the launcher and then the two man crew. Here's one with all the casting vents clipped off:

All that's necessary is to separate the crew and reposition them with the gunner looking into the sight. The assistant gunner stays behind him with the reload:

That's them glued to a base and ready for priming. 

The Land Rovers really are tiny and as such, a bit of a pain to paint, but they are such great sculpts:

That's one perched on the tip of my finger!!

When all's said and done, each stand will look something like this:

Needless to say it'll look a lot better with flocking, bushes, and assorted ground cover. 

I just thought these little things were so great that I had to show them to you before I even start painting them!!