Interesting photos, Episode 2

This will be a Vietnam episode. Here are a few photos from my collection which I find interesting for one reason or another. 

Anywhere you could conceivably walk, Charlie could mine. 

You don't often see shots of Zippo boats at work during darkness (it appears to be either dawn or dusk).

An M134 minigun mounted M113, but with an added M2HB for the driver!

Yes, body bombing really did happen. 

An XM177E1 "Shorty", AKA the Colt Commando. There were still a few in service when I joined the Army in 1980. The accuracy was pretty crap because of the short 10" barrel. It had a combination flash and sound suppressor. 

A very good shot of a Stoner 63. 

An interesting field modification to an H-13 Sioux; a Stoner 63 and a smeared on overhead sun shade. 

In the rural areas, anywhere that isn't a rice patty, is a muddy crop field. You can tell that there's some sort of watercourse in the background because of the palm trees. In SE Asia, you don't generally see palm trees, except on coconut plantations, lining creeks and rivers, in a line set back from the beach, and scattered around in the towns.

An XM733, used by the Marines in Vietnam in 1966-67. It's the armored assault version of the M116A1 Husky cargo vehicle

And one of the six M163 Vulcans sent to Vietnam beginning in 1968. This is at the Port of Saigon. Notice the odd camo scheme. Units 1 and 2 had the dishes mounted, but no actual radar set was installed. Units 3-6 had no dish. 

That's it for this installment. More stuff next episode. 

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!

My VDV/DShV battalion is finished

Well, more or less finished. I still need to do an airborne light antiaircraft company, but that will be along soon. 

As Andy mentioned in the comments section of my last VDV post (July 5, 2015), this battalion seems more DShV (air assault) than it does VDV (airborne/paratroops). The reason being that I have simply been lumping the two together. The two types used much the same uniform and they fulfilled a similar, though not identical, role. Much like the very general similarity between the U.S. 82nd Airborne and 101st Air Assault. VDV troops were generally, but not always, more lightly equipped than the DShV. 

In any case, this battalion will do for DShV or for more heavily equipped VDV. At some point in the future, maybe I'll do a more traditional light battalion for my VDV and keep this one for just DShV. 

So, here it is:

Two companies of BTR-Ds:

and one of BMD-1s:

Also three company command stands, each with an SA-14 Gremlin:

and a battalion commander:

Also the direct fire support platoon, armed with AGS-17 Plamyas:

As I've said before, in a shooting war, the VDV/DShV would all, without exception, look like this:

But where's the fun in that? Who can resist having them look like this instead?

I can't, so mine all get the blue beret!

The next Cold War project on my list is an SA-4 Ganef battery, so stand by for that. 

A big "thank you" to Dartfrog!!

Dartfrog has been gracious enough to supply me with some spare Baccus 6mm samurai that he had no use for:

Yippee!!! Score!!!

Thanks Dartfrog!! They will reappear on my blog in due course, after I get them painted and based. 

Progress on a Soviet VDV battalion

Both Mrs. History PhD: 

and I:

have been feeling a bit under the weather this holiday weekend, so painting has been at a bare minimum. However, I have managed to complete a second company for my VDV battalion, this one being equipped with BDM-1s:

As I said in my last post on this subject (June 21, 2015), battalions with mixed vehicle types would almost never have happened in reality, so shame on me, but I don't need masses of VDV troops and I do want to use both BMD-1s, and BTR-Ds:

which means that in MY Soviet Army, this battalion will have two companies of BTR-Ds and one of BMD-1s. 

Here's my second company:

There's the extra SA-14 Gremlin launcher kept at company level. 

Stand by for the third and final company (BTR-Ds again). After that, it will be time to do up a few support units and then the battalion will be finished. Finally, something/anything that actually gets finished!!!