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!

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!