1:100 BM-13 Katyusha

Some pictures of my recently finished 1:100 BM-13 Katyusha rocket launcher from Zvezdas "Art Of Tactic" wargame range. I had built that kit before and used it as a base for this built. Some time ago I ordered it once again and made some simple modifications to improve its look.

First of all, for the windshield I built a simple armourplate from scrap plastic. Even when the armourplate is on the boxart of this expansion kit, it is not included in the actual modelkit as we saw in the closer look at the kit in the past.

I searched through my bitbox for the leftover rocketspart from the first BM-13 that I built. Since the Zvezda BM-13 has only an upper row of rockets, it was good to keep this bit for the bottom part of the second rocket launcher. Then I separated all rockets from each other and glued the single pieces to the rail.

The last thing I did was to add support stands for the rear of the truck. They were built from scratch using some scrap plastic. While they are pretty basic, they improve the look of the BM-13 a lot, just as the other two modifications do.

But no further words, let the result speak for itself:

Tomorrow I will compare Zvezdas 15mm SU-76 to the Plastic Soldier Company 15mm SU-76, and we will see, which of them I would recommend for platoonbuilding.

I am still unsure, what to post after that. Both Italian expansions for "TANKS" are on my desk, just as the Humvee expansion for the ww3 version of the game, there are still some unfinished "Art Of Tactic" reviews, and somehow keeps the list of custom units to make still growing and growing.

We will see. You can see the next custom "TANKS" unit on the picture below. When the KV-2 cards are uploaded, this beast is next.

Zvezda 1:100 BM-13 Katyusha

A closer look at the 1:100 Soviet BM-13 Katyusha game expansion produced by the Russian modelmaker Zvezda for their "Art Of Tactic" wargame range. This kit was a nice alternative to the resin/metal BM-13 kits made by Battlefront Miniatures, but BFM recently released a new Katyusha plastic modelkit, you can find a video here.

I bought one of these kits some months ago and used it as a base for my ZIS-6 truck with a 37mm aa gun built, but since I also wanted a Katyusha rocket launcher, I got this kit a second time, but without any more words spents, let us take a look at the modelkit of this game expansion:

First of all, you do not get what you see on the boxart. There is no armoured windshield, the rails of the launcher do not have any holes, and there are only rockets for the upper part of the launcher rails. This sucks, but as we saw in the Bradley review, this happens sometimes with Zvezda kits.

The kit comes in two green sprues, and as usual, this modelkit is made fom the same green plastic as all other Soviet "Art Of Tactic" 1:100 tank kits. The casting quality is good, what I expected, since most Zvezda wargaming modelkits are made very well.

It could be built without the use of any glue, all parts fit and sit well without it, but using regular modelglue works fine on this kit.

I did not find any issues on the sprues, except for some mouldlines which have to be to removed, but there is minimal flash, no sinkholes, and any ejectormarks (if there are some on the parts) would not be seen, when this kit is built.

The frame parts of the launcher are pretty delicate, that you have to take care not to bend them, but they look nice when built.

Once again we have a 1:100 "Age Of Tactic" modelkit, which I recommend, even when you do not get what you see on the box. The overall grade of detail is well done and for its price it could be a cheap alternative to the resin/metal and plastic wargame model made by BFM. Maybe I will get my hands on one of those plastic kits in the future, then I will take a closer look at it.

If you want to built a "real" 1:100 BM-13 model kit, you will have to wait til one will hit the market, you may use the Zvezda kit as a base, but this would take a lot of work, even when drilling up the windows would not be as complicated as it would be for Zvezdas 1:100 Opel Blitz.

Today I do not have a picture of my built and painted Katyusha truck, I keep this for a future post, when I will show the simple modifications I did to improve its look.

Instead of this you can listen to the beautiful Russian song "Katyusha" from which the BM-13 got its nickname.

15mm ZIS-5 Truck With AA DsHK

Some pictures of my recently finished ZIS-5 truck with an equipped DsHK AA machine gun. Basically it is the ZIS-5 from Zvezdas "Art Of Tactic" wargame with scratchbuilt arnament. I did not take a closer look at this thing yet, but you can find some nice reviews on the web and youtube.

The truck got painted in the same style like my other 15mm ww2 Soviet vehicles. I use different greens as basecolor for them but the rest of the procedure is always the same. Some red star decals from the sparebook were applied after it got painted.

Detail pictures show that I have at least 3 things to do, I will have to overwork the muzzle of the gun, the windshield needs some more blue paint and there are some spots on the mini which need some more paint.

A little bit annoying, but this should be fixed quickly.

I took the picture above from a previous post which shows the other Soviet AA truck which I partly scratchbuilt. The gun was built, using some needles, a part from Orions 1:72 AA DsHk, and an spare machine gun from the Battlefront miniatures T-64, if I remember correctly.

This thing was easy to build and it looked not as bad as I suspected when finished.

The operator of the machine gun was taken from the bitsbox, it is one of the spare crewmembers from the 1:100 Plastic Soldier Company Bren Carrier. Formerly under British service, after some rough handling with the cuttermesser and sanding paper, now this guy has joined the Red Army and, well, it could have been worse.

I am pretty satisfied with the finished model, before it was painted I thought this would look crude when finished, luckily everything went well, even the figure does not look too bad. If you read some of the last posts, you already should know what it will be used for. Some brainstorming with two fellow mates solved the last remaining issues, that a final playtest should show that all would work as supposed.

Maybe tonight but at least tomorrow I will show some legitimate targets for this new addition to my growing collection of 15mm models.

By the way, all planes and AA vehicles for a first revision of the planes expansion for "TANKS" are now painted and ready to get photographed, this will be done in the next days, I will keep you informed.

1:100 ZIS-6 With 3,7cm Flak

I recently finished this crude hybrid which was shown in a previous post (this picture). This thing is a combination of the ZIS-6 truck from Zvezdas BM-13 Katyusha "Art Of Tactic" expansion, a 3D printed flakgun and various parts from my bitsbox.
Some pictures from this website were the inspiration for this built.

I did not take a closer look at the 1:100 Zvezda BM-13 Katyusha modelkit but you can find reviews on the web and youtube.

After I removed the rocket launcher from the truck, I added a freightbed made of thin cardboard and some other bits to improve its look.
I did not find a matching Soviet gun for that truck that I had to improvise again. Originally the flakgun is a British 40mm Bofors but after a quick comparison with the Soviet 3,7cm Mod. 1939 AA gun I did not find too may differences between them, that I took the Bofors which can be found at Thingiverse.

The barrel of the gun and its gunsight were printed improperly and I had to replace them. I used parts of a broken 1:72 Zvezda Soviet 3,7cm flak for this.

The crew figures came from the Plastic Soldier Company M3 halftrack kit, they are US minis, but since I do not have any 15mm Soviet minis, once again I had to improvise and used them. But I think this will not be seen from a distance.

I painted this thing with the same colors which I used for the KV-1 and KV-2 from the 2 previous posts and added some decals from the 28mm Rubicon T-34 kit.

I am happy with the result, but to be honest this is an ugly thing which looks very crude on close sight.

Next up is to paint this thing, after I found a matching figure in my bitsbox to operate the (scratchbuilt) gun on its freightbed.
When this thing is done, there are only 3 planes to finish before I can start to create the needed custom unit cards and write the plane expansion for "TANKS".

By the way, I added this picture of the (almost) finished kit to the Zvezda T-72B review.

Update: I mistakenly wrote 3,7mm gun, this was corrected.