15mm T-55AM2 Squad

Some pictures of my NVA 1:100 T-55AM2 squad. These models were made by the Plastic Soldier Company, the kit offers the choice to build different versions of the T-55 (we will see that in a future post), I decided to build the AM2 version from this kit(s) just because I prefer its look compared to other versions. 

The flag in the background above was bought at a fleamarkted 20 years ago, and I think it fits pretty well in todays post, not only because these kits got the East German national insignia as all other non official units (coming soon) and proxie or 3Dprint hybrid models I use for "TANKS The Modern Age".

The East German forces had a lot of these tanks in their arsenal, this website shows all T-55 versions which were used by the Nationale Volksarmee.

As you may see, here and there are some little bits which I may redo, but basically these tanks are ready for future battles. The already served at the Easter front, one of them shot down a German PAH. At the moment they hold postion near the French border and wait for further commands.

In a future post we will take a closer look at this modelkit and then it will get compared to the Battlefront Miniatures T-55, but before we will do that, the next posts are dedicated to tanks of the West German Bundeswehr.

Rügen'46 Gangs Of Sassnitz (3) In Nomine Domini

For last years "Rügen'46" game, more on that in this post, I build for each player an additional squad of troopers. The other minis I built and painted and more from that game can be found in this and this post.

Sister Mary (this post) represented what was left of the Roman-Catholic Church. The Vatican saw in the Sassnitz incident the beginning of the endtime and gathered lots of poorly armed Christian fanatics who would give their life for god in the final battle between good and evil.

These cultist were built combining some Mantic zombie- and ghoulbodies with the robed cultist heads made by Tabletop Art. Their arnament came from my bitsbox. It made fun to build these strange minis, if I find the other 8 (?) cultist heads in my bitsboxes, I may build more of them.
This was the only squad with 8 figures, all other players had only 5 men squads.

The sixth and final Squad I built represents the new Germany, reborn when the war ended with the victory of the allied forces. Since there are not many industrial capacities left after the zombie outbreak, the army of the reborn German nation has to rely on Wehrmacht equipment.

These minis were taken from the German Infantry box from Warlord Games, the mini in the middle may came from Wargames Factory German Infantry box. They were built out of the box except for the heads, where I used heads from the SHS range from Westwind Productions.

This is the first batch of those minis, last Sunday I built 10 more, but I do not think I will paint them soon. But when I do, the mouldlines on the already painted minis will be removed. But I did not care for this when I painted them, I did not have time for that, because I had to hurry.

This Squad was led by an unknown female officer.

This mini was taken from the "Ilsa and the She-wolfes" set made by Pulp Figures. The mini got a new SHS gasmask head and a hairpiece from the bitsbox.

I can not remember in detail which colors I used on the Germans from this post, but the uniform color is Revell Aquacolor Olive Gray, what not only fits for most German uniforms (including the early monocolor Bundeswehr uniforms) as a substitude for Feldgrau, also it is a good first layer of drybrush color for most greens I use for my 15mm tank models.

I can not say if I will find some time for posting tomorrow, but Thursday is the 29th anniversary of the German reunification, and for that reason I will post about German post-war stuff for the rest of the week only.

KV-2 Custom Unit Card For "TANKS"

After the SU-76 and the BM-13 custom expansions for "TANKS" now comes the third new custom unit for the game. This time it is the Soviet heavy KV-2 tank. This was not playtested yet, but feel free to use it for your future "TANKS" games, it should work as supposed.

Also included is a new doctrine for Germany, "Beutepanzer" offers the choice to use foreign tanks for German platoons. You can only use global upgrades on that tank, this enlarges the range of tanks to choose from if you are playing the German forces.

The minis on the picture are the dismounted Soviet tank crewmen from the "Flames Of War" range, when the plane expansion is finally done, I may add another rules expansion.

While I was playing with a friend and one of his tanks was destroyed, he mentioned if he could save his crewmembers to another tank. What an interesting idea.

Today I did not reach the copyshop in time, but the KV-2 card was made in the same session as the SU-76 and the BM-13 cards were made. Since the printouts of these cards are ok, I think this new card should also be good enough for games.

You can find the new cards in my googledrive at

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15Y-7nXBeclLKGVn2Uwa5sUxWNWVC_K1I/view?usp=sharing

At the moment the 3Dprinter is printing the second of two Semovente 75/18. I had written about it in the last post but I decided against combining the M41/14 with printed parts. Instead, I will use the Semovente structures to build two new hybrids.

I think I will dedicate tomorrows post to some finished and w.i.p. 28mm figures.

M14/41 Tank Expansion For "TANKS"

A closer look at the 1:100 M14/41 tank expansion for "TANKS" made by Galeforce 9. This game is a spin-off from Battlefront Miniatures "Flames Of War" wargame. It uses models from that range, but concentrates on tank battles only. As you have have read in the past, a lot of the previous posts are dedicated to this game and its successor, due to the simple fact that they are played by me and some friends of mine, and building and painting these small models makes a lot of fun, at least for me, they offer a nice distraction after work.

As usual this expansion contains one 1:100/15mm modelkit and some cards to use ingame. But with no further words, first let us take a look at the plastic which comes with this expansion:

The kit comes in a sandcolored sprue of styrene. As with most BFM model kits, I can not see any flaws on or with the sprue. Except for some mininal mouldlines arround the tracks, no further cleanup is needed, the kit is nicely moulded. The overall grade of detail is fine, the rivets may be a little oversized but they still look fine. The tracks offer a simple but nice grade of detail comparable to the better made Zvezda "Art Of Tactic" kits.

Some stowage and spare tracklink parts are also included on the sprue.

You can build two different tanks from this box, but more on that later. Before that let us take a look at the cards which are included in this game expansion:

The Italian M14/41 tanks is a pretty weak tank with a low attack of 3, 0 armourpoints and only 4 hitpoints. Its initiative of 6 is in the medium range, but a bunch of them could be a potential threat to every unit with a lower initiative, since this tank can join your platoon for the low cost of only 12 points and the Italian special ability which aims at larger tank groups, it should be used in groups with at least 3 tanks.

With the introduction of a new nation, also its special ability is revealed. Italys "Avanti" offers an additional armour point if two allied Italian tanks are in close range. This is a useful ability which offers some different strategies.
As far as I found out, the Capricorn logo of the new Italian cards belongs to the 132nd Armoured Division Ariete , but I may be wrong about that.

With this expansion come 7 crew and upgrade cards, and the first thing that we see, is that there are no global cards in this expansion, all cards can only be used by Italian tanks.

Starting with the 4 crewmembers, first comes the Italian hero card "Luigi Arbib Pascucci", this commander offers the benefit of 2 additional initiative points. also all other Italian tanks of your platoon get +2 initiative as long they stay in close range.

For 5 points this guy is pretty useful, especially in combination with "Avanti".

The next 3 cards have the Italian exclusive "Risky" prefix, just as the French for "TANKS The Modern Age" use the prefix "Charging".

First there is the "Risky Commander", for 2 points you can choose between 2 critical hits if you got critically hit but only if you are in close range of the attacking tank. Not bad, but I would prefer to stay out of close range, but other Italian crewmembers are beneficial too, if you go on close range to the enemy.

If you choose the "Risky Driver" for a tank, you will not have to substract one defence die on close range. For 2 points this can be useful if you go all in to fight the enemy on close sight.

The "Risky Radio Operator" is another crewmember that supports attacks on close range. If your tank is within close range of an enemy, this and all other allied tanks get +1 initiative. This may seem pretty useful for 2 points if you play with allied German tanks who have the "Blitzkrieg" ability.

The other 3 cards are Italian doctrines.

"Believe! Obey! Fight!" offers for 2 points an additional +1 to armour if an enemy tank is on close range. Another card which supports rushing into the enemy.

"Always Forward, Italy!" gives you for 2 points an additional initiative point, and all other "Risky" crewmember would cost 1 point less. You could fill your Italian tanks with these crewmembers (at least from this expansions) for only 1 point each, if you would use this doctrine.

The next card, which is the most interesting card of this expansion, has text on both cards, depending if you want to use Italian tanks for your German platoon or vice versa.
On one side we have the "Italian support" doctrine, for 1 point you can use this doctrine to add this or any other Italian tank to a German platoon. Theoretically you could use a bunch of cheap Italian tanks combined with some high level German units, and I think I am going to build an Afrikakorps squadron including some allied Italian forces.

On the other side we have the "German Support" doctrine, with this upgrade you may add any German tank to your Italian platoon, but for that are only non-hero German and global upgrades allowed.
For 1 point you could add a Tiger (for 29 points) or any other German tank to get some more firepower.

This expansion for "TANKS" offers a nice 1:100 kit with two options (only one is supported in this expansion) to build a cheap unit for the game which may be a threat when at least three of them are used.

As we have seen, the strengh of the Italian tank forces is staying together in groups to benefit from "Avanti" and other advantages from crew and doctrine cards. The addition of the doublesided support card offers the choice to use either Italian tanks in German platoons or to use German tanks in Italian platoons, the choice is yours.
The only minus of this expansion is the absence of any decals and any commander figures,  a fact that this game expansion shares with all of its kind.

How good this unit actually is will be seen in a future game.

The construction of the kit went straight forward, everthing sits and fits well, the finished model is shown on the picture below:

You get a complete upper hull of the Semovente tank (to disapper in the bitsbox) if you build the Fiat M14/41 and first I wanted to magnetize this kit to have both tanks usable, what seems pretty easy to do, but after the examination of the Italian cards, I will turn on the 3D printer to make a matching hull and use the leftover bits as I did before. Since I also own the Semovente expansion for the game, I think I will use the upper structures of the M14/41 for two new hybrids.

The next post will include a new custom unit, either for ww2 or ww3 "TANKS". Tomorrow I should have the time to visit my local copyshop to get some testprints to see if the cards are alright. This would be a good opportunity to showoff some of my mate Ollis tanks, before he picks them up in the next days.

If everthing works as supposed, you will be able to download the KV-2 and a new German cold war kitten custom unit cards tomorrow.

Update:
I did not see that one of the cards had text on the other side, too. Not only that, the same thing happende with the Semovente expansion, in which this card also is included.

Faces Of War (7)

More pictures from the second world war. My grandfather took these while he was a part of the German invasion troops on the African continent. He died while I was still a kid that I had no chance to ask him about these dark time, but the pictures give some clues, where he had been.

By the way, I still remember him enough to know that he in not the guy on the picture above, he is shown on this picture.

On the first picture you can see a damaged British airplane, a quick online search showed that this could be a US P-40 in British service or as they called it, a Kittyhawk.

While I wrote the last post about these old pictures, I found out that he at least visited the Lybian Marble Arch, found on this picture, near Ra's Lanuf. This time there are no special landmarks on these pictures but we may get some more hints about his military past.

The first picture of this group shows something like a cantina. You can read the Italian words "DI RISTORO PER MILITARI" what can roughly be translated to "refreshment for military". This may be a hint that his unit was connected with some Italian units.

Update:
A reader from Italy mentioned that the whole phrase should say  "PUNTO DI RISTORO PER MILITARI". Thanks for that addition, mate.

The plane on this picture seems like a Messerschmitt BF-110. There are a lot of clues that my Grandfather could have been a member of the Luftwaffe since there are a lot of planes on these old pictures.

I suppose this plane shows a Messerschmitt BF-109 as it seems. The insignia is showing the Berlin Bear with a crown above that. This could be a hint, in which unit he could have been. I will try to find out for which unit this sign stands and will add this to this post.

Update:

It seem that the Berlin Bear insignia was used by the second squadron of the Jagdgeschwader 27.

This picture of the Bear seems almost identical to the one on the plane above.

Dieses Werk (ausser dem Bärenbild aus der Wikipedia) ist lizenziert unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung

 - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International Lizenz. -

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Sunday, funday. Today I am going to build some 28mm figures using some bits I got from the bay. There are a dozen of unbuilt Britons and some Germans who will get new weapons and the rest of the Westwind Productions gasmask heads. I hope this will work, there are way enough arms and weapons for the British troopers but I do not have any clue which of them belong together, this may include a lot of puzzeling.

While I am looking out of the window, I reminds me to the fact, that the color gray was invented here in 1254.

In tonights post we will keep staying in Africa, I am going to take a closer look at the first of the two available African themed Italian expansions for "TANKS", and a first look at the included cards shows, that the tanks are pretty weak, but the available crew and upgrade cars are pretty strong.