A War in The East

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I see what you mean about the comparison photograph. If you trace a line along the top of the rear decks (which appear aligned) and along the front of the nose there is a difference in length but it is difficult to see otherwise (that depends on them being close in height).

[Muzfish4]

Fantastic thread.

Really interesting reading.

[Wyrmalla]

@ Ultravanillasmurf

As are all the proportions just that bit smaller to make it noticeable. Regardless they'll turn up as wrecks I guess. That'll make 5 of them, so a Mechanised Infantry Platoon and a support unit.



This is the last of the Separatist Platoon. I'm not 100% on which vehicles they'll be riding, though these're probably where the Mad Max convoy are going (which could do with some additions as most of those are 1/43rd scale). Probably a mix of vehicles, as its not like in most games I'll be using the whole vehicle pool anyway.

Command


The Commander pulling his best James Bond pose.

Snipers


"Mine's bigger"

And the rest



Some of those uniforms are debatable value, though probably because it was bought from the local shopping centre.

They're the usual mix of Empress, Spectre, Eureka and Wargames Factory soldiers. Yes, the balaclavas are apparently part of their uniforms (...or its just cold).


Something else taken from a mothball and hastily brought to the front.




This 2S3 Akatsiya's (Acacia) made by Tank Mania. I messed up with the suspension placement, however this thing was such a pain in the arse to build that I just committed to it. The resin's so brittle that its difficult to fix any mistakes. ...Which has made me a bit biased against the thing coupled with the seller not including the brass etched parts and the bloody thing being untouchable for weeks as I waited on the nicotine smell to fade. ¬¬

It'll probably do as a terrain piece next to sandbags and pallets for an entrench artillery position.
 

Anyway, back to waiting on that Chechen War's Kickstarter turning up. Hmn, its been a week. Meanwhile someone in Texas has their set!

[Wyrmalla]

And a quickie. When all you have is a hammer...



An improvised AA system. The warheads are launched by an external wire and set on timed fuses. Once the firers work out how much range they can get per fuse timer the idea is to fire them at an aircraft and let the airburst do the damage. I've no idea on effectiveness of course, but they must be decent enough that a few different types of mount exist.

More here: https://twitter.com/klkamashiq/status/956859332787830786

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Well RPGs have been a threat to US helicopters since Vietnam.

Neat looking piece of kit, but how do you aim it at a helicopter?

I would have thought it was an indirect fire mount, airburst HE would make that very nasty.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Nice job on the "uniforms", especially as they look like they were bought from various places in a shopping centre.

Is that a PTRD? Is it a Warlord plastic one?

[Wyrmalla]

My understanding of that system comes from conjecture on Reddit and Google translated reports.

The warheads aren't controlled directly with a wire and as such determining the timing of the explosion is presumably difficult and based on experience. Rather each weapon is remotely fire, and the warhead allowed to go off on its merry way. I'd assume that the team has to quickly ascertain the speed the enemy is moving at and then guess where it will be in the time it takes for the warhead to travel that distance (before then hurrying to change the timer on each warhead - unless that is somehow controlled externally). Presumably the airburst has some effect, even if its imprecise and explodes some distance from the enemy.

It all seems a bit messy to me, though there may be some finesse I'm not aware of. However, like I said, if that's all you have you make do (and I guess the setup's somehow better at the role than just slinging one of those RPGs on your shoulder and aiming them manually > having multiple warheads go off at once probably produces a larger air burst, giving a larger margin of error).

Oh, and the mounts look custom built, rather than just being for say camera equipment. I can't comment on every variant, but you could fit some sort of gyro into the assembly and use the external controls to dictate the elevation (rather than just for firing each RPG simultaneously, which honestly could be done with just a stick or something). A camera on the system would also help for aiming, but I can't see any on the examples, so I guess the crew are close enough that they can eyeball it.


Yeah, the PTRD is from the Warlord Soviet sprue, as are some of the pistols the Separatists use. I've included some PPSh-41s from the same sprue along with Wargames Factory's set too. Whilst the later may not be as effective as more modern weaponary, they at least use calibers which ought to still be stockpiled. The PTRD however I'd expect to have a more conventional role, as it doesn't differ much from modern Anti-Material Rifles (though those are easier to control). Though in Eastern Europe home made weapons haven't really taken off like they did during the Chechen wars on in the Middle East. There's still armouries carrying workable Soviet era weaponry in a usable state.

Though as with my earlier point, people have to improvise. Not everyone gets a fancy TOW. ...As per that Gaz Tigr with a BMP-1 turret which I posted earlier (so much for the Soviets upgrading their whole BMP-1 inventory to the BMP-2 standard).

[Rich H]

Pretty sure timed fuses were used in Somalia to attack helos.  Crude, but if you fire enough...

[Predatorpt]

Pretty sure timed fuses were used in Somalia to attack helos.  Crude, but if you fire enough...

I wasn't even aware that RPG warheads could be timed.  The things we learn on this forum

[Wyrmalla]

They're just glorified grenades, though set to either explode on impact or (I assume) use a bit of tape you can use to set the detonation time (I'd also assume that there's a minimum timer, so that it can't explode outside of a safe distance. However, knowing the Soviets...). If regular grenades have a timer then why not RPGs? Seems like a simple thing to integrate (though I again presume that it doesn't override the impact detonator).

Apparently its a sight among militias to see some idiots running along a street, trip, and then blow himself up as most militias don't bother to leave in the warhead's safety pins...

Someone on this forum probably has first hand experience with one to know. Otherwise Forgotten Weapon's likely has a mention of it in one of his videos covering the RPG family (...I don't feel like I need to check whether he has one covering those, as he has videos on everything).

[ChargeDog]

I know that RPG-7 rounds have a 5 second safety timer to prevent them causing unwanted damage - I think the Osprey Weapons book on the RPG (a really good slice of basic knowledge on them) mention groups using this to create airburst effects for cheap

[Rich H]

Imagine that...  an armed warhead just relying on a 1980's timer to stop it going bang next to your head...

Hey - are you sure these Chinese knock offs ones have a 5 second timer?
Yeah, should have...click-BANG

[Ultravanillasmurf]

The Rottman book is good, the author having been on the receiving end of RPGs adds something to the writing.

[Wyrmalla]

After two weeks of spending 16 hours a day at university, besides being shatterred, its back to playing with my toy soldiers.

Here's a shot at an IS-3 based recovery vehicle (BTT-1 I believe is the designation. I've no idea what the source model is, but it appears to be 1/48th scale. The level of detail makes it look like a garage kit, though it may just be old (the material is a cream resin). I'd bought it in a job lot with two other vehicles off of Ebay. Unfortunately the BMP-3 and BTR-50 are far too large to use for anything barring sci-fi stuff.



With a bit of work its came out looking like an old AFV which has seen better days:



(showing off those typical Soviet weld lines...)

This was all brought about a recent article I'd read in a miniatures magazine regarding IS-3s being used as railyard vehicles (for pushing the carriages I assume). Another magazine ran one on an ISU-122/54 AFV - which I'd love to have, though going to the effort of making the mine clearing variant is maybe taxing my storage system a bit much (snap!).

( Military Modelcraft International: February 2018. Volume 22: Number 4 - respectively) & Military Illustrated Modeller: April 2018 issue 84 - respectively).

I doubt that the BTT-1 made it into the 21st century. Seeing as my WWII stuff is 1/56th however, and my moderns are 1/50th it seemed a waste not to use it.


Meanwhile I've organised the plunder from that Chechen Wars Kickstarter ...then stuck it all in a box. Ah, in the state they are right now I'm not comfortable with the squad makeup. I'll be waiting for either Special Artizan Services moderns range by the same sculptor to supplement them, or for phase two of the Kickstarter. SASM's owner's mentioned a quicker turnaround though, so I'll likely use those, along with updating the models to suite later conflicts (right now some of them look like Grandad stuck his water proof coat on and went to war with in his slippers and an RPG-7 which'd been balanced against the coat rack).

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Interesting vehicle.