Planning My Post-45 (Mostly) Realistic Alternative Second World War in 15mm

[Ryltar Thamior]

Impressive.

So what is the kit moulded in if you have to use superglue
 Rather than poly/liquid poly?

Oh, it's just standard plsatic. Certianly probably *could* have used polycement. Just uh .. didn't think to grab any. Hence a supermarket run en-route home to grab the aforementioned.

[Ryltar Thamior]

Nice one - quite a haul! Where in New Zealand did you manage to find that range of models? I only found a great little store in Taupo.

the baby Ratte could be the Meerschweinchen?

Pretty much everything that's not Battlefront or GW was sourced from Modelair in Auckland - they've recently relocated from Newmarket to Dominion Road. Surprisingly decent range in some particulars; although I do need to scope out some other places around Central Auckland. I've definitely seen some of the online suppliers in NZ - Mighty Ape being one obvious one, i forget what hte name of the model shop with a rather expansive online presence was - do all the Zvezda bits and pieces. The Ratte, however, [with its attendant Mice] I just happened to see was available, so i swooped on it at the earliest opportunity

And as for the Germanic 'Capybara' - now THERE'S an interesting/amusing suggestion!

[Ryltar Thamior]

Brief shot of everything German on the painting-table atm and whre it's up to. Have finally finished undercoating the Not-Ratte, and think we might go with Mammut for it. Now jjust need to work out which camo scheme to go with or a simple battleship grey.



Armour parking-lot's progressing apace, as well - Opel Blitz just requires the blue for windshields and leadbelcher for grilles etc. and it'll be done; Tiger, i'll do an experimental three-colour ambush camo; Jagdtiger will probably be left grey as-is, plus an ink-wash, and then some numbering in red and white and it'll look ace; Panther, might attempt a grey-and-grey camo scheme; King Tigers need to be standardized ... and yeah.



Can then start looking at further expansion and generating a proper TO&E.

[Ryltar Thamior]

Also, a further idea that occurred as to the overall 'shape' of war on the Eastern Front in this timeline...

So with the Russians basically moving as much stuff as they can east of the Urals and pouring out war-materials from behind that rather impressive natural wall .. if Germany wants to knock the USSR out of the fight for *Good*, it's going to need to get *behind* said Urals somehow.

As previously noted, one way by which this might be accomplished is a thrust up through the Middle East/Iran - although with the caveat that the Caucasus themselves are probably a questionable axis of advance, and Afghanistan uh ... well ... it's Afghanistan.

Now, the *other* way, of course, is to just *smash* your way through.

However, while i need to bone up on some strategic geography for this; I would be presuming that there would be a number of key passes and such through the Urals, which the Soviets have presumably fortified in a manner not entirely unreminiscent of The Fang or something. [seriously, the post-War Soviet Union managed to hollow out an entire mountain in that region to make into a bunker complex ... so I don't see why not...].

This leads on to two 'avenues of approach' for the Germans - first up, obviously, mountains are not entirely 'impassable' terrain. Once they're *in* said mountains, Gebirgsjager troops will attempt pathfinding across [I'm remembering the 'goat-track at Thermopylae here].

But for obvious reasons ... tanks don't really do over-mountain traversing so good.
Hence the *absolute necessity* for the German way of war, for capturing these passes *in-tact* without hte Soviets being able to block 'em off entirely with controlled demoltions or whatever.

Enter the Monster [and, for that matter, other strategice fforts at moving large-scale siege-artillery etc. into prime real-estate within firing distance of the Urals Gate whilst not being swept away by continual hewings into the side of the German salient by Soviet columns]...

the idea with this is that when you're taking on what's presumably at that point in time one of the more impressive fortifications known to man ... you may do rather well with a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BIG GUN.

And while historically, the real German Army made do with attempting to haul over-large artillery on railway lines towards wherever it was they'd decided they no longer wanted to see ... due to the conditions that far East [and the presumable difficulty finding in-tact railway lines let alone laying thousands of miles of track all the way out there in parallel for a railway gun to get over there] ... well ... you could certainly do worse than having the whole thing on treads ['tracks' i suppose] rather than tracks and just drive it continually further east as needed.

Oh, and the other thing that'l probably be worth noting with this - apart from the uncertainty as to *which* passes are open, viable, an absolute deathtrap etc so the Germans don't *quite* know where they're going ...

... well, llooking at the experience of German attacking of static defences at the very start of the War in the Low Countries etc

... glider-borne or otherwise AIRCAV troops may wind up being absolutely key for the German efforts to get through the mountains. Whether that's fallschirmjager actually parachuting, or some sort of Ride of the Valkyries-blaring *proper* Air-Cav .. well, we'll find hat out in due course!

Also, this may wind up necessitating building a 'foothills of the Urals' table, replete with a pass at one end and uh ... heavily dug in Soviets with guns in the cliffs and what not.

[Ryltar Thamior]

Went for another walk this afternoon..



The WWII elements: 2x Panthers [in addition to the one already assembled], 1x Panzer III G, 1x Opel Blitz [another one], 1x ISU-152 [another one], 1x Soviet 3-ton Truck, 2x SU-100s [in addition to the one waiting to be assembled]. Think that's everything ...



Have also pretty much finished the Jagdtiger and first Opel Blitz, as well as the first ISU-152. Am also trialing a camo scheme on the Tiger 1, so we'll see wehre that goes [I'm *mostly* happy with it, based on something i've seen on Ferdinands, just needs a bit of tidying here and there.]

The Ratte has also made it all hte way from undercoating through to a battleship-ish grey and bone colouration on the main armament. I've called a bit of a halt there while i work out what, if anything, I do to it next - theoretically, dazzle-camo or something would be most appropriate, but I'm not entirely sure i'm up to that.

In any case, with quite a number of armoured vehicles on either side ready to be assembled, hopefully won't be long before some stuff starts seeing the field

[forces atm are, in whatever state of assembly:

* 3x Konigstigers , 3x Panthers , 1x Tiger 1 , 1x Jagdtiger, 2x "Mauschen", 1x Not-Ratte, 2x Opel Blitzes; and with any luck, the IFVs soon plus [body-]armoured infantry as well
* 3x SU-100s, 2x ISU-152, and the aforementioned 3-ton truck ]

[Ryltar Thamior]

With another SU-152 almost completed, it seemed like a good idea to start adding some 'individualization' to my glorious collective comrade-mobiles. On a sudden flash of inspiration, decided to call this one 'BOGATYR' - a term which would translate as 'Warrior of God', or less directly as a knight - especially one charged with the duty of protecting the Motherland against invaders.

I also kinda wanted the idea of a slayer of monsters, given some of the *huge* German innovations it'll be up against.



Now, it's not the neatest job in the world ... but considering I've never attempted to write in Russian before, and that the nerves in my hands don't work properly to the point that writing in *English* with a pen and paper with any legibility is virtually impossible for me, I don't think I did tooooo badly with a not-too-fine detail brush and some rapidly-drying paint on a 1:100 scale assault gun

[von Lucky]

Looks pretty good. An alternative is to use one of those white pens you can buy in art shops.

[Ryltar Thamior]

Looks pretty good. An alternative is to use one of those white pens you can buy in art shops.

Legit call on that! Will def be something to consider when I get up to doing things of this nature on the Germans .. I do kinda like the slightly imperfect 'hand-painted' look on the Soviet vehicles - helps give the senes of a particularly brave & plucky crew who've found some white camo-paint from somewhere and scrawled a large-scale inspirational name on the side of their vehicle.

Now ...



SU-100 Tank Destroyer 'Vityaz'. ['Vityaz' once again meaning a Knight; also used in quite an array of more recent Soviet military namings of things]

Also, made an attempt or two at hammering out some not-too-difficult camo for the Germans; the Panther grey-on-grey is very much a work in progress and will require considerable refinement,  but shows initial promise. The Tiger 1 camo, by contrast, while also requiring a bit of re-detailing here and there to thin out and angularize the green lines ... I'm rather more happy with.



The Tiger's scheme is not exactly 'historic', but is based on a combination of a colouration I observed on a number of Ferdinand / Elefant models people've done [i.e. the dunkelgelb and green], wih a more tangled "vine" application pattern derived from an approximation of some tritonal ambush pattern camo I found awhile back instead of the 'scales' seen on the heavy tank destroyers.

Like I say, these are basically 'drafts' for later and more careful applications on other miniatures later, I just wanted to see how things looked on the plastic before committing to anything and winding up having to re-paint anything half-way through.

Thoughts?

Oh, and on another note .. I noticed last time I was down the FLGS that GW has put out a further range of 'technical effects' paints designed to do mud-caking, rust and hte like. Has anyone had any experience with them?

[Ryltar Thamior]

Another week, another walk...



The German part of the Haul



And, assembled thus far:



Had some issues with the Sdkfz 222 [online reviews suggest this is .. not entirely uncommon]; althoug heverything else has gone together rather nicely and is presently awaiting finishing of undercoating.

Still playing around with camo schemes for much of it, but am now pretty much at full company-sized forces for pretty much all the Late-War German Armour - at least in principle.

The Pz IV might find service as another Raketenjagdpanzer type contraption, potentially using some of the AT-3s I've gott sitting around unused from the BMP sprues I've recently assembled. [even though, historically ... or, rather, somewhat a-historically, the X-7s I've seen people hypothetically mount on German armour are uh .. rather curious looking beasts in the extreme].