New 15mm WW2 Soviet troops

These are all additions to make my 15mm Soviet units compliant with Chain of Command V2;

Everything is from Peter Pig. 

Above are two additions to fill a gap I had previously; two 50mm mortar teams.

Next, I have an additional squad for a standard Rifle platoon. These will either work as a support option or for games set in 1941-43.

Below are figures that I needed to add to some SMG-armed figures to make a second squad for a SMG platoon, all armed with the PPSh-41 SMG.

CoC2 changes Soviet platoon HQ sections. So, I now have a rifle platoon commander (peaked cap), a platoon sergeant (helmet) and a sniper team (in the middle). Platoon commanders are now equipped with SMGs.

Below is the HQ section for my SMG platoon with the same organisation as above for the rifle one.

Next up, a heavy squad for my SMG platoon. Both the rifle and SMG platoons now have a "heavy" squad with two DP-27 LMG teams. This is a big change. I was able to make the necessary changes for my rifle platoon from figures I already had.

Here are two more sniper teams and a couple of spare SMG-armed men. I did these because the Peter Pig sniper set gives you four teams and the SMG guys are just spares.

Below are "resting" SMG men, who I have painted up to use as extra DP-27 LMG team members, because in CoC2 the Soviet LMG teams now have either three or four members.

So, all in all, that is 56 more recruits for my Soviet forces. 

This has allowed me to reorganise what I have available for the Soviet Union. As core troops, I now have a Rifle platoon, a SMG (or tank rider) platoon, a Motor Rifle platoon and as supports (including things I had already), I can field two 50cm mortar teams, two sniper teams, a rifle squad, a SMG squad, a Scout squad (Junior leader and 6 men, all with SMGs), two Maxim MMG teams, a 45cm anti-tank gun with crew and a junior leader and a Commissar. 

I have armoured cars, various tanks and a SU-76 as vehicle support too and I have a number of painted figures that are surplus to my units.

I've also still got a few things left to paint, mostly extra riflemen, so who knows what else I'll be able to turn the leftovers into in the future? 
 

Four Soviet light tanks

I've had these four tanks for years, probably since 2021 or 2022, so I thought it was about time I did something with them.

These are a pair of T-26 light tanks, originally introduced in 1931 and staying in service in various variants until the end of WW2. These are (I think) the T-26 Model 1933 with a 45mm main gun and a co-axial 7.62mm machine gun. This was the most common variant produced and one of the mainstays of Soviet armoured units in 1939-41, by which time it was obsolete and outclassed by Germany's Pz.Kpfw III and IV tanks and was being replaced by the far better T-34 tank with a 76mm main gun. Some did stay in use for most of the war on some fronts and even featured against Japan in 1945.

Below are two T-60 scout tanks, which began production in 1941. Originally armed with a 20mm cannon, it was later upgunned with the 45mm gun used by the T-26 above.
 

The T-60 was too thinly armoured to be used in a front line role but was used by reconnaissance units until it was replaced by the improved T-70 light tank.

These are all Zvezda kits,  which are now quite hard to find because of sanctions against Russia. I bought mine at my club's tabletop sale from private sellers, so none of my cash went back to Russia.

Anyway, I'll be able to use these for CoC games set during Barbarossa and later.

Cheap MDF houses

I bought a load of cheap MDF houses from eBay just before Christmas, because I needed a lot of basic houses that might do for my games. Specifically, I wanted houses that would mostly work for WW2 games, but maybe also be useful for earlier periods. I've finally got round to photographing them. There are thirteen buildings of varying sizes in total. Scroll down to see them all and read what I did to zhoosh them up a bit.

 As you can see, I've given them all a rough plastering with ready-mixed filler and roofed them with printed slate paper. I've also given some of them little gardens with bushes, paths and vegetable patches.

The base models were very cheap. The whole lot, plus a church that I've stuck together but not done anything else to yet. They came as a three separate plastic bags of bits with no instructions, so working out what went where took a fair while.

Quality-wise, they are very basic and I had all sorts of issues with getting them to fit together properly, the roofs being a particular problem. You can't actually remove the roofs, because they have to fit into slots cut into the end walls. Therefore, only the multiple storey houses can have figures put inside them. I converted one of the longer single storey buildings into a barn, which doesn't look that great, but it'll do on the table.

My aim was to make them look a bit run-down and bedraggled, which I think works OK. The main reason for this is because they lack any detail and I couldn't be arsed to spend much time on them and I also didn't have much time because I needed them for my 15mm Big Chain of Command game that I ran at BIG a couple of weeks ago. I'll do a separate blog post about that.

I thought that I'd finished my Soviets ................

 .... but I decided that I needed to paint up a fourth section of scouts for my recce platoon.

I already had the figures but after play-testing the scenario I will be running at Winter Wonderlard at BIG on Saturday 12th February, it became apparent that what I was planning wasn't going to work in the time allowed, so I re-wrote the scenario. That meant trimming down the size of the opposing forces and beefing up the scouts a bit, so I quickly painted the remaining squad.

Nothing different to the previous lot here, Junior Leader with SMG, 2-man LMG team, four men with SMGs and four with rifles.

Still, the bonus here is that my game will run a lot more smoothly.

I've been thinking about what to do with the various bits I have stripped out and my plan is to turn this scenario into the opening one of a PSC (a pint-sized campaign). I am thinking about four or maybe five separate scenarios that will expand upon the narrative that drove my ideas for the initial too unwieldy one I've had to slim down. I shall have to see how it goes once the inspiration pixie has come to visit me.

 

My two final Soviet tanks

.... well, final for now. There may (i.e will) be more later on.

 These two are also Zvezda 1/100 scale models. On the right is the later T-34/85, which entered service in 1944. The version here is the M1944 model with the ZiS-S-53 85mm gun. 

Around 84,000 T-34 tanks were built during WW2, with 49,000 being armed with the 85mm gun.

The other, larger tank on the left is the IS-2 with the powerful D25-T 122mm. Derived from the earlier KV series tanks, nearly 4,000 of these monsters were built during WW2. The D25-T gun was adapted from the 122mm A-19 M1931/37 and its AP munitions could penetrate the frontal armour of a Panther at 2,500m range and could knock out a Tiger I at around 1,000m. Demonstrating its origins as a heavy artillery piece, the HE shells fired by the D25-T were devastating against infantry and could also knock enemy tanks out because of the massive explosive force generated. 

I've chosen to paint these two tanks in a battlefield condition, with plenty of mud. I've also given them the white aircraft recognition stripes on the turrets, again looking a bit irregular and hand-painted as with the one I did on my earlier T-34/76. Looking at various photos of Soviet tanks in action, these stripes always look a bit scrappy and temporary.

A couple more Soviet tanks

 These are also Zvezda 1/100 scale kits. The tanks are both KV-1 heavy tanks from the early war period.

Yes, they look pretty much identical but they are actually different.

The tank on the right is the earliest production model, the KV-1 M1939, equipped with the L-11 76.2mm tank gun, which was also fitted to the earliest model of the T-34. This version was prone to mechanical problems and only 141 were built.

The left hand version is the KV-1 M1940 with the F-32 76.2mm which was also used on early T34 models. Later models of both tanks were given the F-34 76.2mm ZiS-5 gun, which had a superior performance to both earlier guns.

The only visual difference here is the shape of the gun mantlet.

When painting these, I chose not to paint any markings on the tanks, which was quite common on real-life Soviet tanks. I also chose to make them look quite muddy. I like my tanks to look used and battle-worn rather than suitable for victory parades in Red Square.

I am thinking that these will be useful support options for Barbarossa-period games.

I've also been working on some more later tanks, which I'll post separately.

Most of my time has been taken up with buildings, though; cheap 15mm MDF ones that I bought on ebay and have been zhooshing up so they look presentable on the gaming table. I'll do a post about them separately, too.

Soviet scout platoon

Here is my second full platoon of Peter Pig WW2 Soviets; razvedchiki, i.e scouts.

The reconnaissance platoon organisation is taken from the 2016 TooFatLardies Christmas Special. 

According to the organisation listed,  the Scout platoon consists of;

HQ;

Leytenant; Senior Leader with Pistol
Serzhant; Junior Leader with SMG

3 Squads, each with;

Junior Leader with SMG
LMG with 2 crew
4 SMGs
4 Rifles

Actually, the 2016 Special says that the rifles should be SVT-40s, but these weren't hugely reliable and, in any case production was heavily disrupted after the beginning of Barbarossa in 1941, so the Mosin–Nagant 91/30 rifle remained the standard for most Russian units throughout the war. Obviously, the SMG used is the PPSh-41 and the LMGs are the Degtyaryov DP-27.

These troops are wearing the "amoeba" camouflage smock and trousers with the pilotka cap. I've chosen to do the amoeba pattern in green, although it could have been brown. I've also chosen to give the platoon commander an officer's cap with a raspberry red band, so he stands out on the table.

As with all my WW2 15mm units, the rank and file are on 1.5 cm bases and leaders are on 2 cm ones.

I am beginning to think that I've got enough core troops for my Soviets now, and I ought to start building up their support options. I'm thinking of snipers, anti-tank rifles teams, 5 cm mortar teams and engineer teams with flamethrowers and additional rifle squads.

Tank riders to accompany my Soviet tanks

I always knew that I wanted tank riders as supports for my WW2 Soviet force, because they are such an iconic thing, and here they are;

These are again from Peter Pig and I've based the two squads on the platoon organisation provided in the Chain of Command rulebook. I really need to do a third squad at some point, but currently I would have to make the squad up from spare scout figures, which would look a bit odd. So, as things stand, I'd have to field them as a weakened platoon.

My next post will cover a second Soviet platoon, a scout one.

My Soviets have a tank!

A T-34/76 to be precise.

The paintwork could be a lot neater on the turret above, but perhaps the painting on the actual vehicles was pretty slapdash?

The model is a 1/100 scale (i.e. 15mm) Zvezda one, and I bought it ages ago from the shop at the Bovington tank museum. I had assembled it and put it away in a drawer for safekeeping and pretty much forgot all about it. I was only because of a comment on a previous post that I remembered it, so I found it, gave it an undercoat and finished it off late yesterday afternoon. I varnished it with Humbrol Matt Spray this morning and I think it has come out OK.

It is a nice simple kit and has enough detail for a wargames table. My only criticism is the absence of external fuel tanks.

I undercoated it in PSC Russian uniform and gave it a bit of a dry-brushing in Vallejo Brown Violet, followed by another dry-brush with German Camouflage Beige to bring out the angles and curves. I did the tracks with Vallejo Panzer Aces track primer and then touched up the edges of the tracks with Oiled Steel while the primer was still wet. Then I did the stars and white stripe on the turret and did the steel cables with oiled steel mixed with track primer. There is also a small amount of rust effect paint around the exhausts and on the cables.

Then the whole vehicle got a dry-brushing with Vallejo Tan Earth, followed by a wash of Citadel Nuln Oil.

I am so pleased with this that I've ordered a couple more Zvezda tanks online; a T-34/85 and a KV-1. 

 

A few more WW2 Soviet bits and pieces.

Here are some support options and senior leader types.

Above are two Maxim MMG teams on either side of an anti-tank gun. In Chain of Command, such support weapons have a team of five to service the weapon. With some nations, support weapons like this come with an attached Junior Leader, but this isn't the case with the Soviets.

The anti-tank gun is the M1937 45mm L46 gun, based upon the German PaK 36 3.7 mm, which the USSR acquired from Germany before the war under licence. The German gun was also the basis for an earlier Soviet A/T gun, the 3.7cm M1930 which was used early on in the war but, being obsolete by 1939 was no longer in production, so I won't be using it as one of those.

Next, here are some leaders;

On the left is a Ranking Senior Leader, with a radio operator. He will be used in games of Big Coc. Next to him, with blue breeches is a Commissar, whose role in games will vary according to the period and the scenario.

The two figures sharing a base in front were originally going to represent an on-table FOO, but in CoC the Russians don't have access to in game artillery or mortar support, something I'd forgotten, so I'll probably use the base for something scenario-specific, or maybe as a Jump Off Point.

Once again, these are all Peter Pig 15mm figures, painted as for the infantry platoon I posted previously, apart from the RSL, who I've given a green uniform.

Soviet Rifle Platoon

You'll need to scroll down to see all the troops. 

This is a WW2 Soviet rifle platoon in 15mm, using Peter Pig figures and the platoon organisation in the TooFatLardies Chain of Command rule book.

The platoon is made up of three squads;

According to the TFL rules, the platoon is led by a Leytenant (senior leader) with a pistol, who is with the middle squad in the pictures above, and each squad is comprised of a Serzhant (junior leader) with a PPSh-41 SMG, a two-man DP-27 LMG team and seven riflemen with the Mosin–Nagant 91/30 rifle.

In the pictures above, the serzhants are wearing pilotka caps and are mounted on 2cm bases and the leytenant is wearing a peaked cap with a red band and is also on a 2cm base. The LMG teams are on 3cm bases and the rifles on 1.5cm ones. In reality, the serzhants would most likely have been wearing helmets, but the pilotka and larger base makes them stand out for gaming purposes.

In CoC, the Russian infantry squad cannot be broken down into two separate teams, unlike the Germans, British or Americans, although two riflemen can be split off to create a small scout team.

These were a pretty quick and simple paint job. I spray-coated all the figures en masse with Citadel Zandri Dust, which is a pretty reasonable basic colour for Soviet uniforms and then added in the details with Vallejo paints. The helmets were done with Brown Violet and the pilotka cap with Green Ochre. I used German Camouflage beige for packs etc, saddle brown for the wooden parts of their weapons and gunmetal for the metal parts. Finally, everything was given a wash with the water-soluble Army Painter Strong Tone that comes in dropper bottles.

My first post of 2022 - the start of my Soviet project

OK, this is my first post of the year, almost three weeks since my last activity on the blog.  I have been busy, though.

My priority has been working on my 15mm WW2 Soviets for Chain of Command. These are required for a game I will be running at Winter Wonder Lard at BIG in February. I have pretty much completed everything I need, apart from all the terrain items I am planning to use, so I'll be posting a number of posts over the next week or so with where I am.

First, here are a couple of Soviet vehicle choices. A SU-76 and two BA-64 light armoured cars;

These are Skytrex models and I think they are very nice too. I have two BA-64s because they are sold as a pair, but I am pretty sure I'll be using both of them. I am very pleased with the SU-76. It is a really nice model with a lot of crisp detail. It comes as the hull, two sets of running gear and the 76mm Zis-3 gun, plus three crew members, so a spot of super glue work is required. The BA-64 models come with separate wheels and turrets, so glue time there too. I am happy to report that everything goes together cleanly. I painted the crew separately and stuck them in afterwards. 

I will do separate posts covering the various infantry and support components for my Soviet forces.

A new Bad Squiddo Kickstarter is nearly upon us.

This is just a short post to let people know that Annie Norman of Bad Squiddo is planning a short Kickstarter, planned to open on March 31st.

The subject is one close to her heart, 28mm WW2 female Soviet troops, this time in winter uniforms with greatcoats and Ushanka fur caps, to add to her existing range of Soviet troops.

There will be a number of different figures, rifles, PPSh-41 SMGs, a LMG team with the obligatory Degtyaryov DP-27, an officer and other figures.

The picture below shows what will be available, and also shows some of the current minis too;

I have been sent two figures to paint myself already, they are currently based and undercoated and I am planning to get them completed over the next day or so, puppies permitting.

I am happy to report that they are up to the usual high standards we have come to expect from Bad Squiddo.

These will be perfect for Chain of Command, Bolt Action or any other set of WW2 rules.

Bad Squiddo female Soviet soldiers

First, a confession. I've had these figures for ages, I started painting them at least a year ago and then left them, mainly because other things took over, but also because I didn't really have any urgent reason to finish them off.

However, after paining up a dozen Renaissance gendarmes, I wanted a change before getting stuck into more Renaissance mounted figures, so, I dug them out and finished them off.

First, there is a Rifle section, with a Degtyaryov DP-27 LMG team, six soldiers with Mosin-Nagant rifles, two with PPSh-41 SMGs, an officer and a Commissar wearing a blue skirt), both equipped with pistols.

I deliberately chose to paint the figures in a mixture of uniforms. From what I have read, there was a fair amount of variation in the uniforms of the Red army, due to the use of different factories, different dyes and different fabrics, so it seemed to me that it was worth reflecting those variations in my Soviet women soldiers.

My next section is a scout unit, wearing camouflage.

There is another Degtyaryov DP-27 LMG team, a sniper and spotter team, a radio operator and map reader, and the section leader, equipped with a PPSh-41 SMG.

So, they are finally finished. I am still wondering what I will use them for, but perhaps they could be deployed to fight the Fascist menace in a game of VBCW, supporting my Women's Militia?