Painting the T-62 Fleet

Soviet paint schemes in the early 1980's seem to have been a single shade of green rather than the multi colour camo schemes which came into use later in the decade. Should be an easy paint job then, right? But no, it isn't that easy. We live on a green world and as a result the human eye is particularly good at distinguishing between shades of green, so it needs to be the right shade. Which begs the question what is the right shade of green for Soviet vehicles. They seem to have used a dark gloss green for parades but a lighter shade in combat environments. Colour photos of early 1980s Soviet vehicles show a range of greens but part of the difference may be the film used, plus the processing of the negatives could impact on the depiction of colour as well! Even the colour settings of my monitor could be having an impact. On top of which with 1/600th models I need to use paint as a fast way of determining which side is which so it can't be the same shade I used for the BAOR vehicles.


In general the photographs show a green similar to a medium olive green but sometimes with a hint of blue in the shade. It's a warmer hue that NATO Olive drab schemes from the 1960s so that helped give me some inspiration.

A BTR-70 showing the final choice of green used

 Eventually I have settled on an undercoat of white with a slightly thinned Vallejo Medium Olive Green over that.  By thinning it the high spots on the castings show some of the white through so kind of pre-highlighting occurs.  I then hit the casting with a coat of satin varnish and firstly ink wash with good old GW Agrax Earthshade then dry brush with Vallejo Bonewhite to which I have added a little olive Green to create a very light green highlight.  It's not exactly the Soviet colour scheme but it is close I'm happy with the results although the KGB political officer may order me to repaint in a more socialist shade at some point.  Oh and in case JBM pops around I didn't paint in the red stars or the turret numbers although I did do the tracks in German grey front and rear!

A T-62 complete with commander manning the Turret MG

So Ivan now has a Company of T-62s at 1:1 ratio and a company of BTR-70s and dismounted infantry will follow very shortly.  For rules like FFOT3 where a single model represents a platoon that is the core of a Motor Rifle Battalion.  An order of T-64s and BMP 1s will give the start of a Tank Battalion from a tank regiment and I probably will not be able to resist some T-72s and T-80s.  Then it's onto support arms.  I have decided that artillery will be an 'off board' asset but some anti tank and anti aircraft vehicles plus close air support will be modelled as on board assets so I need to decide what I want to use for those items.

The assembled ranks of Soviet Armour

Lastly the astute observers will have noticed that the opening paragraphs of  a couple of earlier posts have formatted as centre aligned.  It seems to be something to do with placing an image and centre aligning it and I couldn't for the life of me seem to make it go back to what I actually wanted.  The same thing happened with this post but I solved the issue.  Highlighting the affected paragraphs and using the clear formatting icon seems to break the link to the image formatting and hey presto everything is back as I want it.  I can't claim any credit for this solution as I followed the age old primate methodology of pushing all the buttons until one did something.  Fortunately there were no big red ones marked do not push!

Team Yankee - The Novel

 In between painting the O8 1/600th tanks and actually doing the work that I get paid for I have just read the 1987 Book 'Team Yankee' which (I assume) was the inspiration for the game system of the same name.  The last World War Three story I read was The Third World War by General Sir John Hackett.  Team Yankee is a much easier read.

The story focusses on a re-enforced M1 Abrams Tank Company based in the Central Sector and follows their involvement in the initial defence and ultimate counter offensive.  The book ends with the Soviets having captured most of Northern Germany and parts of Holland but struggling to stay resupplied.  At this point I realised that the story is set in the same world as Hackett's tale as the Soviets drop a single nuclear weapon on Birmingham and are then subjected to a return equivalent counter strike on Minsk.  This leads to a change of regime in Moscow and a cease fire.  Exactly as happens in Hackett's version of WW3.  I double checked this against Wikipedia and the article there comes to the same conclusion this is the same war from a different perspective.

It's not a heavy read and focusses on small unit combat which from a wargamer's perspective is a sweet spot for on table action.  American forces are no more than battalion level with assets from Brigade in support while the Warsaw Pact forces are Battalion to Regiment sized.  The only thing which seemed odd was the lack of T-80s in the Soviet forces the most modern tanks described are T-72s but that may reflect the lack of clear information on Russian Tank Forces when the book was being written.

Reading it has given me some further insight into Soviet tactics (or lack of them at times) and spurred me on with my painting of the Russian troops sat on the painting table.  Its worth a read for an insight into how a serving US officer thought the Soviet forces would be handled.

T-62 tank order has arrived

For the last week I have been waiting for the last bit of my Magister Militum order to arrive a pack of 15 T-62s.  They had to reorder from O8 in Poland.  Waiting for Soviet tanks from the east, it sort of sums up NATO's position in a sentence.

T-62s - nice castings aren't they

Like the other Oddzial Osmy castings these are flash free and beautifully crisp.  It really is remarkable what the sculptor has achieved in a 1/600th scale casting.  I'm using these to depict a tank company in a Motorised Rifle Regiment which consisted of three platoons of 4 tanks each plus one HQ tank, I'm leaving out the soft skin truck for the admin crew as these normally stayed at battalion HQ during an attack.

This means that I have a British Tank Squadron with Chieftain Mk5 (14 tanks) paired with a mechanised Infantry Company mounted in FV432s to mix and match and a the same for the Soviets but with T-62s and BTR-70s.  That should give me the basics to try the free version of FFOT3 rules out.  I have already painted and based the Chieftains and one Platoon of infantry for the British so its on to the Soviets next.

It is noticeable that the T-62 is a smaller tank than the Chieftain even at 3mm size.  Painting should be easy enough as early 80's Russian kit was mainly in plain green.  I just need to get the right shade sorted out as I'm not totally convinced by the shade I trialled on the first BTR-70.  Not to worry though as I will come up with something.

BTR-70 this is not the green I'm looking for, but it can pass

3mm tanks - second try at basing.

 After yesterday's horrible basing mess, I thought to try a different approach so I over painted the horrid green with a more muted tone and added some of my bock paving sand and flock from my 6mm basing supplies.  It's not in the least realistic but it does work a lot better than the olive green.

I'm not ashamed of the basing now!

I also hit the painted tanks with a light wash of my old favourite Agrax Earthshade which reduced the contract between the green and the black in the cammo scheme.  As I have mentioned before it also matts down the finish which is a bonus.

The base is a UK 1p coin 20mm diameter

The painting took almost no time at all under coat in white, top coat of Russian Uniform, the black pattern is German Grey with a tiny bit of Sky Grey mixed in to lighten it the thermal wrap on the gun barrel is Khaki and the dry brush was Bone White (which is actually a nice buff colour) all Vallejo acrylics.  I'm very happy with the results.

One thing I have learned is that getting a good picture of the painted tanks is tricky.  Finding someplace with a good light source is key.  Even daylight on a dull day (as it is today) doesn't create the candle power required!  Then getting my phone's auto focus to target the right point took several goes.  I really need a light box and to get my digital camera out.

Cold War going Hot - Oddzial Osmy models and thoughts on a Fistful of Tows

It’s a new project!  You know me I can resist anything except temptation.  In my defence it's the war I would have had to take part in if it had happened.  I was in the TA in the early 1980s and  if the balloon had gone up the infantry battalion my unit formed part of would have been off to join NORTHAG.  Our task would have been guarding supply depots and supply lines but I always expected that we would have been in the shooting war very quickly. So I have more than a passing acquaintance with the kit and sat through hours of AFV recognition sessions (those Airfix modelling days paid dividends there).  So I thought it might be nice to get some early 80's forces together.

Of course I went small for this project.  Small and cheap, O8 1/600th via Magister Militum Miniatures.  15 Chieftain Mk5 (that's a full squadron plus one spare) for £4.00 that will do nicely thanks.  Of course to spread the postage cost I bought a few other bits so 15 FV432 Infantry Fighting vehicles, 12 BTR-70s and 15 T-64s plus a pack of Warpac infantry.  Or I will have when the T-64s arrive.  I ordered T-62s but they are out of stock so I changed the order!  To be fair the T-64 is probably the more common Soviet tank in the initial attack echelons anyway.

A troop of Chieftains

The Oddzial Osmy casts are simply stunning; no flash a tiny amount of sprue and air channel to cut off job done.  I'm thinking of a Fistful of Tows 3 for the rules but haven't settled on basing, as the I don't have the rules yet.  The rules are aimed at 6mm with one model tank being a group of 3-5 vehicles.  I wanted to save space so went 3mm but I haven't decided if I want to base in groups or as single vehicles as I intend to fight a 1:1 model to vehicle ratio.  3mm makes that affordable and I can just change inches to cm and the scale issue is pretty much dealt with, or I could stick with the original and getting bigger fields of fire.  For now I'm going to trial the rules with the free introductory set as the full rules are not cheap.  They look fairly straight forward and should play OK solo.

I had a go at painting three Chieftains (That's a Troop) and they are fairly easy to paint although I need to play with the technique a little.  Dry brushing for contrast is a must and I'm thinking a pin wash in black before the highlight might be needed.  The bases in this first batch are just horrible  That olive drab is too bright I want contrasts between vehicle and base but that's not it!  I'm still not sure about basing on coins either.

I hate the basing but the tanks came out OK.

I have the makings for a Squadron of Chieftains and a Rifle Platoon (without it's supports) for the plucky Brits and a Tank Company plus a Motorised Infantry Platoon (also without support elements) for the Ruski's all for a spit over £20.00  that's about 26p a vehicle.  A second order will be going in for re-enforcements in the not too distant future.

Edited 18/03/21 to correct errors in the title of the post and a couple of spellings

The 2021 to do list - another objective met

The Dacian DBA baseline army is complete along with a few extra options.  I make it 17 elements which gives me some extras for the basic 12 elements as well as some of the alternative elements from the list like the Sarmation loose order Knights (3Kn).

Dacia's finest and not a moderately priced 4WD amongst the lot

All figures are from Irregular Miniatures which explains some of the cavalry being bunched up in the middle of the bases.  I was given the core of this army as a gift from a friend who was a member of the Sealed Knot.  That was quite a number of years ago and I'm a little ashamed that it has taken me so long to  get them into proper fighting trim by adding extra manpower to the original gift.  

The gifted figures are painted in the Baccus approved black undercoat with dots and dashes of colour system.  If you look closely can see the effect especially on the two light infantry elements in the left of the front rank.  It's not my preferred style but  if they had joined the back of the painting queue they might still have been there!  So I'm not complaining.

I will primarily field them as 4th Century Carpi rather than the earlier Dacians so that I have opponents for my Late Imperial Romans.  Although that 's not to say that I won't take them back in time once in a while. 

As an aside, the green cloth is a small square of felt I picked up at our local branch of Boyes just before the lockdown started last year.  I'm hoping that they will have it as rolls of fabric when I'm next allowed to go somewhere as exotic as the local shops as I rather like the slightly mottled effect and would quite like to use some as a base cloth.

At some point I will probably give some thought about upscaling them to a 200pt ADLG army or maybe a DBMM one but not this year.  Well not unless I really push on with my other projects!  

  

 

The Dark Ages Campaign

 Its been few weeks since I did any updates on the Dark Ages campaign.  My focus has been elsewhere mostly on painting figures and for the last week or so on pushing on with the ECW rules.  I'm hoping to be able to post a rules update in the next couple of days as I have made some substantial progress on that project.

Meanwhile back in Dark Ages.  I have decided not to fight the small unbalanced campaign actions in every case.  So the Devet v Seisyllwch battle will be solved by the simple expedient of Devet accepting it's new status as a client or sub princedom of it's larger neighbour.  I have rather a lot of time to cover within the campaign and if I want to get to the end I'm going to need to speed things up.  Plus it lets me get to the more interesting table top encounters.  So Devet falls without a fight and the game rolls onwards.

Looking back at the list of events for this turn, we now move on to the last event of 799AD.  Northumbria attacking Strathclyde by striking into Rheged.  

By 799AD Northumbria's power was concentrated to the east of the Pennines and that is how the game is set up.  The North West was contested ground under Strathclyde Welsh influence (if not outright control) in Cumbria and loosely Northumbrian in the areas south of that.  The nature of government in Northumbria at this point was such that central authority was often lacking and control ceded to local leaders who made their own way without much thought, or care, for who the king was.  It was only where a strong king arose that this changed and historically that didn't happen very often.  

In modern terms Northumbria was a failed state.  There had been a generation of in fighting between rival branches of the royal line over which line should sit on the throne and this continued right into the mid 9th century, when one claimant allied himself with the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok.  Lets just say that it didn't end well. If you have read the Last Kingdom books or watched the TV series based upon the same you will have come across them as leaders of the first wave of Viking invasions.

Looking at the available forces in the game The Strathclyde Welsh can assemble the men of Galloway, Strath Clut and Rheged itself.  While Northumbria can count on Lothene, Berneich and possibly Cumbre.  I say possibly for Cumbre, as I have designated that region as disputed but occupied by Northumbria so the Cumbrians will act as allies and may be unreliable.

The available forces will be maximised as both kings are present so the line ups look like this:

Strathclyde

Strat Clut: King (Cv), 3 x Sp (reduced by battle losses)

Rheghed: 1 x Gen (Cv), 3 x Sp (reduced by battle losses)

Galloway: 1 x Gen (Cv), 1 x Cv, 3 x Sp

Strathclyde is carrying losses from the clash with the Picts earlier in the turn so are only able to turn out 13 elements.  They cannot deploy in two bodies as they don't meet the minimum element count  I set in the rules to do so.

Northumbria

Lothene: 1 x Gen (4Bd), 3 x Sp, 1 x Ps

Berneich: King (4Bd), 3 x 4Bd, 7 x Sp, 3 x Hd, 1 x Ps

Cumbre: Gen (Sp), 1 x Ps

Northumbria has maximised the available troops so as to be able to have two commands and is fielding 22 elements.  They will field The men of Berneich as a single command and merge Cumbre and Lothene into a second.  As a disputed territory Cumbre will count as allied and may not be reliable on the battle field.