8 Inch Artillery Battery

US Army 8 inch artillery.

A full battery of four guns, with limbers and tractors and crews.

The guns were in service from WWI until a few years afterwards.

Then they were placed in war reserve.

Kept there until World War Two and sent to several nations to defend against the Germans.

And the Russians.  Yes, the US sent weapons to Finland in early WWII to defend against Russian attack.

Crews are a mix of Strelets and Hat.

Hat crewmen are from the French 75mm gun set.

Tractor and Limber

Using some bits from the Airfix World War One British Tank and a Lego brick, I made a limber for my WWI and Interwar era artillery.

Strelets makes artillery, but no limbers or towing vehicles.

The Airfix WWI tank does not need the rear wheels so I used them to make limbers for some of my guns.

During the Interwar period many WWI era guns were updated with rubber tires so they could be towed by vehicles rather that horses.  Solid wooden or steel wheels don't work well at speeds higher than a horse can pull the gun.  

So I made up a few limbers and now the Tyco tractors can tow my WWI artillery and Interwar guns.

The US Army Coast Defense Artillery used tracked tractors well into World War Two because the nature of their mission required they tow heavy guns, but not quickly.

Tractor

Tyco trains used to make a flat car that came with three lengths of concrete pipe or a tractor.

I have been buying up the tractors for about 30 years.

They are useful for towing all sorts of artillery from about 1900 to about yesterday.

I added a little trailer hitch on the back.

And give it a crew of one.

Tyco and Mortars

Painting the troops.

And painting the mortars and machine guns.

These are mounted on sheet styrene for durability.

Tractors from Tyco.

Troops and Tractors

Painting the troops.  One of my goals for the past couple years is to improve the quality of the collection.

My plan has been to build models, and paint everything that is not painted yet with primer.

I had a couple boxes filled with mostly styrene plastic US Army troops and I have been putting them together, and basing them, and now using the primer paint on them.

There are also a few tractors that needed some priming.

In the period between about 1917 and 1945 the US Army used a lot of just plain tractors to tow artillery.  Mostly coast defense artillery that did not have to move fast.

A few of these troops are soft metal from the other Twilight 2000 game, here are four Russian soldiers.