Thank You, Robert Petner

Years ago if we wanted to play modern wargames we could field a massive American Army with M48, M60, M60A1, M60A2 and even M1 Abrams tanks, and M113 and Bradley fighting vehicles, but the Warsaw Pact / Soviet forces were pretty slim. About our only choices were $30 each for a Trident lead vehicle if you could find them or the Roco T54. So I have about a zillion T54 since they had to face a very strong American force when they come through the miniature Fulda Gap.

Then a Hero Of The Hobby arrived, by the name of Robert Petner, founder of Petners Panzers. He made an HO injection molded T72. Later, another company, Armourtec, made an HO scale T62. Unfortunantely, Armourtec did not last and Robert Petner purchased their old stock and their mold. Robert spent thousands of dollars on an upgrade to the Armourtec T62 and made it into a much more accurate kit. While rummaging through his stuff recently, Robert found a box of those old T62 and gave them away for the price of postage. I managed to get a few of them from him. They came in a big cardboard box, with drawings on it to simulate a wooden shipping crate.

I got my box last Friday and put everything aside to build T62s. Each kit is ten parts and that came to over 200 pieces. The kits are nearly finished now and I am very happy. Robert Petner is a great guy and has given a tremendous boost to our hobby by making both the T72 and his upgraded T62 HO scale, 1/87 tanks.

This drawing was on the side of the package, showing the completed model, and the simulated wood grain of the cardboard crate.

My worktable shows two dozen T62s with the parts laid out and trimmed off the sprues. The white plastic boxes on the left hold the machine guns, snorkel, hatches, and searchlights. I trimmed all the parts off the sprue and assembled all the kits together, after doing one for practice. Two dozen tank kits in three days is fast, instant Soviet Army!

More Red Army Artillery

The Soviet Army still carried flags at the Battle of Berlin. Everyone wanted to be the first to plant the Soviet flag on the roof of the Reichstag. Stalin believed that was still an important building, but in reality it was bombed out and vacant, except for a large number of SS troops.

Soviet units often had their own flags, and this one here was drawn by one of my friends. I mounted it on a bit of plastic rod and give it a flocked base.




Those tired old Airfix Russians as artillery crews. I also converted some of my hard plastic Esci infantry into artillery crews. These guys are very helpful to add some specificity to the artillery crew.

These hard plastic Esci figures have laid down their weapons and taken up Roco eight inch artillery shells. Actually these poses work very well for artillery and painted in a light gray they go well enough with the Airfix guys.

Nothing is wasted, even the sprue from the Esci Russians gets re-used. I cut the sprue up and made a box out if it and mounted the box on a bit of sheet styrene. Then covered the box with cotton gauze. The gauze is dyed with regular Rit cloth dye a nice dark green color. It can also be painted, but I think the dye looks better. You can do enough to camouflage the entire Eastern Front with one little box of dye.

Inside the camouflaged fire direction center there is a table with map. I painted the ground dirt color on the assumption that any grass would be pounded under the heels of the Soviet Red Army. I did not paint the sprue since it was a tan color, I figured it looked like natural wood and the glue from the netting would adhere better.

USSR FDC

The Roco M577 model comes with a big plastic antenna. I took one of those and made it into a ground mount for my Russian artillery. The base is flocked sheet styrene, the guide wires are thread stiffened with superglue. This gives me a big long range radio for contacting forward observers near the front. Note the Airfix former infantry have been transferred to the artillery. I put a bit of plastic on the base of the running SMG guy and removed his gun. He stands up much better now.

A tiny bit of wire cleverly whipped into a pair of scissors telescopes. It is mounted on painted sheet plastic with minimal flocking. Another item to place near the fire direction center for the battery, or can go with the forward observer team. In the back you can see I took a couple 55 gallon drums and glued down some styrene plastic with a wooden board pattern on the top. It makes a nice map board.

Here is a good close up of the Airfix soldier and the map board. I often glue maps and other papers on them for more authenticity. Sometimes an SMG, radio or other bits add some extra realism.

Considering the advanced age of these figures they are not too bad. The weapons were the worst part and without them the figures are much better. Artillery crews are often scarce and and expensive as well, so retraining these guys when I replaced them with the Esci, now Italeri, Russian soldiers seemed a economical alternative.

Bring Out the Big Guns, Camrade

In my rule system, for guns to be able to make indirect artillery fire as a battery they have to meet the definition of a batter. The guns must be close together, they must have fire control center, they must have an ammunition supply and if they intend to adjust the indirect fire, they must have a forward observer. Shown above is one of my ammo dumps. It is the same sort of boxes tailored to fit the back of a Roco truck bed. I give each of my artillery batteries a two letter identification number. I often make a little plaque like the RC shown here to designate which battery gets the ammo dump. This is Russian battery, letter C.

This photo show the ammo dump for Russian battery, D. The figures are from the old and nearly uselessly outdated Airfix Russian Infantry. The set is pretty terrible, but then it is close to fifty years old. Many of those old soldiers have been sent to the artillery; this figure has had his rather nebulous sub machine gun removed and now he pushes boxes around.

In the olden days before we had expensive European resin kits; did I say fragile? I meant to say expensive, fragile European resin kits there was Lyzard Grin. This company made 1/76th scale cheap, soft metal artillery. They had a huge range and it was cheap, and durable. These Russian 203mm guns are from then and are probably close to thirty years old. I based them on a sheet of styrene and then flocked it with Woodland Scenics flocking stuff. Set up side to side like this they make a really nice Russian eight inch artillery battery.

The gun is huge and it ways a ton, I think I paid less than $3 each for these guns, a great deal. My Airfix / Esci crewmen will man these monsters when the Battle of Berlin comes.