More Soviet vehicles than I'd thought ...

I thought I might take a look at just what I have available for the mid war eastern front 20mm Spearhead project.

Ouch!! More than I'd realised.

I'm not a great fan of those "line 'em up and photograph what I have" blog posts (pretty boring really), so this is more for me to use to review progress than anything else.

There are 10 x T34s ( a mix of early and mid war variants), and I found another one assembled long ago by someone else, but in desperate need of a paint job. That will make 11, and enough for a mid war armoured division tank brigade. There are four BT7s, and two 'lend lease Stuarts (one M3 and one M5), good for the recon elements of the brigade. Then there are the two extant KV1s, used for a Heavy tank regiment, or a breakthrough brigade, except that I need four or five to make a complete unit (hence my attempts at assembling those fated Fujimi kits).

So, the project is much further advanced than I'd thought.

Where to from here? There is some 'earthquake damage' to be repaired.

Side guard to be re-glued to this KV1.

New barrel required on this T34 D/E conversion (a 1980s job done using the T34/85 turrets .. remember those days?)

Here is the T34 collection less the recently unearthed extra vehicle which is undergoing the repaint. However there are a few errant paint jobs here too, and of course these were painted 'way back in the day' (as some of my young students are fond of saying) when we used brown khaki rather than the more correct Soviet olive green colour. Not sure if I'll repaint them all, maybe just the 'more bizarre' of them.

And then there are these few 'interesting' vehicles that were conversions that I did in the 1970s and 1980s. In this shot, from right to left - an SU76i (a 76mm gun mounted on a captured StUGIII chassis IIRC), a JSU152 (the barrel is a Bic pen refill), and a T48 (a 6pdr mounted on an M3 half track)

Finally this JS1 conversion, completed almost entirely from photos using an Airfix JS3 chassis, in the absence of plans. For those of us of a 'certain age', doesn't this take you back? No kitsets available, so we just had to 'make it up' as best we could. "You try telling young people 't today that, they won't believe you".

Here are the recon elements. The BT5 at the front was a scratch build job. I remember the trials and tribulations of getting the hull front correct.

And the two lend-lease recon vehicles.The M5 Stuart at the front was another of my scratch build projects. The hull rear and the turrent were 'challenging' as I recall.

It's all good fun. Now where's Stan with those quick assembly KV1s?