The Great Bugout

I have spent some time studying the Korean War as of late, since it can be argued that this particular conflict provided most of lessons that should have been learned when it comes to post-1945 conflicts. As a small project after a modeling hiatus I decided to depict two US GIs as they encounter some of the havoc and carnage, including a frozen comrade right in front of them, that occurred during "The Great Bugout", i. e. the massive UN retreat from North Korea that took place after China entered the conflict during the winter of 1950-51.

The figures are from Dragon's US Battle of the Bulge Airborne Troops, but with Tamiya weapons, one Hornet head and one Verlinden head crowned by a Soviet-style fur cap that the BAR gunner might have picked up to replace his own headgear. The same soldier has also managed to liberate a Nagant revolver just in case the BAR runs out of ammunition. The hills of North Korea were, by all accounts, very cold, windy and nasty in general, and this has been reproduced by plaster of paris, baking soda and some odds and ends that were placed into the plaster before it settled. The mold did bulge a bit while settling, so the base isn't the exact rectangle I hoped for, but it will have to do. Some of the photos of the vignette were taken with flash, some without, with the former perhaps simulating the dazzle of illumination rounds overhead. 

Russian Infantry of Peter the Great

I picked up the Zvezda "Russian Infantry of Peter the Great" in 1/72 scale a couple of weeks ago just to have a try at miniature painting of more than the occasional pilot or tanker. The figures are very well sculpted for plastic figures, with very little flash but still with the molding inadequacies that come with plastic miniatures. Anyway, I find that they look good in a larger group, and I added soldiers from the Semenovsky Guards Regiment (blue coat) as well as the Abramov regiment (white coat) to the unstructured mass of soldiers from the Preobrashensky Guards Regiment. Unfortunately I had to take pictures with my phone, so the shots are not up to par, but I hope they nevertheless will provide some amusement.

Panzerkampfwagen V Ausf A in 1/35

The village of Heikendorf near Kiel in Germany had an interesting more-or-less public secret: an older gentleman had a WW2 tank in his basement, not to mention an anti-aircraft gun and a torpedo. However, in early July 2015 the German Bundeswehr relieved the 78-year old retiree of his Panzerkampfwagen V tank as well as other equipment. It took 20 soldiers nine hours to extract the vehicle from the basement of the building, and it turned out that the tank was in very good condition, albeit without tracks (http://www.tagesspiegel.de/weltspiegel/heikendorf-nahe-kiel-bundeswehr-birgt-weltkriegs-panzer-aus-ostsee-villa/12001682.html).

I felt that I had to pick up a Panther for a little summer entertainment, and on a whim I bought an older Tamiya kit of a Pzkw V Ausf A, the second version of the Panther that was introduced in the fall of 1943. This version had a ball mount for the hull machine gun as well as a new commander's cupola and strengthened running gear. It served up to the end of the war, and some 2,192 Ausf A Pathers were build between 1943 and July 1944.

The old Tamiya kit was not difficult to assemble, but it is lacking in detail by today's standards. I was however primarily interested in painting the vehicle, although I did add a machine gun barrel, a radio antenna, a cupola ant--aircraft machine gun mount and a few more modern pioneer tools. I used Vallejo acrylic paints applied with various brushes and a series of washes to dull the Panzer Dunkelgelb and to weather the vehicle. The markings are from the kit, and the vehicle is supposed to be rather generic, since the various division emblem decals didn't adhere very well to the tank for some reason. It is perhaps camouflaged for the spring of 1944 and the onslaught of the Red Army.