Zvezda 1/144th scale Lagg-5

Along with my Lagg-3, I wanted some more modern Russian fighters and these Zvezda Lagg-5s were just the ticket. They look very sleek and modern with their long radial engines, but also distinctively stubby.

I got two, done in slightly different marking schemes. They went together very easily, the only slightly delicate part being the angled antenna post behind the cockpit.

I really like this light grey/dark grey scheme (lifted from Soviet Aces of WW2) and the red spinner and cowling set it off well.

This one is also in the grey scheme, but with a white tail flash. The decals are as supplied in the kit, and unlike the red/white stars in the IL-2, they are properly printed with no offset.

Plain underside with the undercart up.

And off they go looking for Fw-190s over the dining table.

Shock on the Seret - Kurovtsky

I'm sure you've all had enough of my holiday snaps for now, so here is a proper game report. In late March 1944 with the Siege of Tarnopol well under way in the Ukraine, 4th Panzer Army was reinforced with three freshly raised infantry divisions, a Stug Brigade and 507th Tiger Bn and ordered to restore the situation.

This is the first of a series of games in a mini campaign covering the 507th Tiger Bn in March 1944. The first scenario covers 357th Infantry Divs attack against the 60th Army bridgehead over the Seret near the village of Kurovtsky on 23rd March 1944.

I ran this using my modified version of Memoir 44 (Memoir 45) with some extra innovations - using the Breakthrough Deck, letting the players set the troops up and dispensing with the usual Memoir 44 banner based victory conditions. Instead I used the banners as a Portable Wargame style 'exhaustion' mechanism, and gave the players objective based victory conditions.

View from the north. Kurovtsky is to the left, and the main Tarnopol-Lvov highway to the right. The Russians are deploying 96th and 283rd Rifle Regiments of 140th Rifle Div. The division only has 5,000 effectives so is on the intermediate reduced strength OB (two battalions per regiment). Tim C took the Russians. The Germans have a Regiment from 357ID, commanded by John and Tim G.

140th RD is also supported by 59th Independant Tank Regiment. Like many ITRs, it is still on the 1943 OB with a mix of medium and light tanks. The Regiment is supporting 283RR, which is tasked with cutting the Lvov highway.

Over on the highway is a battalion of 357 ID, mainly composed of half trained 18 year olds. They do however have lots of mortars (6 x 81mm and 4 x 120mm) so I gave them two mortar companies, as well as a Tiger, representing half of  the 17 Tigers from the 507th which fought there on the 23rd. The regimental infantry gun and AT companies are also present, as is a battalion of 105mm howitzers off table.

The 96th Rifle Regiment was given a defensive mission, so dug in, supported by a battalion of 76mm field guns, the regimental 120mm mortar company and a reinforced AT company. The Regimental SMG and anti-tank rifle companies were distributed among the under-strength rifle battalions. 

Another battalion of the 357th, supported by the rest of the Tigers and another battalion of 105s.

The action opened with a headlong dash by 59th ITR for the Lvov road.  The T34s got a bit shot up, but the wave of armour forced the Tigers to withdraw.

The Russians pressed on, and took heavy losses from the massed defenders.

All the T-70s were knocked out, and only a depleted T34 company was left. The last Tigers were disabled in the melee though.

The Germans started to push forward to sieze artillery  observation posts, having repelled the armoured assault. The Tigers from the other flank rumbled down the highway to join the left flank.

The surviving T34s pulled back as the Russian infantry moved up.

The remaining Tigers conducted a magnificent armoured assault, using the special Armoured Assault card.

The T34s were despatched and the Russian infantry driven back.

Another Armoured Assault!

Although this pushed the Russians back to Kurovtsky, it came a cropper in the close quarters fighting as the defenders rolled three hits on the Tigers.

So, by now all the armour was ablaze and the Russian infantry had been thrown back to their start line.

Over on the other flank, a Russian infantry assault got underway to try and cut the road. They had to dismantle their own wire obstacles on the way. This assault was cut down in a hail of artillery fire and the Russians became exhausted, ending their attack.

German infantry followed up their advantage and pressed on towards Kurovtsky while both sides fed in reinforcements and a rain of shells fell on both sides. Eventually it became obvious that the Germans weren't going to take the town.

Some aircraft put in an appearance as we called it a day. Well, they were in the box of toys...

Both sides essentially ended up back on their baselines, but as the Russians were exhausted and the Germans weren't, we gave that to the Germans. It was surprisingly close to the original result where both German infantry assaults failed but the Tigers drove off the Russian armour and the battle degenerated into an artillery duel. What we didn't have was a lonely group of Tigers roaming the lines behind 96th RR, but Johns heroic tank attack on Kurovtsky came close.

That all seemed to work OK, there are few tweaks to tidy things up and make them more consistent but on the whole that was a good outing for Memoir 45. The game itself threw up some more suggestions, so I'll do a more general revision and release it as Memoir 45 version 3. I don't think the free setup worked very well, although it was less scenario design work for me, so I'll have to have a think about that. Focusing on terrain and scenario objectives was interesting, rather than just destroying enemy units, but it all seemed to take much longer than a regular game, so some food for thought there. 

Zvezda 1/100th M3 Lee

Another offering from Zvezda, the M3 Lee, a.k.a. The Grave for Seven Brothers by Russian tankers who served in them. In fact they weren't as bad as that and served in the British, US and Russian armies until 1945.

I fancied picking up a few of these partly to use with my Russians, but also with some potential use in Tunisia with US forces and Burma with 14th Army. The Russians generally assigned them to independant tank regiments, although some Tank Corps were issued them in 1943, and it was in ITRs that they served right until 1945, often still paired with M3 light tanks.

I got three of them, which seemed a reasonable number.

They are exquisite models, beautifully detailed, crisply moulded and very delicate. The sheer number of parts is a bit intimidating but they went together far more logically and easily than the Zvezda Panthers. I found snap fitting the main parts then fixing them with glue worked best as it gave a bit of flexibility in aligning the joints of all the plates. Once I'd done the first, the other two were much quicker.

They are supplied with the hatches shut, so for one I borrowed a crew figure and a spare hatch from a Sherman and it ended up looking a fair bit like the photos of M3 commanders perched high up in the air. I've never seen a real Lee, but the Grant in the Imperial War Museum was impressively big and I imagine the MG cupola on to made it even taller.

Lovely moulding on the engine deck, and you can see the fine track detail. Much better than some of the earlier Zvezda efforts (the tracks on the Stug IIID are very crude). As usual I painted the running gear and tracks mud coloured and gave the whole thing a light drybrush of tan, which highlighted the numerous sharp edges, rivets and panels very well. 

Normally I'd undercoat these black and then give them a mist of white, but this time I undercoated them Humbrol dark green and then mixed up some OD (60% VJ Russian Uniform and 40% VJ Bronze Green) to go over. It wasn't hugely successful as it ended up looking really flat and I had to apply multiple layers of lighter drybrushing to get any depth. I wish I'd stuck with my usual method of Russian uniform over the black undercoat and then a wash of Bronze Green. They came out OK in the end  but have about five coats of paint on them. I didn't bother with any markings so they can be 'international' and they look good enough plain.

SS Jeremiah O'Brien

Along with the USS Pampanito is docked the SS Jeremiah O'brien, one of only two surviving Liberty Ships (out of over 2700 built). Even better, unlike the Pampanito, the JOB is in full working order, and it even sailed to Normandy for the 50th D Day anniversary. The ship is run by enthusiastic volunteers who keep it ship-shape and ready for sea.

The JOB from the rear deck of the USS Pampanito (the entrance into the sub is a modified torpedo loading hatch).

Quite a large ship, I can't recall the displacement.

The deck house and bridge.

Down towards the aft.

Deck cranes and liferaft mounts.

A rather modern radar set.

One of the forward gun tubs (20mm Oerliken)

View back down the deck from the 3" gun platform. You can see it wasn't exactly thronged with people, despite the beautiful weather,

Forward 3" gun. I'm guessing this is the US version of the French 75mm on a naval mount.

Joy of joys, the elevating and traverse mechanisms are operational, so I had a lot of fun tracking ships around the harbour. Sadly the elevation wheels are on one side and the traverse on the other, plus the breech block is missing. It was a nice handy gun to aim though, and I guess it was a dual purpose AA mount as it had a very high vertical elevation.

Alcatraz in the distance.

Forward upper cargo deck.

This has been fitted out for events etc.

And waaay down to the bottom of the lower cargo hold.

The ship has a museum with some great photos of her construction and in action (at Utah beach).

These images commemorate the ship sailing to Normandy (via London) for the 50th D-Day anniversary. A rather blurry Bill Clinton is in the bottom left photo.

There were also a load of interesting models of various types of mass produced ships.

Some cargo, including a beautiful Dodge 1.25 tonner. I've never seen one of these in real life before.

Condor vs B-24.

3", 5" and 20mm ammo. The ships 5" gun used two part ammunition.

US merchant marine medals. A service as overlooked as our own.

There was an amazing diorama of Utah beach done in 1/72nd scale with zillions of plastic models, plus some beautiful scratch built ships.

This is one of the sunken breakwater ships.

I'm not sure I'd fancy being ferried ashore on one of these.

Deck hatches for the lower cargo hold.

This was one of the AA mounts.

The gun was in pretty good condition, although like the 3", non-functional.

The mighty 5" aft deck gun. Like its 3" pal at the front, the breech block was missing.

This is a hefty piece of ordenance.

The traverse also worked on this, albeit with restrictors bolted on. The mechanism shifted the entire gun platform, and was quite hard work to move as I guess the whole thing weighed a few tons.  The elevation mechanism was disabled unfortunately.

Close up of the breech, very elongated to take the two part ammo.

The Golden Gate dimly visible in the distance, wreathed in fog.

Deck raft. It took me a while to figure out what these actually were.

Deck crane. No fancy containers here.

The galley. As this was a working ship, it was pretty well equipped and much bigger than the Pampanitos.

Radio cabin(s). The ship has to have modern equipment to get its sailing licence.

Wheelhouse and engine telegraph.

Signal flag rack, fully stocked.

Lifeboats. The wheel house and gun pits were coated in this strange concrete mixture, as protection against shell splinters (more effective than just steel evidently).

View from the flying bridge. San Francisco Bay Bridge in the distance. I ran from there to the Golden Gate and back again, which was a fair old way but a beautiful run along the sea front. Map My Run said it was 'one of the great urban runs of the world' and indeed it was.

Gun tub on the wheelhouse. The concrete armour is very evident. I assume those are flare launcher tubes on the side.

Navigation room.

Captains cabin.

Lifeboat. These have to operate to modern standards.

Oooh. The engine room. I had free reign to climb around in here, so did my best not to fall into the machinery. It was a large space packed with scary looking bits of metal and vertiginous drops. I can't imagine what it is like in here when it is running.

Steam pipes from the boilers (the ship was oil fired).

Top of the engine.It was a very big engine.

Steam pipe valves.

One of the boilers. The engine room was used to film many of the engine room scenes in the film 'Titanic'. I had lots of fun climbing around in there and it was very atmospheric.

So, another highly recommended US naval adventure, and a very reasonable 20 USD to get in for as long as you like.