For the Motherland

When it comes to armored warfare and the history of WWII, the T34 (and it’s variants) deserve an extra thick chapter any book that chronicles defeat of Nazi Germany – and afterward.  In 1942, Adolf Hitler is reported to say to his military staff at his Wolf’s Lair headquarters in East Prussia, “If I had known that there were so many of them, I would have had second thoughts about invading!”

The “them” he was referring to was the Soviet Red Army T-34, the now-iconic tank that had come as such a nasty surprise to the Germans in the summer of 1941.  The T34, and it’s variants continued to be a thorn in the side of the German’s throughout the war, ultimately rolling onto the streets of a shattered Berlin in April of 1945.

Drs. Matthew Hughes and Chris Mann in their 2002 work The T-34 Russian Battle Tank noted, “The presence of the T-34/76 in 1941 proved to be a rude shock for the Germans. Compared to other Soviet tanks, the T-34 was able to take on and destroy the best of the German panzers. In various modifications—and despite some setbacks—the T-34 held its own until the war’s end in the ruins of Berlin in 1945.”

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JS-II

The IS-2 tank first saw combat in the spring of 1944 and were assigned to separate heavy tank regiments, normally of 21 tanks each. These regiments were used to reinforce the most important attack sectors during major offensive operations. Tactically, they were employed as breakthrough tanks. Their role was to support infantry in the assault, using their large guns to destroy bunkers, buildings, dug-in crew-served weapons, and other ’soft’ targets. They were also capable of taking on any German AFV if the need arose.  Once a breakthrough was achieved, lighter, more mobile T-34s would take over the exploitation. The IS-2 weighed about the same as a German Panther, and was lighter than the German heavy tanks, the Tiger series. It was slightly lower than both. A major weakness was the two-part ammunition, which slowed the rate of fire considerably. A second weakness was the very limited ammunition supply of only 28 rounds. This was the price paid by the small size of the design. One of the IS-2’s most notable engagements took place during the fighting in August 1944 to establish a bridgehead over the river Vistula around the town of Sandomierz.. This was the first time the IS-2 had come up against the fearsome Tiger II.  During the engagement on August 13, the 71st Independent Heavy Tank Regiment’s eleven IS-2s blocked an attack by fourteen Tiger IIs of the 105th Heavy Panzer Regiment.

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Raupenschlepper Ost (RSO)

The Raupenschlepper Ost, literally “Caterpillar Tractor East”, is more commonly abbreviated to RSO. This fully tracked, lightweight vehicle was conceived in response to the poor performance of wheeled and half-tracked vehicles in the mud and snow during the Wehrmacht’s first winter on the Soviet Front.  Steyr responded by proposing a small fully-tracked vehicle based upon its 1.5 tonne truck (Steyr 1500A light truck) already in use in the army. The vehicle was introduced in 1942 as the Raupenschlepper Ost (RSO). It was initially designed as a prime mover and artillery supply vehicle but eventually served in a wide variety of roles.  By 1943, the complaints of the infantry anti-tank units at the front that it was almost impossible to move their guns using trucks at daylight under enemy fire, leading to enormous losses of equipment when an emergency relocation (at the time more of a euphemism for withdrawal) was necessary found their way to the top. This led OKW to consider an older proposition to fit the 7.5 cm PaK 40/1 anti-tank gun -by then the standard Pak- on top of a RSO chassis and Hitler after seeing the blueprints ordered a limited production run for combat testing even before the test vehicles were completed.

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BT-7

BT is the abbreviation of the Russian term for “fast tank”, with the BT-7 being the last in a line of Soviet fast tanks designed during the 1930’s.  Each tank in the series incorporated the Christie type suspension – as designed by J. Walter Christie.  The BT series of tanks where also know as convertibles in that they could be driven either on tracks or on their road wheels, carrying their tracks with them.  The rear set of road wheels where powered while the front set was steerable.  In practical term, however, the removal and replacing of the tracks proved to be a laborious and time-consuming process, thus this option was often ignored by its crews.

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Twisted Fate

http://ricklawler-propaganda.com/propaganda/wp-content/uploads/tWISTED-fRONT-pAGE-copy.jpgThe Caterpillar D7 series medium bulldozer began service with the U.S. military during World War II. With upgrades and changes, it has been a workhorse for the U.S. Military for over fifty years, fulfilling its primary earth moving role as well as a host of other roles discovered for it, for example mine clearing with a special flail adapter kit. As is so often the case, the idea for this project is based upon a photograph showing a D7 Dozer in action during World War II clearing the wreckage of a Panzer IV from the roadway.

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Churchill Mk.III “Margie”

After the British Expeditionary Force had been evacuated at Dunkirk, having lost most of their equipment in the process, the British Army was in dire need of replacements. This was especially so for Tanks, of which there were only about 100 in the British Isles at that time. To accommodate this, the British government pushed forward a tank design that predated the onset of the Second World War, the A20.

The A20 was designed to meet the expected needs of First World War style trench warfare, where the main emphasis of the tank was to navigate shell cratered ground and demolish infantry obstacles such as barbed wire and was influenced that for the French Char B tank. Between then the Woolwich Arsenal and Harland

& Wolff developed the A20 from a specification in 1939 to working prototype form by June 1940. Once had been complete Vauxhall (the car manufacturers) took over the project, designing and building a prototype, which was designed the A22 by November 1940. The later version of tank had evolved based on the battles in Poland and France. However it still kept many of the same features that would put it a disadvantage confronted with the rapid nature of blitzkrieg tactics but were also prove to be some of its strengths. The first production units were available by the middle 1941.

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Opel Blitz – Snow Plow

In the 3-ton (or medium) of transport trucks the major and most successful design was the Opel Blitz. This was a 1938 design from Opel (the German subsidiary then, as now, of General Motors) and was quite conventional in layout. The Opel Model S3.6-36, to give its maker’s designation, was a 4×2 vehicle with pressed steel cab and bonnet. Suspension was by conventional leaf springs. During its war production run, there were many special purpose variants produced; over 100 different types were recorded.

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Jungle Rot – Kamatsu ‘Dozer

Tracing it’s beginnings to 1902, what began as the Tacheuchi Mining Company operating the Yusenji copper mine about 8 kilometers from Komatsu City later became the Komatsu Equipment Company in May, 1921.

In 1920, the mine ran into financial difficulties and ceased operations. At this time, the head of the mining company, Meitaro Tacheuchi, got together a group of investors to form Komatsu Manufacturing Company Ltd. Earlier, in 1911, an iron casting works had been built near Komatsu City and named Komatsu Ironworks. This ironworks was the foundation for Komatsu Manufacturing’s iron and steel casting. This same group was responsible for the manufacture of the first domestically produced Japanese vehicle, the DAT, which eventually became Datsun.  Komatsu began crawler tractor production in 1932 with a copy of the Caterpillar 2-Ton crawler designated G25. In 1935, they released a copy of the Best 30, designated the G40.

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Staghound T17E1

There are few American weapons built during the Second World War which did not serve with the US Armed Forces in some way, shape or form. Even the P-63 Kingcobra had a number of aircraft serve as gunnery trainers. (There are others, such as the Martin Maryland and Baltimore, but those were designed for overseas sales and little used by the USAAF.)

The Staghound armored car is one of the few that was built and accepted for service with the US Army, but never used or wanted by them and thus nearly 100% of its considerable production run went to the Commonwealth for use as a heavy armored car. The US Army instead opted for the lighter M8 6 x 6 Armored Car and its companion M20 6 x 6 Armored Utility Car as they fit the US Army model for cavalry scouting vehicles. The US Army considered reconnaissance more important than combat, whereas the Commonwealth doctrine saw heavy armored cars used to engage light targets and provide infantry support.

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Marder III

The following article is one of my earlier works published; I was extremely pleased to be not only published by Fine Scale Modeler Magazine – 2009, but the Marder III was featured on the front cover.  As I go about rebuilding my site and reading these older posts I am struck by how my style has changed over the years – both in writing and modeling.  The topic of conversation is the “new” Modulation Style of painting – those familiar in the modeling world have seen and experienced the varied opinions of the technique as it has been used and developed over the subsequent years.

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