10mm Hungarian Zynri assault gun

While I have resisted getting minor axis allies as yet - but definitely plan to when I have completed most of my backlog - I couldn't resist these. They are Pithead 10mm Hungarian Zynri assault guns. The decals are from Pithead as well.

US 3" anti-tank guns

Putting together my page summarising my WW2 posts gave me a good idea of what I have already done - and I was convinced I had already posted on these, but apparently not!

These are 3" American anti-tank guns by Arrowhead. It is a multi-part kit and hence has good detail. Crew are Arrowhead but half of them are officers from the infantry as the kit comes with two seated figures and I have other plans for those.

6mm Adler Portuguese

Another thing just finished in my mammoth basing session are the Portuguese. A couple of brigades of infantry. I have no cavalry as none of the scenarios I have require any - very little cavalry in Peninsular scenarios and all British, at least the ones in my scenario books.

I had never intended to do Peninsular or Waterloo as I had too much to do with other nations, but once my Prussians and Austrians got up to reasonably large numbers I decided I would like to branch out but deliberately decided that it would all be commission work so I would not dilute my own effort. Along with the French Guard cavalry in my last post these are all from Perfect Six.

The army consists of:

• 4 regiments of line of two battalions each;
• one battalion of Cacadores;
• 12 skirminishg Cacadores
• a 6 or 9pdr artillery battery.

The Portuguese infantry wore white trousers in summer and blue in winter (at least theoretically) - but also wore grey trousers from the British - so I had them done in a mix. All actually look nice and I am not sure which is my favorite. The flags are from a web site, downloaded and scaled and printed off on paper. You can see how this works in my post on basing (some Portuguese as it happens). The link for the flags can be found on my page "useful Napoleonic links". I still have several battalions of British left to base so a post for them will be a little while off.

The buildings are Timecast and Total Battle Miniatures. The two Timecast buildings I bought off ebay and were painted and based:

The village from Total Battle Miniatures I bought unpainted and painted up and based myself.

6mm Adler French Guard cavalry

I have just finished basing some Adler French Guard cavalry. I have been, off an on, painting my Prussians and Austrians since the mid 1980s, but originally a school friend was doing the French and Russians. He has long since moved on from 6mm and I have been trying to add my own French etc. It has not been a a particularly speedy process! I have on occasion bought painted figures to supplement things and most recently come across Richard over at Perfect Six (see favorite links).

I had managed to do one Guard horse battery and two Horse Grenadiers so my French Guard cavalry were not exactly up to strength. So a big thank you to Richard for being not only an excellent painter but much quicker at it than me. So far I have:

• one regiment of 40 Horse Grenadiers;
• one regiment of 40 Chasseurs a Cheval;
•  half a regiment of 20 Polish lancers;
• two horse batteries.

Some close ups of the Horse Grenadiers:

The two I had painted before I came across Richard are very similar in style, and so match in well, but I had also tried to do the trim around the saddle cloth with a line of dark blue between the main trim colour. So he is handily identifiable and I have made him the colonel of the regiment.

The Polish lancers:

The Chasseurs a Cheval:

And finally the horse batteries:

WW2 experimental vehicles part 6 - T-100z

I got hold of a couple of resin kits of the Russian T-100z in Taiwan. Not sure of the make but I think it is a pukka kit rather than a knock off as the quality is quite good (not up to Atelier Infinite standard but still a good quality kit).

Here is some bumph I found on the tank and its development history:

The T-100 was a twin-turreted Soviet heavy tank prototype, designed in 1938–39 as a possible replacement for the T-35. The T-100 was designed to by N. Barykov's OKMO design team at S.M. Kirov Factory No. 185 in Leningrad. It was in competition with a similar design - the SMK - but neither were adopted and instead a single turret version on the SMK was ordered as the KV-1.

The prototype T-100 tank was briefly tested alongside the other designs in the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939 without success. It was never put into production, due to the archaic design concept, poor mobility and the availability of a far superior alternative, the KV series.

There were attempts to use the T-100 chassis as a platform, with one being for an 6in howitzer carriage (T-100Z).

The tank has an insanely high profile so no hiding from the enemy! At the end of the picture as some comparisons with other Russian tanks to give an idea of size.

KV 1 comparison:

T35 comparison (the T35 is the Panzer Depot one with a wash and mud applied):

and finally a comparison with the KV 5: