Bit of Scratch Building - S-300 Reloads

First up an apology for not posting anything for a while.  I've actually been doing plenty of painting and gaming, including running demo games at Southcon in Dunedin, but all of this has been heavily WWII focussed so I've not posted any of it here.  Cold wargaming doesn't seem to be a thing here, but it's still my go to No. 1 interest - so I'll keep plugging away when I get the chance.

Back in January - here - I posted a review of the 4D Models KrAZ-260B Tractor and the MAZ/ChMZAP-5247G semi-trailer.  I bought it with the intention of using it for some as yet unknown scenario as a tank transporter, but more particularly to create this:

So my first post-WWII for quite a while was to have a crack at it from scratch - just using Evergreen Plastic rod.  I'll warn you, this is the biggest and most complicated thing I've ever tried to scratch build - pretty basic I imagine by many other peoples standards - and I don't have much patience for this kind of thing - but here it is anyway.

That's the basic structure.  Now add some missile Containers:

Now add the set to the semi-trailer:

Now add the truck/tractor:

All lovingly displayed on our kitchen table!

Once the weather here clears up a little, all of this will be getting a basic paintjob and will be ready for the table.  Setting up for a solo game right now!

Thanks all.

See you sooner than this last effort!

Richard

4DModels KrAZ-260B Tractor and MAZ/ChMZAP-5247G semi-trailer Review

 Once again it's been a while.  Preparations for Christmas, visitors and then my wife managing to severely break her ankle just before New Year has meant a pretty busy couple of months for me, and not much time for anything too gamey.

I did have a couple of moments of purchase based stress relief which brings me to today's topic.  For a while now I've wanted to get some kind of Soviet tank transporter/trailer.  I've been looking at the TAKOM offering, which seems quite nice:

and also I say Trumpeter were coming out with this:

which also looked pretty nice.  The thing is, I wanted it for a very specific purpose.  To create this:

I wasn't sure that the S-300 missile tubes would fit on the back of either of the Takom or Trumpeter trailers and I wasn't really willing to pay top dollar for something that may or might not work.

To cut a long story short, one day when randomly having a look around, I stumbled across this kit by 4D Models:

I was a little wary as some of the kits made but this company are basically crap, but when I saw I could get this for less than $22NZD, I thought why not give it a go.  The pics of the completed model looked OK and reviews were generally positive, so I thought the risk of the S-300 tubes not fitting was a risk worth taking.

The box arrived remarkedly quickly from China, a little battered but nothing inside was any worse off.  Here's a look at the back of the box:

Inside were 3 sealed plastic bags of parts and the instructions

Everything was there and nothing was damaged or warped.  In the first bag you got loads of tires.

As you can see they are glossy black with green hubs.  They fit together nicely and are easy to clean up.

The other parts are as below:

and

Interestingly you can see in the second photo that it comes with a transparent piece for the cab's windows and 7 metal rods for the tires.

The tractor goes together very simply and gives a nice simple wargaming standard model.

I couldn't be bothered painting inside the cab - I was in a bit of a therapeutic rush - so I'll be spraying the whole model, only after removing the wheels.  You can see the holder for the spare wheel on the back of the cab.  You end up with 3 spare wheels I think.  You have to make up 17 in all.

The trailer was actually even easier and together, I think they look pretty damn good.

Now of course I checked to see if the S-300 missiles fit on the trailer as they should - and yes indeed they do!  Just for the hell of it I also took out a T-72 to see how it looked on the trailer.

Sorry about the generally crappy photos!

So review time.  First the positives:

• Super cheap
• Ridiculously easy to put together
• Solid wargamers kit
• Scales well
• Basically does what it says on the tin
• If you were really really lazy you could almost get away with out painting it!  Oh the horror!!

Negatives

• It's pretty chunky and there is of course a lack of fine detail, but personally I think the positive of being a solid (rather than fragile) kit outweigh that
• Sink marks.  There are quite a few sink marks on this kit.  Some I'm happy to ignore, but some are in quite prominent positions.  I guess all up I can live with them and hopefully hide most of them!
• The metal rods - while perfectly useful and much better than plastic, unless I'm doing it wrong, they are to long for the wheels on the trailer.  A relatively easy fix, but until that is done it makes the trailer look a bit toy like.

So all in all, for what I want it for I am very happy with my purchase.  Really its a bit of unnecessary frippery but I do have a very minor role in a game planned for it and I just think it's cool to have it.  I'm not sure it would have any real use as a tank transporter in a standard wargame - but will be useful scenery if some "behind Soviet lines" type games.

Now I just need to sort out my many painting issues and get on and paint it.

Thanks and belated Happy New Year

Richard

SA-10B Grumble (S-300) Transport-Erector-Launchers (TELs)

Jeepers!!  I've just realised it was way back in December 2015 that I first started this particular little project.  So it's only taken almost 4 years to finish the primary assets I need to run the scenario I've been planning.

So back here and here I showed you the 5N63S Flap Lid B Engagement Radar and the 5P85S TEL.  The 5P85S is kind of the master or smart TEL with the controls and datalink hardware for the entire TEL group.

Today I want to show you my two completed 5P85D slave or dumb TELs - both of which are controlled by the 5P85S TEL.

Here is dumb TEL number 1 - travelling:

In firing position:

And the second dumb TEL - travelling:

and in firing position:

You can easily see there was a fault with this model.  I'm planning on covering it up with a cam net.

Just to prove I haven't just sneakily moved some parts around - here is my Battery:

From left to right they are the 5N63S Flap Lid B Engagement Radar, the 5P85S TEL (smart TEL) and then the two 5P85D dumb TELs.

I've seen lots of pictures of the TELs in all different shades and cam patterns, with matching missile tubes, or grey or white tubes etc.  So painting one with white tubes (for a Norwegian setting) seemed like a good idea and helps make one TEL look quite different from the others.  Likewise the first two vehicles were painted with a generic "Russian Green" while I airbrushed the latest two in MiG 083 (XB518 Zashchitniy Zefeno) which according to MiG paints was the standard basic colour used in the Soviet Union from 1956 to the 1980's - but is still common today.  I quite like the colour.

So that's it for now.  I'm working on an auxiliary vehicle for the battery, and once it's done I'll start playing through the mission solo and see how it goes.

Thanks

Richard

5P85S S-300 (SA-10B Grumble-B) Missile TEL - Part 2

OK - so a couple of posts back I showed some of the construction and painting of the SA-10B Missile TEL.  Over the weekend I set up my "photo booth" and snapped a few photos of the finished beast.

Here they are.  First up - the TEL in travel mode:

Now in ready to fire mode:

The kit comes with four missiles, which fit nicely in the tubes.  Just for the hell of it I painted one and attached it to some plastic rod, which I painted in flamey colours, and added some while fluff.  So - now in firing mode:

So that's it.  Project finished...  Now I just have to read Black Ops and I have everything ready to play!

Have fun

Richard

5P85S S-300 (SA-10B Grumble-B) Missile TEL - Part 1

As promised back in this post - following my purchase and completeion of the "Flap Lid" Radar TEL I decided to buy a Missile TEL as well.

So I went back to the previous ebay seller and picked up this:

 This time - rather than being tricky and painting it all seperately and then finding it no longer fitted together, I decided to glue together all the various main sections and then paint them.

This is a photo of the various sections glued together:

As you can see you get a fair amount of stuff in the box - including 4 missiles - which you will never see as they are inside the missile tubes.  I didn't glue all the missile tubes to the erector arm so I could paint them more easily.  Whilst trying to work out what was what I had a bit of a look here on the AusAirpower website and discovered a little bit more about the Grumble B.

First up - there are 2 different types of Missile TELs.  A master or "smart" TEL called the 5P85S which looks like this:

You'll note it is easily recognisable by the large compartment immediately behind the drivers cabin.

The other variant is the 5P85D - which is a "dumb" TEL and it looks like this:

You'll not the compartment behind the driver cabin is open here.  Both of these photos have been used without the permission of the excellent (as I keep saying) AusAirpower website.

At that point I decided to build the "smart" TEL.

Further study on the Aus Airpower site lead me to this diagram:

Which shows how a whole battery of SA-10B's operates.  Somewhat to my dismay it also shows the missile TELs operate in groups of three - 1 "smart" TEL and 2 "dumb" TELs operating close together.

So... what to do.  The whole idea behind buying these kits - apart from a bit of cheap fun - was to use them as a target of a NATO SpecOps force.  Now it looks like I need 2 more!!!  Not sure what to do about that... I might just keep the one missile TEL as a proxy for the three - or I might get two more.  I think the best thing to do is to carry out a trial game of Black Ops with a command vehicle, radar TEL and missile TEL and see how that goes - then try another game with 3 missile TELs and the two other vehicles and see how that goes.

Anyway... back to painting the TEL.  To further avoid the mistakes I made last time, I put a little blob of blu-tack on the spots that would be major gluing points - or where two parts would need to fit together.

I then undercoated it all in black and then sprayed a basecoat of Russian Green.  Next step was to carefully black-line the whole vehicle.

It's now ready to be finished.

More on that next.

Thanks

Richard

30N6E2 "Flap Lid" Target Acquisition Radar TEL

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

For the past few weeks I've been doing a lot of WW2 painting, but a little something (turned into a slightly big something) arrived in the mail from China and I had to have a crack at building it straight away - so this is my last hurrah for 2015.

I stumbled across a blog where someone was talking about super cheap 4D puzzle kits on ebay - so I thought I'd have a look and see what on earth he was talking about.  I quickly found this:

for a very reasonable price ($10USD with free postage), so I thought why not.  I was a bit dubious as to what it would be like when it arrived.  Would it be like some kind of 3D typical puzzle - with puzzle peices?  A couple of weeks later it arrived and my concerns were erased.  I took a pic of what came to show you if you have the same concerns that I had:

I had ordered the green one - and this is how it comes.  Pretty normal fast build kit.  Not exactly fitting in with the rest of my Soviet stuff so I decided to respray it - clever chap that I am:

After congratulating myself on how clever I am - I started building it...  (You can probably see where this is heading...)  Not half as clever as I thought afterall.  This kit is big and chunky and perfect for wargaming.  I guess it is designed not to need glue so everything is a snug fit.  Add two thin layers of spray and suddenly it doesn't fit anymore!

So instead of going together in 5 minutes like it was designed to - mine took a little longer:

 

 

Mostly built and ready for black lining.  You can also see the bits I missed when spraying.  Another job well done!

Blacklined

Almost finished

Nearly there...

 

Finished - with a Liberation Miniatures Soviet officer for scale.  Now some beauty shots:

So - that's it.  Obviously I love it and have now ordered the Missile TEL and I have a great idea for a little solo game coming up soon (once the TEL arrives, is made and painted)

It may or may not be a knock-off - I honestly have no idea - but it took little effort to put together, painted up rather nicely and is an excellent wargamer's model.  If you want a proper kit, I think PST make one just like this.

Here is an ebay link to a grey Radar TEL from the same ebay seller I bought the green TEL from.

So that's it for 2015.  Another big year in Cold War gaming - more to come next year.

Thanks for your support and input and I hope we all have a great 2016.

Richard