Russian Army for Rapid Fire

When I started buying up kit for WW2, Matchbox kits were still available (before being rebranded Italeri). They were at the time considerably cheaper than comparable kits (I seem to remember about £3.50 rather than £5.00). As I knew them to be great models it made sense to snap them up. One model that was in the range was the T34-76 and, although I was mainly buying German and US, I put 9 of them on my order from Hannants, as I reckoned I wouldn't have the chance to get them that cheap again. They were a simple kit to put together. There is not much painting involved (all Russian tanks came out of the factory painted green, and only in snowy winter did they bother to camo' them), they were all painted and assembled early on.

I got some Russian infantry at the same time, but unlike my Germans and Americans didn't get around to painting them until 2009, starting them at a time I was getting frustrated with the slow pace of getting everything together for my German and US army. I got them all finished by March 2010.

The great thing about the USSR in WW2 from a wargamer's point of view is that they are a fairly simple army to equip. Where as the German army that changed their main battle tank four times in the course of the war, the Russians found a star in their T34 early on and switched most of their production to it, only making significant modifications when they upgunned it to a 85mm in 1944. They didn't manufacture any half tracks of their own, so no armoured infantry, just motorised. They go a lot of equipment from the US and the British under lend lease. So I could use the GM trucks that I'd made up for the US army, and a M1 half track or two for HQs, towing etc.. That really just left the AT company of a tank battalion to equip, and a set of two SU-85s from Armourfast did the trick. Pegasus's 'two-to-a-box' kits yielded a pair of armoured cars and a light tanks (all of which actually looked pretty similar). Italeri's excellent 76mm gun set yielded a couple of heavier AT/artillery guns, and a blog site which pointed out that the Russian 45mm was basically indistinguishable from the German 38mm, so Hat's German set supplied my infantry AT at the lighter end.

The net result was that once I got stuck into painting the Russian infantry it started to look a lot easier to reach the finishing line for the Russians than the US or the British, so they jumped ahead of the queue.

Battalion of T34-76s, with an AT company SU-85s, with light tank and A/C for HQ & Recon

A conversation at my last club left me doing a swap and getting eight Armourfast T34-85s, to help equip an elite late war tank battalion. Once they are painted I have all the essential equipment to take me to 1945 (and indeed beyond as I could use the T34-85s in Vietnam!).

Battalion of T35-85s for later 1944 onwards

The hardest work was getting all the infantry battalions together. I used Revell's Russian infantry and Siberian Rifles sets, a lot of Esci figures and a box of Airfix. Although the figures in the main Revell set are a bit larger, and Airfix a bit smaller than the rest, it is not that noticeable once all painted. The mix gives a good variety of poses and plenty of heavy weapons, including AT rifles which are only found in the Revell Siberian rifles set. Unlike the various German sets, there are plenty of mortars as well as HMGs, although I thought for a while I would come up short having mislaid some Maxims for a couple of months. The Esci set has a lot of female radio operators, which are good for identifying HQ units.

Motorised infantry Battalion equipped with lend lease trucks and half track

A Rapid Fire battalion is around 40 figures, but the three rifle companies only require 24 figures. The HQ, weapons and gun companies making up the balance, so you actually need quite a few 'ammunition carriers' etc.. These I have made by trimming the weapons off a few figures, especially those lying down etc., a lot of which and a 'wounded' figure, that can stand in as a mortar loader, are in the Airfix set, so I've drawn a lot from this set. The Italeri 76mm set has a few spare figures good for FOOs. The result of using what I thought initially would not be useful figures, is that in the end I had a lot more riflemen/SMG figures than I'd reckoned and so ended up making no less than six battalions up. This should be more than enough for any eventuality.

All of the sets have a lot of figures carrying SMGs (as indeed was the case) so there is no problem picking enough out if you want to form an SMG battalion.

One of Six infantry Battalion. This one is equipped with the lighter 45mm AT gun

I have a few more figures to paint up. Notably the ski troops in the Siberian Rifles sets, which I have started to paint, but there is no point finishing until I get around to buying a 'snow cloth' to put on the table. I initially added a workers militia/partisan battalion card to my unit deck, and in my first game with them just used ordinary figures to represent them, but I have since bought to sets of Caesar's partisans, painted up a battalion and they've already seen action. I've not taken any pics of them yet, so will do so for a later post.

Like my German army, I tend to think of this as a 1943-45 army, but in fact as T34-76 saw wider use earlier than this, and in fact German armour found itself completely outclassed for a while, this actually represents the Russian army over a longer time frame. But as I can't field it for the time being against a German army much earlier than '43, it won't be re-fighting the battles of 1941-2 until I get some PzIIIs for my Germans.

My new regular gaming buddy, Steve, turned up at the last game with a whole battalion of mounted cossacks, which he was keen to field. Unfortunately they ran straight into a Panzer battalion hidden behind a hill, which with the help of some off-board artillery wiped them off the board in record time! With a bit more practice they might prove more useful. In fact might have been exactly what Steve could have needed to seize an important objective very early on in the last game, if Steve, who is not at heart a pre-20th century gamer, can get his head around thinking of cavalry in WW2 as mounted infantry, and not look for something to charge!

The whole lot (including the US 'lend-lease' stuff)!

There are now a couple of very nice new infantry sets recently released, notably the Pegasus Soviet infantry in winter and Soviet infantry in summer (in caps) . There is also a Naval set which would be handy for WW1 and the Russian Civil War too. These are tempting, but with six infantry battalions all ready not a big priority in the big scheme of things and maybe an 'add-on' I can do later if I get a lot more of my unfinished projects done.

There is never any shortage of extra kit that you can buy for a WW2 army. A few Katusha's, and some different assault guns (SU-76s and SU-110s), and some KV1s would all be nice. But probably if I shelled out some more money on this army I would probably do it in line with my plans for my German army, and add more light tanks to be able to represent better 1941-2.

76mm gun. An excellent field artillery and AT piece

German Army 1943-45 for Rapid Fire

If you want to do WW2, one of the main things that your likely to need is a German army. When I first started to collect figures and kits for this army (about ten years ago - scary!), I was planning on matching it up initially against a US army, so bought Revell's German infantry, which are for late war. I got one of Osprey's highly detailed 'Order Battle Books' for the Ardennes campaign, so even though I hadn't chosen the Rapid Fire rule book, the choice of kit that I bought wasn't too far out. In the event, I ended up getting my Russian army ready before my Americans, and by this time, I had added a fair number of other figures including Revell's (earlier war) Panzergrenadiers, Italeri's re-issue of the Esci set, a box of Airfix, and some figures from Airfix's Africa Corp figures to get some field caps in there. Although Airfix are a tad smaller, all scale well when painted and based. I painted some of the Revell in late war camo, picking a couple of different camo patterns to help distingush different battalions, which I tend to use for Panzergrendiers. All the rest are in standard grey-green, and the Italeri and Airfix in early war uniform (ie. jackboots).

I have enough 'early war' infantry, and some early war kit (such as 38mm AT guns) to represent German infantry battalions from 1939-45. But partly because I'd started buying kit for Normandy onwards, and partly because later war kit is more popular among manufacturers, I tend to refer to this army as my 1943-45 army. This is because the main battle tanks are Panzer IVs (the Panzer III being considered obsolete by '43) and Panthers (introduced in the summer of '43). To take it earlier, I would mainly need to equip a tank battalion with Panzer IIs (for '39-'40) and/or Panzer IIIs (for '41-'42).

Elite Panzer Battalion equipped with Panthers and AT company of Jadpanthers

Prior to picking the Rapid Fire rules, I'd already bought 9 PzIV Airfix kits and 5 Panthers (I think Matchbox, which were still around when I bought them), 3 Jadgppanthers, 4 Jadgpnzer IVs, 3 Wespes, a Puma Armoured Car, and 6 Hanomag half-tracks (all Matchbox). I also had a couple of Airfix German Recce sets (with kubelwagen and armoured car) and three boxes of Revell's 105 mm artillery. With the addition of a couple of sets of Armourfast kits which gave me 4 more Panthers, this gave me enough for a Panther battalion, a PzIV battalion and most of an armoured Panzergrenadier battalion, with a couple of spare half tracks. Reading through the various unit organisations in the Rapid Fire supplements, I ordered a set of two Stugs from Armourfast, a set of two PAK 40s from Italeri, and five Opel Blitzes from Ready-to-Roll, three uncovered and three with the cover on. I later also got the Hat sets of 75mm IG and 38mm AT gun (although the latter more to use as a Russian 45mm).

Panzer Battalion equipped mainly with PzIVs (unfortunately some painted pre-'43 grey. Damn!!) and an artillery company of Wespes

I worked out with a bit of swapping here and there (eg. using a Hanomag as an HQ unit for a Panzer battalion or a tow for an AT gun), I could probably then put on the table, up to two tank battalions, an armoured Panzergrenadier battalion, a motorized Panzer Grenadier battalion and several fully equipped infantry battalions.

My main 'faux pas', was the first kits I painted up and decaled (6 Pz IVs). I didn't feel like following the camo pattern on the box/in the kit, and thought I'd do them grey. This was before I did much research, and I was subsequently discovered that the grey camo was dropped in 1943. PzIVs were around before then, but most of the 'grey camo'ed' tanks that rolled into Russia in 1941 were PzIIIs, the PzIV initially being considered an 'infantry tank', and gunned with the short-barelled 75mms (which come with the Airfix kit and I have kept, and have not glued the long barrel 75mm's into the turrets).

One of six infantry Battalion with HQ & all heavy weapons, this one has an assault gun company represented by a couple of Stugs

The hard work was actually getting together all of the different elements to represent such as HQs, forward observers, heavy weapons, mortar, gun companies, AT companies, trucks and tractors in the right numbers. HMGs or mortars, for example, in Rapid Fire usually have 3 man-crews, but most manufacturers only model two with the weapon, so I general made a bigger base and cut the weapons off some figures to represent ammunition carriers etc.. For some reason, mortars are not a popular item for manufacturers to put in WW2 German sets, and I ended up adding a few mortars from a US set, on a large base, with a few extra figures trimmed of weapons, based separately. That way I can always use them with another army.

An Armoured Company of a Panzergrenadier Battalion

The great thing about having all the main elements of the army done is that I have been able to generate a 'scenario' generation system that involves pulling 'battalion cards' and 'reinforcement cards' from a deck, and after a lot of blood, sweat and tears can be sure that I can field any combination of battalions or reinforcements, without finding I don't have the right kit.

Obviously there is always stuff you can add. The German army in contrast to say the Russian, had all sorts of different AFVs. It would be nice to add some gunned support half-tracks to the Panzergrendier battalion, some command tanks/half tracks, an '88' or other AA, some more towing half tracks and/or trucks, a Tiger etc., etc.. But altogether all the essentials are there.

The whole lot!

If I was to extend it in a serious way, I think probably get three boxes of Armourfast PzIIIs to give me 6 models, and some more PzIVs (probably 'Ready to Roll' with 'schutzen'). I'd paint the PzIVs in late war camo, and replace the barrels for some of my existing PzIVs with short barrels, so I could have a 9 tank battalion with companies of two PzIIIs and a PzIV. That way I get to be able to field both a 1941 Eastern Front Army, and get enough PzIVs in late war camo, so I don't have to put the grey painted ones on the tabletop for post '42 battles. After that I'd probably add some PzII's to be able to do the invasions of Poland and France...

PAK 40 and crew