Wargames Unit - British BG 1980s Echelon

The supply echelon of the British Battle Group was broken down into components which sat with the Units ( Battle Groups ) Sub Units (Squadrons, Companies and Batteries) and with the Brigade resuply organisation. At the Brigade level there were RCT assets which reinforced the forward delivery elements and in the early 1980s every thing to the rear of the Brigade was Run by the RAOC and the RCT . The RLC was formed at the end of the Cold War as part of the general Revision of Combat Support (Engineers, Artillery and Aviation) and Combat Service Support (Logistic, Repair, Medical and Provost).

There was a wonderful system to ensure that fuel, rations, water and ammo flowed forward however in most wargames rules we don't worry too much about the detail of this activity. Rapid fire has optional rules associated with the representation of the CSS element so I include them in my units. For this battle group I wanted a supply echelon at least 2 trucks.

The first vehicle in the group is an S&S Stalwart converted with a scratch built Unit Bulk Refueling Equipment UBRE, the building of the model and a review of the S&S Stalwart is the subject of an earlier post. The vehicle is stowed painted and marked using my British painting scheme, covered in detail  in the Britannia FV432 review

The second vehicle in the Group is the Airfix 1 ton Landrover, this is a great model of this vehicle which served in many guises through to the end of the 80's where it started to be replaced by the Reynolds Boughton and later the Pinzgaur as the preferred steed of the support weapons elements of light role battalions, the other use I will be putting it to.  I have stowed it with a cam net and cam poles.

The Final vehicle in the group is a Bedford MK, 4 Tonne truck, again the Airfix model and very much the transport work horse of the british Army throughout the 1980s.  JB did a brilliant representation of this vehicle which paints up really well.  Take care over the orientation of the rear truck body, I got it wrong three times, how I am not quite sure. For this vehicle I just added the Cam nets, the other option I am considering is the use of a half height tilt, putting the top of the tilt in line with the top of the cab, this was quite a common tilt setup for Troop Transport Vehicles or TTVs as they were known.

For the late 80s/90s Battle Group I will go for a Bedford 8 Tonne UBRE and a land rover 110 and a Leyland DAF truck all of which are available in one form or another from BW models.