When I started writing this I thought the Winter releases had been a bit sad but as I near the end its starting to look like a steady list and as ever I am not even looking at the Air and Aviation end of things. I do occasionally get a little wound up as yet another Panther is produced whilst hundreds of excellent and quite ubiquitous modern vehicles go un made in 1/72. It is of course a free market and companies not being charities tend to focus on what sells, so if we want to see more modern wagons I suppose we have to buy more. On with the news:
S&S
S&S's prolific rate of production continues, sadly they got distracted by WW2 so only a couple of this winters output are of interest. The first is an M992 ammunition carrier nice one to team with your US M109 Batteries:
The second is a rework of the Engineer support book beautifully painted here by Iain R from the Guild and the Watching Paint Dry Blog
ACE
ACE have sadly announced that the 2S1 Godvika is now discontinued and whilst the new BMP2 and BMP 1 remain in production they are difficult to find. In their recently published catalogue they have identified 1 new modern release the BTR ZD.
Models Collect
Models Collect popped up on my radar over the Winter, they are based in China and working on a range of Soviet and Rusian vehicles primarily based on the T-72. Releases to date include a T-90 a Tos-1 Buratino, T-72B and T-72A and a range of Soviet decals one sheet of which is shown below.
Available for pre order but yet to be released is a T-72B with reactive armour and a T-72B1 with reactive armour.
T-72B1
I have ordered and received the TOS 1 which looks good though I have yet to build it and have ordered but not received a T-72B, in the hope that its an easier route to a late period tank fleet than ACE.
Black Dog
Black Dog have released a Centurion Mk 3, useful for early Brits and Canadians or mid - late Dutch and Danes. I picked this up from Armourama it does not seem to be up on the Black dog Web site yet.
Zvezda
Zvezda win the prize for the most prolific releases of Modern 20mm or 1/72 kit over the Winter season being particularly prolific in the release of figures, all part of their Hot War Battle for Oil game, but useful none the less. I usually shy away from plastics but these cover a bunch of topics that have limited coverage in the metal world, notably the MANPADs and light ATGWs. The immages of the figures look good with the potential to generate a number of stands out of a single box
The Soviet packs cover the same functions, Infantry, SAM, HMG and ATGW
Of which the two hottest sets are the Dragon and the Metis as these are only produced by Liberation and under fire miniatures to my knowledge and liberation can be fun to get hold of and the under fire version is included in a pack with a mortar so a little difficult to consume.
Whilst not terribly useful from a gaming perspective the megalomaniac in me tells me to buy one the tool looks like a fairly amazing model in 20mm. I find it easy to convince myself I should have one just in case NATO goes nuclear early :)
Cromwell Models ordering service
Cromwell Models have always been a little hit an miss on the ordering front but I have recently discovered a service offered by Charles Mclaren who lives close to Cromwell. If you drop Charles a line @ charlesmclaren1@hotmail.co.uk he is pretty quick to respond, nips around to cromwell places the order lets you know if there are any issues and drops them in the post as soon as they are ready. Brilliant service, I have so far put two orders through Charles and have not been disappointed and its giving me reliable access to some great models.
QRF
QRF re released this decal set back in December or January, great for numbering Soviet wagons and the range of number sizes accommodate the sides of BMPs amongst other wagons. I for one have missed this set for a while. Whilst QRF's products are designed for use with 15mm kits they work find with 20mm.
Mig
Mig's decal set for Modern Soviets and Russians looks interesting. As well as numbers it contains some of the Regimental identification markings as does the model collect decal sets but in both these are in far two small a quantity to cover of the 50 - 60 vehicles I end up with in a Soviet Regiment. I have been thinking about commissioning a Decal set for some time - think I will just have to bite the bullet.
as well as the decals Mig have dropped out a number of useful modern paint sets the two shown here cover modern Russian armour but are probably good for the end of the Cold War from 1987 onwards and Israleis.
DTIC on Line
I found VG Reznichenko's Tactics a Soviet view as a download from the DTIC on line page. Very useful work on Soviet Tactics. Personally I find it a bit of a dull read but its got plenty of useful stuff in it and its free. Which beats having to buy the book as that costs money consumes time as it is quiet difficult to find.
Tactics A Soviet View PDF
Tactics A Soviet View PDF
CWG on Facebook
You can still follow Cold War Gamer on Facebook, insane ramblings along with products and links to stuff of interest to the Modern Wargaming community covering a range of scales including 15mm, 28mm and 1/285 as well as material for later modern games in the Dragon Rising Bear Resurgent arena. 98 followers currently and keen to make it 200! If you have friends who are into Modern, either Cold War or later spread the word.
The Spring Magazine
Winter is a little inevitably my favourite part of the year. The long nights are great for blogging and painting and Christmas brings both time off and lots of goodies. As ever the Winter period also sees me embark on the set of projects that will be the core component of the summer campaign season and the Spring build. This years no different with expansion of both the British and Soviet armies focused on a set of scenarios that will be looking at a Soviet assault against British defensive positions.
As ever I get a bit carried away with the scope of these projects and I have in my mind two to four games that could become one big game that looks at the attack throughout the depth of the operational space from the Soviet approach march through to the deployment and disruption of the British reserve battle group. This would include action by the covering force against the Soviet advanced guard, NATO BAI against the main body and Soviet airmobile elements acting against NATO reserves as well as the traditional bloody punch up on the objective.
The components being built out are a bit of a challenge
- British
- Air Defence - Javelin Detachments, Rapier Battery
- Dug in Infantry - 2 Companies + Field Defences
- Armour Squadrons - Challenger 1
- Armoured Battle Group - This may not get done
- Soviet
- Ground Attack Aircraft with PGMs
- Break through artillery units - 2S4, BM30
- Army Flame thrower battalions - TOS-1, RPO-A
- Divisional Air Defence - SA-8
- BTR Regiment - this may not get done
could be a two year project? of which the British stuff is progressing well and the Soviet less well. So coming up over the next three months will be a variety of articles covering the scope of the scenarios and the units that will be needed to play them out. Clearly a start to that has been made during the winter, upon which I shall now build.
AND FINALLY
A word of thanks to all the readers as we creep up to the 200,000 hits mark, thanks for reading and if you have friends interested in modern wargaming please recommend the Blog sites and the Facebook page. Hopefully spring will be a little less wet.
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