Reciprocation

Some time ago I sent a few surplus 15mm 11th century Byzantine figures (mostly cavalry) to one Mark Haughey of Western Australia , author of this blog spot: One Sided Miniature Wargaming Discourse.  Mark's Byzantine armies are look very nice already.  The flags set off something special, I think.

Expecting nothing in return, after all I have received stuff with no expectation of a return - a kind of pay it forward thing - I was surprised and appreciative of what Mark offered to send me by way of reciprocation.  I rather think he went the second mile on this.

The trove arrived a couple of days ago:

• 3 ROCO schwere wehrmachtschlepper half tracks (plastic)
• a 6-barrel nebelwerfer (plastic - survived the 3000 mile journey intact)
• a light 7.5cm infantry gun (German, metal))
• a limber (metal)
• a RSO tractor (metal)
• a T70 light tank (Russian, metal)
• a BA64 armoured car (metal)
• a 122mm field howitzer (Russian, metal)

It took me a while to identify the howitzer.  Thinking it was German,  I am very pleased to find it to be Russian after all. My only other 122mm was scratch built from cardboard around a kit-set barrel and breach moulding. These metal kits were actually unassembled 'mint in packs'   so I 'dummy ran' assembly for the pictures.  The howitzer I certainly assembled wrongly, but that has since been corrected.

This trove sure fills in some glaring gaps in my inventories!

My first thought for the armoured half tracks was for transport or command vehicles.  I even thought (briefly, and not very seriously) of going down the Charles Grant track and giving them to my Russians.  It appears that these vehicles were used as carriages for various AA and panzerwerfer weapons.  The vehicle seems not quite right for the 10-barrelled panzerwerfer, though if I simply roofed over the tray and mounted it in top, it might look the part.

But the thing was also used to mount the Uhu infra-red  light - something like this:


A 'Shapeways 1:285 scale 3D printed model.

Most images of the Uhu carriage have the angled sides and roof mounting, but this picture seems to indicate alternate mountings are possible with the vehicles Mark sent me.    Definitely a doable project, I think.