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23Jul/180

Bolt Action King Tiger with Zimmerit plastic kit

The King Tiger is in a couple of variants available at Warlord Games, with the plastic kit in cooperation with Italeri being the youngest incarnation of the German heavy battle tank.

Bolt Action - King Tiger with Zimmerit Bolt Action - King Tiger with Zimmerit

The King Tiger, or sometimes called Royal Tiger, has the internal designation of Sd.Kfz. 182 or Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. B Tiger II. Ausführung B and Tiger II showing it as a derivate of the Tiger I tank, but improved with sloped armour that made more use of the thick armour plates of the Tiger tanks. After initial problems with the reliability, it proved to be a remarkable battle tank towards the very last month of the war. The Tiger II was the pinnacle of the heavy tank series that actually got into production, unlike the Panzer VII Löwe or Panzer VIII Maus that never really left the drawing board (or in case of the Maus just had some mock-ups or prototypes).

22Jul/180

Bolt Action IS-2 Heavy Tank

The heaviest plastic tank kit Warlord Games offers for the soviet forces is the IS-2 heavy tank - a perfect match for the Bolt Action campaign supplement The Road to Berlin and worthy enemy for the King Tiger. Time to honour it with a review on its own.

Bolt Action - IS-2 Heavy Tank Bolt Action - IS-2 Heavy Tank

The IS-2 (Iosef Stalin, in Wnglisch often called JS-2 for Joseph Stalin) was the successor of the IS series heavy tank and counts as one of the most powerful tanks of World War 2. It was developed to withstand the German 8,8 cm guns and to counter Tiger and Panther tanks with the 122mm gun. It went into service in April 1944 and was used in the final offensive of the Red Army towards Berlin. Of the IS-2 were 3.850 units built between 1943 and 45, making it the most numerous tank of the IS series and triple the number of produced Tiger I. Besides being field by the Red Army / soviet forces, the IS-2 was part of the Polish and Czechoslovakian tank forces towards the end of the war. To the end of the war, the IS-3 was introduced as a derivative of the IS-2. IS-2s often would carry soviet soldiers into battle, offering valuable protection from enemy infantry. Warlord pays respect to this and adds a sprue of plastic infantry to this kit.

21Jul/180

Bolt Action King Tiger with Henschel Turret

Another iconic tank from the late war period is the PzKpfw VI Tiger II, in this review we're looking at the resin kit by Warlord Games picturing the Ausf. B without Zimmerit and a Henschel turret.

Bolt Action - King Tiger with Henschel turret Bolt Action - King Tiger with Henschel turret

The Tiger II, also known as King Tiger or Royal Tiger, was the derivate of the Tiger I, and combined the thick armour of the predecessor and the sloped armour of the Panther medium tank. The pattern was the pinnacle of German tank development and production, and after initial problems with reliability it proved to be a remarkable battle tank. The Tiger II first saw service in summer of 1944, at the Invasion of Normandy by the Allies, and was issued to the Wehrmacht as well as to the Waffen-SS heavy tank battalions. A total number of just below 500 units was produced until March '45, of these the first 50 were issued with the Porsche turret due to bottlenecks in production of the Henschel turret. In the first months of the productions, both variants of the Tiger (I and II) were build simultaneously.

10Mar/180

Bolt Action M3 Lee medium tank

This is a M3 review double feature, as I'll show you today the M3 Lee and the M3 Grant (with track guards). The M3 Lee kit is a regular shelf product, that comes in a boxed set. Warlord offers the Grant as a made-to-order / direct order product.

Bolt Action - M3 Lee Bolt Action - M3 Lee

The M3 medium tank (not to be confused with the M3 Stuart / M3A1), was an American medium tank, that was supplied to other allied forces, like the British, Australian or Soviets during World War II. The differentiation between Lee and Grant, was done by the turret. The American issued turret (like in this kit) was called Lee, after the Confederate General Lee, the British issued turret after the Union General Grant.

10Mar/180

Bolt Action M3 Grant medium tank with track guard

In addition to the M3 Lee review, this article will cover the british Grant variant of the M3 with track guards.

Bolt Action - M3 Grant with track guards

Unlike the M3 Lee, this kit is only available as made-to-order and therefore comes without a box in a simple bubble wrap bag.

As the M3 is already introduced in the other article, I'll focus here on the M3 Grant. Of the more than 6,000 Units the Americans build of the M3 Lee, 2,855 units were handed over to the British, who supplied them within the Commonwealth. The British had added modifications to their order, a different turret was designed with thicker armor plate, more space to house radio equipment and the machine gun cupola to be replaced with a simple hatch. The later was even done to some of the M3 Lee turrets in use by the British in China, Burma and India. And some of the M3 that were to be deployed in North Africa received sand guards, as this kit has as well.

6Mar/180

Bolt Action Universal Carrier Wasp Mk II

Along with the previous introduced Chindits, there is need for suiting vehicular support. In Burma they used the nimble bren carriers to transport soldiers and goods, some of the universal carriers were fitted with a flamethrower and called Wasp, which I want to introduce in this review.

Bolt Action - British Wasp Flamethrower Carrier

Of the more than 110,000 units that were build of the universal carrier, roughly 1,000 units were manufactured as the wasp. The wasp carried the Ronson flamethrower system, with the Mark I having it fixed in the front and the Mk II the projector on the co-driver's position. Both had two fuel tanks with a capacity of 100 gallons. The canadians developed the Mk IIC with a single 75 gallon fuel tank. As you can see from the product image, this is the Mark II of the wasp.

28Feb/180

Infamous JT Warsaw Uprising Kubus

The "crown jewel" of the currently running Warsaw Uprising Kickstarter campaign by Infamous JT is most certainly the Kubus, that I want to show you in this pre-release review.

Infamous JT - Warsaw Uprising Kubus

The Warsaw Uprising is part of the late war years of the second world war. It was an operation of the polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from the German occupation. There were resistance cells in many occupied countries, in some cases the Allies supported the resistance with equipment and gear, in other cases the underground look after themselfes. In this case, the polish resistance built an armoured car in secret, based on a Chevrolet 157 truck and called it "Little Jakob" (Kubuś). It was one of a kind and often seen with a captured Sd.Kfz.251/3 Ausf.D named Grey Wolf.

5Jan/180

Ersatz StuG Ausf. G and more Germans in winter gear

The StuG is done and here are the proper picture of the third vehicle for my Unternehmen Greif / Panzerbrigade 150 force for Bolt Action.

Bolt Action - Ersatz StuG III

You can read about the work in progress in more detail over here, Ersatz Stug Ausf. G WIP. I thought a double sided Zeltbahn camouflage would be a nice detail for the vehicle. Went with winter / snow camouflage in "pure" white on the one side and a splitter tarn on the other side. There were reversible smocks for the infantry, proper details on the zeltbahn or vehicle netting are more difficult, so take this with some historical "liberty".

18Nov/170

Perry Miniatures AEC ‘Dorchester’ Armoured Command Vehicle

Fresh from the molds, the AEC Command Vehicle by Perry Miniatures, directly covered as a review as part of the Africa themed week.

Perry Miniatures - AEC Dorchester

The AEC 4x4 Command Vehicle was the most common ACV (armoured command vehicle) of the British Army. It was based upon the AEC Matador chassis (although available by the Perrys as code WR W47), as the British used to develop and employ purpose-built armoured trucks and busses as command vehicles.

16Nov/170

Rubicon Models SdKfz 251/1 Ausf. C

Yesterday we had the shorter command SdKfz 250/3, today it is time for the SdKfz 251/1 Ausf. C by Rubicon Models in a review to shine.

Rubicon Modelds - SdKfz 251/1 Ausf. C Rubicon Modelds - SdKfz 251/1 Ausf. C