The 2019 Great Russian Truck Off

I have finally completed the long-heralded review of 15mm Russian trucks.

Of course, mid-war onwards, the most common Red Army truck might well have been the Studebaker (over 70,000 of these) … but I still enjoy that wargamer conceit of liking Russian trucks, Gaz, Zis, Yag and so forth for the Soviets, German for the Wehrmacht (although they used thousands of captured vehicles) and Italian for Italians etc.

(Studebaker … fully loaded, Soviet style)

That said, some 200,000 Gaz trucks were produced, and the Zis factory alone added over 80,000 of the Zis-5 model (which was also built in other locations).  You can also argue that neither of these is really a Russian truck (the Gaz being a Ford copy, the Zis an Autocar design) .  I digress.

(wartime Gaz truck … designated MM – note the wooden cab and simple bent metal mudguards)

So what is available and which is the best?    See the top of the page article on the Reviews page.

 

 

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Shifting sand … another French ‘funny’

I planned to do this for Chris’s NQM Alamein game but when I got the orbat for the French it was evident that I needed to focus on some core armour rather than worry about bulldozing sand.  So the parts (basically a Piggie FT17 hull) have sat around waiting for me to finish the job.

It’s a wonderfully quirky little beast and I have no idea whether any found their way to North Africa but I’ve ‘what-if’ed it there so it can up the Free French or Vichy engineering capability.

(Renault FT17 bulldozer)

There are a few pictures of the construction on the Modelling Page

(a 1:100/15mm build based around a Peter Pig model)

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