Zvezda SU100

SU100

The Zvezda SU100 is one of two new Soviet assault gun kits to be released recently, the other being the SU152

The SU100 was based on the T34 chassis, it was designed as an improvement on the SU85 and entered mass production in September 1944, seeing extensive service, between then and the end of the war. It remained on the frontline strength of the Red Army until 1957 and was widely exported. Fidel Castro commanded the Cuban forces at the Bay of Pigs from an SU100, it's parked outside the Revolutionary Museum in Havana. For those of you with "Fate of a Nation" forces the SU100 appears in the UAR army lists, and others ended up in Angola and China

The SU100 kit is a 15 piece kit and comes on two sprues in green plastic. Mass production is pretty simple and I completed 4 in less than half an hour. painting is obviously a whole different ball game

The detailing is pretty good, Zvezda are really improving the detailing on their kits. The fighting compartment side on the left has a saw whilst on the right it is flat - but that is the same as the Battlefront plastic and resin versions too

There are 6 steps to construction, and a paper bilingual instruction booklet is included. The steps  are illustrated in the attached photographs. The only issue I had with the sprues are that the underbelly piece is connected to the sprue via the “prongs” that are used to fit the tracks so care is needed when cutting the piece away, make sure you leave enough of the “prong” to subsequently attach the tracks

Instructions

Sprues

The kit snaps together very well, and doesn’t need glue, except for two places , and it is a big except in the first instance it's the gun and mantlet assembly. Zvezda appear to be obsessed with having guns that elevate (I’ve recently made the M3 Lee and the ZSU-23-4 which both have elevating guns), where there isn’t really a need. The gun fits through the glacis plate and is supposedly secured by the mantlet piece. I found that it doesn’t secure it very well, and leaves the model with the gun in a quite elevated position, so on second and subsequent kits I glued it in place, this allows a horizontal barrel to be modelled . The second exception is the 4 additional external fuel tanks which are very loose fitting and unless glued in place will just keep coming off

Fighting compartment assembly

before the glacis and gun are added

glacis and gun

the fiddly bit

fitting the glacis and roof

fighting compartment complete

hull assembly

hull and fighting compartment together

fuel tanks and mantlet

As you can see the kit is very nicely sized when compared with the Battlefront plastic SU100, and when placed next to each other there is little to tell them apart dimensions wise

Battlefront on the left

The Zvezda kit has some slight differences, the hatches are less pronounced on the hull roof, and the radiator grille on the engine deck is also less pronounced

finished article

, the mantlet is bulged on the left of the gun (which appears more in keeping with the original than the BF model), but also appears to be pierced for a co-ax MG, I can’t find any details of any SU100 production model (even the later export ones) having a Co-Ax MG. Also the armour cover to the mantlet is much bigger on the Zvezda kit and the gun is a bit more "beefy" on the Battlefront kit. All things being equal once they are painted up I think you'll struggle to spot the difference unless you pick them up off the table and bring them to eye level

Battlefront top

Personally I find the Medium Self Propelled Artillery List to be the hardest of the Self Propelled lists to use, but for giving cheap access to a unit of cat killers or for those wanting to try out the Medium SP list on the cheap this is a really good kit. If the gun assembly was less fiddly I’d go as far as to say excellent

Battlefront left

Platoon shot

Zvezda SU152

SU152

The Box

The Zvezda SU152 is one of two new Soviet assault gun kits to be released recently, the other being the SU100. Originally entering service in 1943 the SU152 arrived at the front just in time to see action at Kursk, where their ability to destroy Panthers and tigers by literally blowing off the turrets led them to be nicknamed Zveroboy ("Beast Slayer")

Based on the KV tank chassis the SU152 was the last vehicle of the KV series to remain in production, and production continued until December 1943. After service with every Soviet front the SU152 remained on the strength of the Red Army until 1954

The SU152 kit is a 13 piece kit and comes on two sprues in green plastic

The Sprue

The detailing is very good in places, and disappointing in others, Zvezda are really trying to improve the detailing on their kits, I have a couple of their T35s and the flat slab sides are a major let down on that kit. The detailing on the roof and engine top of the chassis on the SU152 is actually very good, but again the fighting compartment sides are very flat and undetailed - this can be remedied by attaching spare track lengths or stowage of course

The assembly instructions are printed on the rear of the box, there is no separate instruction booklet. However the build is fairly intuitive and not difficult. The steps I took are illustrated in the attached photographs. There are no “with care” issues in relation to removing the pieces from the sprue (unlike on the SU100 model)

The kit snaps together very well, and doesn’t need glue. The gun is attached through the front of the glacis and has an oddly angled fitting, so do try a “dry fit” if you are planning to use glue on your model. Unlike the SU100 kit where the external fuel tanks need gluing the external tanks on this kit fit snugly on without glue. To give the model a bit of additional weight I glued a couple of small, low value foreign coins onto the inside of the underbelly casting and the inside of the upper hull casting and that works quite well in giving a nice “feel” to the kit

Lower hull parts and ballast 

Hull assembled

Fighting compartment and gun

Completed

As you can see the kit is very nicely sized when compared with the Battlefront metal and resin SU152, it is slightly smaller in both length and height but not so much as to be noticeable on the tabletop. There are slight modelling differences to the hatches. In terms of ease of assembly it’s easier than the Su100, but unlike the SU100 there is a slight (and I do mean slight) size difference when compared to the Battlefront comparitor. in respect of detail, the Zvezda model actually has more detail on than the Battlefront one. The fighting compartment roof is riveted and the front two hatches have slightly more detail. On the roof of the engine compartment the rear two engine access hatches are more raised than on the Battlefront model

Battlefront on the bottom for comparison

Battlefront on the left

slab sides, but these can be covered up

doesn't look out of place

Personally I found this a really really nice kit, it doesn’t look out of place next to my two existing Battlefront SU152s, it goes together really nicely and the detailing is excellent, so I’ve added 7 of the Zvezda kits to my existing Battlefront 2 for use in an SU152 based Heavy Self Propelled Artillery Regiment, giving me 9 hulls rather than the 6 that I tend to end up with in the ISU based Regiment

7 is better than 1 !

Final Group Shot

Team Yankee - 2S1 Gvozdika Review

Hello All

Battlefront very kindly sent us some Team Yankee samples to review, which also seemed a good point to start my Tale of Four Gamers Soviet Army.

I choose the 2S1 Gvozdika as it seemed a good unit to practice my colour scheme on and I really wanted to try out the new artillery rules for Team Yankee. Now in my rush I forgot to take any photos of the construction phase (bad Ben!), but I don't think that will affect the review too much.

Team Yankee - Shilka review

So here's the first platoon which I've done for my Soviet force. I chose to do the Shilka first as it was the most tank like of what I had, as such I could have a real play with the scheme I wanted to go across my whole army

Bedspring Armour (SU960) - Review

Hello there, Fez here with a review of the new SU960 Bedspring Armour upgrade blister.

The finished article

When the Bedspring Armour was first announced in the recent Berlin book, I must admit that I hadn't heard of it before! I was excited to add these to an IS-2 based Berlin list, however when they were added to the Hero Tankovy list from Desperate Measures I knew I needed to get some.

Basing a Strelkovy Company

Hey,

Seeing as I can never remember how I base things I thought I'd make a post about the steps I'm taking, that way I'll have a permanent reminder.

My current situation is this...all the HMGs (6), command teams (6) and commissar teams (6) have had vallejo brown earth applied and is dry.  All the 4 hole bases (14) have paste applied which is drying and the 5 hole bases (10) are awaiting magnets, which should arrive any day now.  The plan is that I will magnetize one hole for fausts, flame throwers or a piece of scenery.

Sample of current situation

Love this stuff

Hooray magnets have arrived and are now part of my ever growing rare earth magnet collection.  I have loads of different shapes and sizes.  These are 10mm x 1mm, I bought them on eBay.

Fez's Road to Art of War Too Part 2

Hello there,
Fez here again with an update on the road to Art of War Too - apparently, this road is paved with dead T34's.

Bovingdon's T34/85 - Nice detail on the Cast Mantle

I tried another game with the FT Hero Tankovy list, as I hadn't had time to adjust the models from before, my opponent for this one Justin with his Nisei. The fact that I didn't take pictures is evident of the death he tolled out - That list is horrible! Fearless everywhere, Jumbos, time on target, it was just horrific. I got a small victory in shooting down his AoP with the IS-2 AA, but that's about it!

Fez's Road to Art of War Too Part 1

Hello there!

Having a busy work schedule has meant that I've not been able to get many games in or make it to the tournaments with the other guys, so I've been a bit quiet on the Flames of War front. I was then pleasantly surprised to see the announcement of 'Art of War Too', a late war weekender at the Sanctuary gaming centre! After playing so much Early war, it was interesting to go back to late.

But what to play? Jagdtigers? Nachjager Panthers? One of the other 100 lists I've got on forces of war/easy army?

To be honest, the answer came from another of my latest past times - World of Tanks Blitz!

So much bling!

Cossacks in Flames of War

Hello All

Today we have a guest post from Christian - a Beyond the Foxholes fan all the way from Germany! I have been chatting to him about Cossacks, an army I keep almost collecting. He sent me his thoughts on the army and I thought they were too goo not to post on here. Anyway thats enough from me, here's Christian.

Here are my ideas and experiences concerning Soviet Cavalry, I will first go over the rules first and then move onto the individual lists in the different eras. The disadvantages, most of these are actually of no concern, and advantages of the Cavalry rules:

Review SBX33 Strelkovy Battalion (Plastic)

Morning all, Winner Dave here with a review of the new plastic Strelkovy Battalion.

This is my first box of plastic infantry so, I was expecting great things from what I'd read of other plastic infantry reviews.

Let's see what we get, inside the box are 6 sprues, and each sprue has 24 dudes in total or 25 bits as the HMG gunner comes in two halves.  So in total you get 144 soldiers, which is enough to make 4 platoons of 7 stands, 3 HMG bases and a command stand or 2.

Berlin Book Preview - Soviet Lists

Hello All

On Sunday I took a look at the German lists in Berlin, today it's the turn of the Soviets. The Soviet section starts with the history of the Soviet operations in the Berlin area before moving onto the army lists. Also tomorrow we have a new podcast with an interview with the writer of the book Wayne Turner.

There are three army lists in the book, a Hero Guards Heavy Tank Regiment (IS-2 1943 or 44's), Hero Heavy Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment (ISU-122's and 152's) and Hero Rifle Regiment.

Tanks On The Eastern Front! (FOW Survival Guide)

By popular demand I have decided to continue my mini guide covering some of WW2s most iconic tanks in the late war period. This time we look at the Eastern Front...

Hi guys,

I'm back again to talk about tanks once more! I've got to say I was a little hesitant about covering the Soviet vehicles as I've never played with them myself. Of course I've played dozens of battles against them and spent many, many hours of my childhood/teenage years reading about the Kursk and Bagration conflicts, (even though it wasn't even remotely relevant to any school topic/assignments). It might have been a bit more beneficial if I spent just a little more time on my maths homework come to think of it, but hey I had fun! 

I still have fond memories of going to Wallington library monthly with my mum, spending ages hunting around for new material/ for a relevant school project and ended up borrowing the same few history books every time! 

Anyway onto some Eastern Front tanks...! 

Expanding Vasily's Hammer (SUAB06) - Part Two

Hello all

In part one of this two part post I looked at how to make the new Vasily's Hammer (SUAB06) into a full 1750pts army. As I said at the time I thought that the Hero Tankovy aren't as good as the normal Tankovy, well today I'm going to look at how to expand your box set into a full Tankovy army.

I'm going to be using Desperate Measures again for this list so there is no need to buy another book just yet (you may want to later on when you look at more options and I would highly recommend you do pick up Red Bear (FW117) at some point as it has a lot of Soviet lists in it). This is going to be a very different beast, where you need to think and get used to Hen and Chicks, but at the same time you will have twice as many tanks. So lets look at the list.

Expanding Vasily's Hammer (SUAB06) - Part One

Hello All

Continuing on from Adam's post last Monday I'm going to look at how to expand the new Vasily's Hammer Boxset (SUAB06) set into a full 1750pts army.

What you get in the box

I'm going to split this into two parts. One will be how to expand the core box to make 1750pts ASAP which will be a Hero Tankovy list. The second part will be turning it into a regular Tankovy list.

Early War AAR - Japanese Infantry Vs Soviet Heavy Tankovy Batalon - Free For All

Hello All This weekend is Campaign, the yearly flames of war team league. Each team of three players are split between the 3 different periods and play all the other players in the same period. There is promotion and relegation and this year myself, Alex and Cid are representing Team Breakthrough Assault A Team (the B team is Marc, Matt and Steve). I'm playing Early War with my Japanese and as the format is 1500 points for EW I needed to change my list up from the one I took to the Art of War. I was struggling to find time to practice when I got an email from Army Dave asking if I was free to play a game at Entoyment. So off I went to try out the list, I turned up expecting to face Army's infamous Confident Conscript Soviet Infantry but instead I was facing 8 T-35's (gamesmanship Army?) which I knew I was going to struggle against with my great AT of 5... Still he would struggle to dig me out.  We rolled up Free For All and we would have tried out our changes as talked about on episode 29 of Beyond the Foxholes if this wasn't a tournament practice game. I won the dice off to attack and so I choose to make it a night fight so I could manoeuvre without getting shot at in the first few turns.  Quick note guys, this game starts off slow but gets bloody fast towards the end.

Japanese Hohei Chutai (7th) - Fearless Veterans HQ + Regimental Banner Full Infantry Platoon + Banners Full Infantry Platoon + Banners 2 Type 41 75mm 2 Type 97 Chi-Ha (Fearless Trained) 4 Type 89 Chi-Ro (Fearless Trained) 4 Type 89 Chi-Ro (Fearless Trained)

Heavy Tankovy Batalon HQ T-35 5 T-35 2 T-35 9 KhT-26 Full Unarmed Sappers Sportadic I-153 Chaika

Giving Up Infantry For Lent!

Welcome to the first ever ramble by Jersey, normally the sort of post Adam brings to the blog, looking at branching out away from the infantry lists and platoons that dominated my tactics and games over my first year in the hobby. This was written before Battlefront explained their schedule for 2015... the project I propose in this blog will be started after Brown Water Navy, which I'm very excited about but hopefully the sentiment is of use for those of you stuck in a "rut" with an army which you want to escape!

After playing Flames of War for a year, I’ve collected and finished painting two armies; a huge Italian infantry army with tanks and guns for three periods and a PAVN Local Forces Company for Vietnam games. At the start of the year I set myself a challenge in the form of New Year’s resolutions to finish companies from four different time periods and four different company types and if possible, use them at events. The last few units of PAVN were finished after this promise so count as Infantry and Vietnam time periods… now I just need something new!

Some Mid War Italians... where it all started.

T34 obr 1940 Commission

Hello chaps

This week I managed to get a second commission finished in time for BA3, where I will be able to hand them over to my client.

Even though all I seem to paint now a days is 4BO green I really looked forward to painting these fellas.  I find my painting style and techniques I want to use change and alter every time I sit down to paint and painting T34s is no exception.  Problem is, I want my existing army to look as coherent as possible, so I try not to change my style.  So a commission of 3 T34s gave me the opportunity to explore some alteration in my technique.

Rescuing the Zvezda BA-10

First off let me say, there is a good chance this post will never see the light of day, so if you're reading this then a small miracle has occurred.

Intro
Back in my Mixed Tankovy days, I ran 5 BA10s.  As a unit they were awesome, I had to learn to use them as recce, so only shooting if they relatively safe and I didn't need to remove gtg.  However, there were times, when their AT7 was lethal and I had been able to advance them deep into enemy territory thanks to cautious movement.  These guys are fantastic flankers, they're fast and don't suffer Hen and Chicks, combine that with a pre-game recce move and you can find yourself thinking "damn, wish I had more of these fellas!"

Enter mixed tankovy 2.0.  I'm starting with the maximum BA10s I can take.  That's 1 platoon of 5 and 1 platoon of 10.  Unfortunately I'm not made of money, battlefront sell these in blisters of 1, so that's getting on for £100...not tempting.  Skytrex also make BA10s and the model looks lovely, but again I'm not parting with £7 per model.  So that brought me back to the Zvezda offering and what is possibly the worst model I have ever made...24 parts that send shivers down the spine.  If you haven't experienced it it's hideous.  When I sold Mixed Tankovy 1.0, I only charged the same as they had cost me, I was that embarrassed of the model.

So, what the hell am I doing with 15 fresh boxes of them?

Breakthrough Assault Early War One Dayer AAR

Hello all

On the 11th Janurary we held a one day tournament at Entoyment, 16 players come to what was for most of use the first tournament of the year.

The event was 1550pts, open with three games, this was the first time any of us had played a tournament with the new Barbarossa book and we were very interested to see what effect that would have on the "meta".

I was trying out T-34's in Early War for the first time, in fact I didn't get a single practice game in... still something it's best just to get thrown in the deep end.

Winner Dave's Captured Half-Tracks

Now when I said the DShK trucks were the last of my Soviet units for a while I was of course lying.  I didn't mean to lie, but it's just worked out that way.  I discovered in my bits box that I hadn't given my lone SdKfz 250 to Adam as I thought, I also discovered that EnToyment had taken a small batch of stock from Plastic Soldier Company with some Zvezda model thrown it.  £2 for a single SdKfz 251...hell yeah.

This is also a good unit to bring a very different feel to the army as it grants me access to the infiltration rules.  I think that could be a lot of fun to try out, although no doubt my opponent will roll the 6 needed for detection.