British WWII 7.2" Howitzer (1:100)

 

I've been tinkering away at designing a 1:100 scale digital model of Britain's standard heavy gun of WWII, the 7.2" howitzer. It was derived from the WWI vintage 8" howitzer, with a new barrel to cater to heavier charges and new, better ammunition. It used huge chocks in an attempt to keep the gun roughly in place after firing; even so, it was not unknown for the most powerful charges to send the gun right up and over its chocks, presumably to the loud swearing (and peril) of the crew.

This model shows it on its original carriage. It was later put on the four-wheel split-trail carriage of the US 155mm "Long Tom", which was better able to handle the massive recoil generated by the gun's most powerful charges.

The STLs for the gun and its chocks can be found at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/british-7-2-howitzer/

Figures are Battlefront 15mm Mediterranean British infantry.

I finally got around to printing the huge chocks this thing used to keep it from bounding all over the landscape, and put it on a small base made from an off-cut of an old credit card.

Green Red Horde

 

Quite some time ago, I designed a 1:100 scale model of the Soviet T27 tankette (based on the Carden-Loyd Mk.VI) and uploaded it to Shapeways. Unfortunately, Shapeways 3d printing is still pretty expensive, so though I did get a sample printed, I never went ahead with the numbers that would be required for these little cockroaches.

Of course, now that I have a resin printer of my own, all that has changed. I've printed 21 of them so far, which is enough for between four and seven platoons, depending on how much I want to pay for them in Battlegroup: Barbarossa (it's 25 points for a three-tankette platoon, and an extra 10 points for up to two more).

The thing is, they're pretty pointless on a Barbarossa-era battlefield. They're unreliable, their narrow tracks bog easily, the armour is minimal, and they're armed with just a single 7.62mm machine-gun. They'd been declared obsolete by about 1935, and though there were still some around by 1941 they were relegated to towing light anti-tank guns like the 37mm and 45mm.

They were more common in the Winter War of '39-40, but even then they weren't front-line vehicles, and they didn't deal at all well with the snow.

Still, I've got them now.