Tanks for the Shopping List....

The early war version of the famous T34 tank that came as a bit of a surprise to the invading Germans!

The early war Russian force I am building up for operations against the Turks and the Germans in the Caucasus will of course feature some examples of the above tank. Armourfast produce both the early war version  and the 1943 variant with a modified turret. I shall pick up some of these at Skirmish in a couple of weeks (17/03) but would ideally like to lay my hands on some Pegasus Hobbies BT7 kits as I would prefer to use these as the main Russian tank - on balance they would be a better match up for the other early war kit I shall be using. Still, one has to make the most of what is available so better a T34 in the hand than a BT7 in the warehouse!

Mention of which has made me realise that whilst having acquired a box of really nice Plastic Soldier Company T70 light tanks this may have been in error as they are a little later than I would ideally like as they not come into action until the second quarter of 1942. I will need to give this some thought although I like the idea of Russian light tanks alongside the T34s though so will probably stick with the same.

I will be taking some historical liberties (no more than having Turkey as a combatant nation in the first place though!) with the Turkish armour in that I intend giving them some Czech 38t tanks. Historically they received some Pzr 3s from the Germans but I rather like the  idea of the Turks using the Czech tank. Turkey actually acquired by purchase a number of Czech transport vehicles including some fully tracked lorries so throwing in the tanks as well is probably not such an unlikely event.

For no other reason than that I like the idea of it the Russian forces will be relatively light on the armour side - not so much in terms of the number of vehicles I intend acquiring but more that the tanks will be lighter than you ordinarily expect to see. No KV1s or earlier heavy tanks then - just T34s, T70s and perhaps some BT7s. The armoured contingent is designed to be mobile and far reaching (not that the logistics are able to keep up in any event!) - a rapier rather than a broadsword.