The Mojo Stirs - Recent Arrivals

 I have had a couple of orders en route since late October - WW2 Red Army 3d prints - some from Poland (not yet here) and the other from Australia (arrived a couple of days ago)

The Australian order was fortuitous - I just happened to be browsing on Saturday and noticed the seller had everything marked at 50% off (he still does). 

The Polish one I have been planning for a while - when I bought the 85mm AA gun early in the year, I received a discount card to use before the end of 2025 - 15% off all models purchased PLUS free postage - the latter not to be sniffed at when one resides in New Zealand

I was surprised how small the carton was 

But the contents were all present

Unfortunately, despite the extremely robust packaging, there were a few damages inflicted

Mainly missing SMG barrels, but the kneeling guy was minus one of his feet - most of the parts were in the bag though and I was able to fix everything up ok.

This was the piece de resistance - down from $NZ48 to $27 (basically halve that again for US of GBP) Following lifted directly from Wikipedia!

203 mm howitzer M1931 (B-4) (Russian: 203-мм гаубица обр. 1931 г. (Б-4), GRAU index: 52-G-625) was a 203 mm (8 inch) Soviet high-power heavy howitzer. During the Second World War, it was under the command of the Stavka's strategic reserve. It was nicknamed "Stalin's sledgehammer" by German soldiers. These guns were used with success against Finnish pillboxes at the Mannerheim Line, heavy German fortifications and in urban combat for destroying protected buildings and bunkers. These guns were used until the end of the war in the Battle of Berlin, during which the Red Army used them to smash German fortifications at point blank range with their heavy 203mm shells. In the spring of 1944, a KV-1S tank chassis was used to create a self-propelled variant, the S-51. The heavy recoil from the muzzle blast threw the crew off their seats and damaged the transmission, and so it was cancelled.

With an elevation angle of up to 60 degrees and 12 propellant loads to choose from, the B-4 virtually met all the expectations it was given, capable of crushing its targets via an optimal projectile trajectory.

There follow probably far too many images of the same gun and crew!

I also grabbed this Komsolet to act as the tow vehicle for the gun - NZ$12 including two crew men!

I also have Scouts, Engineers, Riflemen and an MMG crew - but I will save them for another post!