StuG Life Part 1

I’ve had another one of those projects that went a bit too far. A couple of years ago I backed a Kickstarter by Baker Company run by Gav Tyler. Maybe I’ll go into the details another time but let’s for the moment say it was not a great project. On the other hand I ended up with a large amount of Finnish infantry in winter clothing, which in the nature of things ended up in the “to paint” pile with no particular priority.

Then a couple of months ago I got invited to a Bolt Action campaign. I don’t particularly like BA – I think it compares poorly to Chain of Command, but I thought, if I paint some of those Finns I will be able to use them for both – so I started.

One of the available support options is a StuG. The Finns didn’t have the capacity to build their own tanks, instead relying on captured Soviet tanks, plus a limited supply of StuG III Gs bought from Germany. I did a bit of research on-line (if Google can count as research) and I discovered the excellent Finnish Armour in WW2  website. This has some great photos and details, including individual histories of some of the StuGs. I’m a sucker for this sort of thing, so rather than just having a generic StuG, why not have a model of a real one? Logically it seems a good idea, so I chose Ps 531-10 " Bubi  "– which also happens to be the top scoring Finnish StuG with eleven kills. Bubi still exists at the Finnish Armour School at Parola, and there are plenty of pics so how hard can it be?

This seemed like a good idea at the time, so with eyes wide shut I launched myself. Memo to self – think it through next time!

There are a number of StuG III models available in 28mm, but in the end I chose the Rubicon Models version because it seemed to offer plenty of options. 

I have to say this is a superb kit that covers just about everything I needed - at least at first glance.