Blood Red Skies - "Grisha" Rechkalov - Bad Boy Red Ace?

While I have been taking a break I discovered a “spare” P39 model.  I have a Squadron of six painted up in Soviet colours so I thought as a little side project I would paint it as an Ace for Blood Red Skies.

But which one? I did a bit of research and decided on Grigoriy Andreyevich 'Grisha' Rechkalov, Double HSU (Hero of the Soviet Union) and a bucket of other awards gained mostly while flying Lend Lease P39s with 16 GIAP.

This is him - baby faced chap second from the left.

 

Incidentally the four pilots in this pic have more than 120"kills" between them.

And this is one of his P39s 

There were a couple of reasons for choosing him. 

1) He was the highest scoring Airacobra Ace (of any nationality, not just Soviet), with 50 of his 56 claimed kills coming while flying the P39. Putting that into perspective, the highest scoring US Ace was Richard Bong, with 40, and Johhny Johnson was the RAF highest scorer with 34*.

2) The markings for Grisha’s plane are included in the Soviet P-39 Airacobra decal sheet from Miscellaneous Miniatures - link here. 

3) He seems to have been a bit of a character, being subject to some rather pointed comments from his compatriots. This is unusual in the old Soviet Union where their heroes tend to be portrayed as whiter than white (Redder than Red?) Communist icons untainted by any criticism. Also there is some details that could be used to assign the two Ace Skills needed to him. All Good so far

4) The paint project looks simple enough but different to the "normal" Soviet P39s I have due to the tail flash. At least that's what I thought. More on that later..........

So what about Grisha’s skills? 

Firstly he seems to have been a bit what we could call a “glory hunter”. He had a rather big "beef" with Pokryshkin who he flew with as wing-man, and later they had a major falling out that resulted in him being relieved of command of a Squadron for "losing control, indecisiveness and lack of initiative" - ie concentrating more on his own kills than looking after the pilots under his command. This is all rather salacious and well worth a google if you are interested in the rivalries between aces, even supposedly fraternal Soviet ones. In return Retchkalov claimed Pokryskin was padding his kill stats by claiming as his own some of Retchkalov's kills.  It doesn't seem to have harmed his career too much as he later became a General post war. In Blood Red Skies Aces have special skills, and one of them is “Loner”, which grants bonuses to pilots if they operate away from friends, so that seems appropriate for Grisha.

Secondly, everyone, even his critics commented on his superb marksmanship. This should come as no surprise as you don’t get 50 kills if you cant shoot straight. There are a number of Ace Skills that can apply here, “Accurate”, “Killer Instinct” and “Tail Snapper” all would work, but I think Accurate is a good enough fit. That would give him a +1 shooting dice. Killer Instinct is a bit of a waste as his 37mm canon supplied by the Bell Aircraft Corporation already makes his P39 rather dangerous.

The last factor is his bonus to either Agility or Firepower from being a named Ace. Either seems reasonable, but I think I would go for +1 Agility.

So what would this package cost? I asked Andy Chambers (Name drop) and he thinks 125 points, which is not unreasonable, and combined with the bargain 23 points for an early P39 makes him just about "do-able" in a points based list. Maybe. 

How will he play - no idea, but if he's in a Soviet P39 we're looking at an eight dice attack with auto Critical which is "spicey", but a bit of a liability for the rest of the Squadron.

So now all I need is to find someone with talent who can lay out an Ace card. Step forward the multi talented Martin Wilson who proceeded to create this for me (Cheers m8!)

Postscript. All that was written with a mind to adding him to my Soviet Airacobra Squadron, so just before I planned to start the painting I dug them out to refresh my memory on the scheme I had used, only to discover I already had painted one up as an Ace - a certain G.A. Rechkalov ..... you really can't make this up!

Grisha and a wingman and yes I had forgotten I had already painted him!

If you fancy trying out a Soviet P39 Squadron you can get the models from Warlord here or from Armaments in Miniature here . You can use the standard stat card from the Warlord US sets. The Soviets were not enamoured of the wing guns and often removed them. If you want to do that you can use the "Reduced Armament" Equipment card, which adds Agility at the cost of Firepower. Alternatively Martin has created this card using the Beta stats from The Ready Room (which coincidentally IS Rechkalov's P39)

I mentioned earlier that Rechkalov flew as wingman for Pokryskin. If you feel like recreating this pairing he is already available as an Ace from Warlord, this time in his MiG3 which you can find here 

*Pat Pattle was credited with at least 50 kills but as the Squadron records were lost in the fall of Greece these are sometimes overlooked. Nothing at all to do with Pattle being a South African not a Brit, no, absolutely not…..