Aircraft for the CWGH project

 I'm no modeller I know full well, despite belonging to that post war generation who regularly spent our precious pocket money on Airfix kits! Embarking on the current 15mm Cold War Gone Hot project in 15mm exposed me to the daunting task of assembling Main Battle Tanks and supporting armoured fighting vehicles from plastic kits, this due you might recall to Matt's challenge pre-pandemic. Of course you will have already got ahead of me when I say that it couldn't stop there!

First I decided I could not really avoid helicopter support for both sides: a Hind for the Soviets and a TOW-Lynx for the B.A.O.R. I assembled the kits from Battlefront and Phil has finished painting those, they just need the transfers sealing before you see them. Reading through the Battlegroup Northag rules I realised I could have air support in the game. Now really there's no need for any sort of representation on the table, the aircraft in question being so fast and high, but I'm a wargamer after all so I sourced kits, again from Battlefront: a Harrier VTOL Fighter-Bomber for the B.A.O.R. naturally; a SU-17 Fitter for the Soviets, slightly early for my 1983 setting but still in service.

Like many of the tanks and such these were originally available in resin one piece casts, with metal detail pieces of course, but now they are plastic kits. I admit I had found aspects of the vehicle kits tricky for the aged hands and eyes, but they were as nothing compared to these kits! Having seen the landing gear in several tiny parts (why when it's a wargames piece?) I opted to have both in their inflight mode. Still fiddly but I persevered and in the end I managed to get them done. That left their painting next, but for complex reasons Phil would not be able to fit them in to our deadline, so that fell on my shoulders. Spray undercoating them with my trusty regular Double Acrylic white was no problem, but unlike Phil I've no airbrushing kit so I had to manage by hand with my trusty sable brushes (from ABC Brushes, highly recommended). Anyhow, the finished aircraft, just don't look too closely ~

You will have immediately noticed that they lack their various identification markings! Phil will, I earnestly hope, apply same later this week after our regular game. (I fixed the aircraft temporarily to their flight stands with White Tack in order to take the photo by the by.) Another bone of contention, the pieces come with no instructions on assembly or deploying of the included rare earth magnets to hold them in place. I searched on-line and found a set, but they didn't match the parts included!!! Could you make it up? I doubt it, but I'm confident we will sort that out later in the week too.