Soviet casualties and Souda Bay War Cemetery

   In Bolt Action games there is always the need to point out somehow your army's casualties. Some people are using tokens, other - dice, and some a combination of the two. This is the case here, tokens with a socket for dice! 

   I had five Soviet casualties from Black Tree Design and wanted to use them as tokens. The five casualties came in three variants so I added helmets and weapons to differentiate them.

The tokens

   As usually, I used putty, little rocks and sand for the base. For the sockets I used matches.

A rifleman

A Guard with submachine gun

A sniper

A Guard with a captured Panzerfaust

A Siberian veteran

   It is estimated that the Soviets have suffered the highest number of casualties during WW2 with roughly 11.4 million military deaths! 

   Speaking of military deaths, recently a good friend of mine came from the States and we visited the War Cemetery of World War 2 in Souda Bay of Crete.

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!

Soviet scout squad

    The specialised Soviet scout units of the Red Army during World War II were forerunners of the modern Spetznaz. The first days of the war, a group of experienced scouts was allocated from the First Directorate of the People's Commissariat for State Security (НКГБ) of the USSR to conduct reconnaissance and sabotage behind enemy lines.

Scout squad

Sniper and NCO

Two variants of amoeba uniform (summer and winter)

The family photo

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!

More wooden fences

    Fences are very useful terrain pieces in wargames. In Bolt Action in particular, wooden fences provide soft cover to infantry squads so it is nice to have a sufficient amount of them.

   

   Fences are very easy to make. I used balsa wood, white glue, putty, sand and some little rocks. I made three different types of wooden fences.

Fences A

Fences B

Fences C

and our cat!

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!  

Bolt Action Soviet Mortars

   There are three different types of mortars in Bolt Action: the light, the medium and the heavy mortars. The light mortars are team weapons of two men, the medium of three and the heavy of four. If mortars are not inexperienced then they can have a spotter. Sometimes mortars can be game changers, especially the heavy ones. During world war two, Stalin called artillery and mortars the "Gods of War"! 

   I bought all three Soviet mortar models of the Warlord Games, the 50mm light mortar, the 82mm medium mortar and the 120mm heavy mortar.

The Soviet mortars

   I used pieces from the Tamiya brick wall set to give cover to my light mortar.

This is the definition of "hard cover"

50mm light mortar

82mm medium mortar

120mm heavy mortar

All three of them

The officer of the heavy mortar

   As a spotter I use the radio operator of my soviet forward observation team.

The spotter

   Lately, I finish my posts with a photo of a dish. In order to keep this tradition, please see below the photo of the Cretan beef stifado, which is beef stew with onions. Delicious! 

   That's it for today! stay tuned for more!

Bolt Action Soviet Forward Observation teams

    There are two types of forward observers in Bolt Action, the Artillery Forward Observers (AFOs) and the Air Force Forward Observers (AFFOs). The Soviets have an interesting army special rule in Bolt Action, the "Massed Batteries", to represent the Red Army artillery barrages, which were truly terrifying.

AFOs, a Lavochkin La-7 and AFFOs

   I had a Soviet radio operator miniature and the Soviet Army Forward Observation Officer team, which consists of an Officer, a female soldier with signal flags and a soldier with a map. I added two plastic Soviet soldiers in order to build two teams of three models each, the Artillery Forward Observation team and the Air Force Forward Observation team. I also had the model aircraft of LtCol Sergei Fedorovich Dolgushin's La-7. 

Hero of the Soviet Union Dolgushin in the middle and behind his La-7

   Unfortunately, the female soldier had a metal casting problem. She came with no left hand and no flag. To fix the problem, I used the hand of a Soviet plastic soldier and a Sashimono of a Test of Honour plastic Samurai miniature. 

The hand is ok and the flag ready

Problem solved!

   Since the radio operator miniature had no radio, I made one from scratch and gave him also a submachine gun and binoculars.

The assistant radio operator

Both ready!

The Artillery Forward Observation team

The Air Force Forward Observation team

The Lavochkin La-7 of Easy Model

The family photo

   Recently my wife and I, we visited a very nice restaurant on the White Mountains of Crete. They follow the traditional way of cooking in clay pots on fire. The food was delicious! 

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!