Small Scale Military Headquarters

In the last year of the war, some Russian tanks began to tow the Maxon quad .50 aa guns behind them to ward of attacks from stukas, fw-190's etc. If planes were spotted, the tanks towing guns would have the crews dismount and man the aa guns. I don't know if the trailers the russian used were the M17 double axle or the smaller single axle or a trailer of their own design. But they used them.

Might be an interesting detail for someone to add to their 1/16 T-34.

Might be an interesting detail for someone to add to their 1/16 T-34

Indeed, and it should not be too hard to paint a red star on the side of the trailer either, the hardest part would be cobbling together some suitable Russian figures to go with it. I'm gonna have to do some research to see what I can find on this subject, a quick google search failed to turn up any useful images, but these things sometimes require a bit of persistence, I'll let you guys know if I turn up anything worthwhile.

or field mod a T-34 chassis and mount the turret on it

Like the germans did with the T-34 and thier flakvierling.

ad-hoc mobile air defense.

You could modify the IJ Russian soldiers to go with the trailer.

not really.......tank crew uniforms were fairly different from infantry uniforms and it would be the tank crews manning the AA guns.

I've got a question up on missing lynx about this, so hopefully some more info will be forthcoming.

I remember seeing a discussion on there about this a couple of years ago but i didn't pay much attention to it.

Here is an interview with a german stuka pilot in which he mentions late war soviet tanks towing 4 barrelled anti aircraft guns. The speculation is it must have been the Maxon, since the russians didn't really have any other 4 barralled aa available. I know they got lots of halftracks with the quad 50's.....not sure if they got trailers too but it stands to reason they did.

http://www.tarrif.net/wwii/interviews/h ... eumann.htm

When I saw the title of the post I thought you were going to say "doorstop" or something of the sort.

it's starting to look like the notion that russian tanks towed aa guns is a myth. No one has been able to confirm it and a couple have denounced it, with very good reasoning. So, despite a german pilot's supposed eye witness account, it's looking very unlikely.

So. The doorstop idea is looking pretty good.

the reds could have captured a number of Flakvierlings and pressed them into service

Batting practice sounds pretty good for these things. The challange would be to see how many pieces that it will shatter into.

You guys sure aren't too nice to these guys... Although yes, when my dad told me he had ordered something from BCA and it was a suprise, I was expecting something with a little more, you know, OOMPH! But it still adds something, and even though they are still clogging TRUs (mine included) they're actually nice pieces if you take the time to appreciate them.

But I think I remember hearing that there's nothing that fits the hitch/goes with it which sucks. All-in-all it still gives the modders a quad to work with without having to wreck out a M16 (forgive me if that's wrong but I'm pretty damn sure that's the half-track with the quad .50)

So maybe not the most "WOW!" piece ever, or even a "Hey, that's pretty cool." piece, but until you actually look over the little things about it it never will be. While it certainly doesn't look or feel as beastly as my Pak-40 Hanomag, or even my F-104s (which I realize most of you don't like those, but I love 'em to death) it has a special place in my collection. Maybe because it was from my dad, who knows. But I like it, and admire it.

I will not deny, however, that it was a terrible choice for 21st to pursue.