I love military acronyms! Just writing LW BOTB 88 mm ATG is a joy, much more so than actually having to type "Late War Battle of the Bulge 88 mm Anti-Tank Gun." Since I send pictures to a few willing acolytes who are always ready to pump up my self esteem with accolades, I have had more than a few opportunities to write this. LW BOTB! It brings joy to my heart.
In other news, I finally finished the LW BOTB 88 mm ATG (there, I wrote it again!) after more than a few months. I wanted to do it to look like the piece that is banging away at the FV in Easy Company at Foy in the "Band of Brothers" miniseries. I couldn't get a good view of the markings/color/camouflage despite numerous viewings on YouTube. So, I went through the collection of books I have only to be disappointed. Not to be deterred, I searched on the internet and eventually came up with this picture:
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| A REAL LW BOTB 88mm ATG. The camouflage looks unique. The gunners look cold and hungry. |
The camouflage is a bit unique, but good enough. I used the standard Battlefront GE550 blister for the gun and used most of the crew, though I added/altered a couple of the crew and used a few of the LW Winter artillery crew to round off the stand. Version 4 came out in the middle of this, but I based the gun using Version 3 criteria. I placed a rare earth magnet in the stand so I can rotate the gun (a little) until the figures get in the way. The base of the gun sank a little lower in the flock than usual, but I will just say the snow was a little deep in that position.
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| An eight man crew for an 88 mm flak piece. |
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| I used arid grass and snow flock for the base. I think it looks better than just deep snow. |
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| The gun crew looks a little scruffier than the elite Panzergrenadiers. Unfortunately you can't get 88s as support forces in V3 for a Volksgrenadier force. Nuts! |
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| The haystacks are from a Miniature Building Authority sale that took place as I was painting the gun. |
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| I can rotate and elevate the gun (a little). Since I envision it more as an antitank gun than an antiaircraft gun, this is OK. |
OK, so now that the LW BOTB 88 mm ATG is done, I can showcase the hetzers.
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