FoW: Slovak Anti Tank Artillery - 3.7cm KPUV vz.37 battery

So the next part of my Slovakian odyssey that I have chosen to share with everybody is the development and use of their very distinctive 37mm anti-tank guns; the 3.7cm KPUV vz.37, a later development of the 3.7cm KPUV vz.34. KPUV stands for 'kanon proti utocne vozbe' [anti-tank cannon] and just before 'the war' these lil' badasses were considered all singing all dancing! 

From 1936 the Skoda factories in Pilsen were supplying the Czech armed forces with the A3 anti-tank gun designated the vz.34 although almost as soon as they started delivery demands were submitted for the delivery of an improved and modernised version to be designated the A4.

The basic requirement was that it break through not less than 3.2cm armour thickness at a range of  1000m or over.

Setting to, the designers deemed that they were no longer restricted by the weight barriers that they were originally limited by and instead opted to focus on new developments of ammunition and utilising longer barrels that would also have increased longevity.

In addition to these steps a new irregular shaped gun shield was designed that would provide superior protection to the gun crew as well as the application of new wheels and axle.

A single prototype was handed over to the army for testing and performed well, reliably penetrating the 3.2cm cemented armour target at over 1100m but the staff were reluctant to introduce it to the armed forces due to fears over supply of two different types of ammunition to guns of the same calibre.

The designers overcame this problem by provisioning the A4 with the same chamber as the A3 so that all existing ammunition could be used with both A3 and A4's. The newer A4's were also still able to use the newer ammunition types.

In the summer of 1937 the new weapon was introduced into the armed forces and immediately went into production. 

The designation of the new A4 was formally named KPUV vz.37 and was provided in three different types; the first type which was to be provided to the infantry was provided with spoked wheels and was termed Model P. The second type, the Model J was for the cavalry and was provided with disc wheels with rubber tyres and had a new limber and caisson whilst the final type was the Type M with disc wheels and rubber tyres and was to be provided to motorised troops only.

The first 35 KPUV vz.37's were delivered in December 1937 and production continued thereafter at a rate of around 80 per month.  

By the time of the Munich Agreement of 1938 Czechoslovakia had over 390 Type P Infantry versions available and over 300 of the Type M. Including the older KPUV vz.34's the Czech army was capable of fielding over 1000 modern anti-tank guns which had reliable enough statistics to prove a threat to all German armoured vehicles then being fielded.

As of 15 March there were over 995 already in service with another 1600 on order.

Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, the general demobilisation of the Czechoslovakian army and the declaration of independence of Slovakia, the KPUV vz.37 proved to be particularly attractive to the Germans who left only 158 (along with another 113 vz.34 guns) for use by the Slovaks acquiring the rest for itself renaming it the 3.7cm Pak 37(t)

The allocation of these weapons within the Slovak army seemed to evolve quickly with a solid structure becoming apparent in short time. 

In 1939 Mobile Group 'Kalinciak', that participated in the invasion of Poland, possessed a single company of six 3.7cm KPUV vz.37 guns. This would appear to lead to the conclusion that this company had two platoons each of three gun sections with a single gun each

In 1941 the Mobile Group that crossed the Soviet border contained a single platoon of three guns in JPO-2 (the reconnaissance group), the II Battalion 6th Motorised Infantry Regiment possessed a single platoon of four guns whilst the Armoured Battalion had two companies with a total of nine guns (work that one out! I think its more likely to be a single company).

When the Mobile Group was expanded to a Mobile Brigade at the start of July of that year the Motorised Reconnaissance Group had a single platoon of six guns (although I think this is an error of recording and the group most likely had two platoons of three guns each, in keeping with the Czech and Slovak pyramidal organisational doctrine), II/6 still retained its standard four guns, the Armoured Battalion, now a Regiment had a full provision of 27 guns, indicating the existence of a full anti-tank battalion of three companies, each of three platoons with three gun sections of one gun each.

After the battle of Lipovec it was understood that the Slovak Brigade was not powerful enough to take on a full division in prepared positions and as such the Slovak forces were again reorganised towards the end of July and early August.

Within the Mobile Division, Infantry Regiments 20 and 21 each had 12 anti tank guns indicating a single company of three platoons with four guns in each platoon. The Reconnaissance Group had a single platoon of four guns and the division level anti-tank company also had a provision of 12 guns.

The Security Division existed from 1 September 1941 and had a total of 24 3.7cm anti-tank guns provided to it. According to Nafziger the Slovak's 101st Infantry Regiment had an anti tank company with 12 guns provided to it,the same can be assumed of the Security Divisions second infantry regiment; the 102nd Infantry Regiment to bring us to the total of 24 guns.

...and so, after a little potted history of the gun, lets take a look at how I built them.

So the first thing I had to do was pull the pieces together and I eventually opted for the wheels off of a pack of QRF's Czech 47mm Kanon PUV in the German anti tank gun range and the cannon and trails from a pack of QRF's Belgian SA-FRC 47mm anti-tank guns. 

The initial steps that I took to prepare the assets was that I filled the central bores on the wheels with Magic Sculpt, levelling the exposed top off. 

The Cannons had their barrels cut off with the filing countersinking into the body of the breech up to the point where the barrel meets the actual breech block.

After studying the trails I decided to ditch the two arms and make my own. I cut them away and drilled holes through the width of the body to take a brass rod as well as drilling down into the top to accept another shorter brass rod on which the gun would actually be mounted.

The image above shows the central bore of the wheels being filled with Magic Sculpt and once dry filed flat. This creates a surface upon which a number of rivets and bolt heads will be attached.

The image above shows the breech block with the barrel having been cut away and the body filed away back to the point where the barrel originally joined with the breech itself. This creates a square bottomed bowl that a new barrel will be inserted into.

The image above shows the cut down trail of the cannon with both of its arms cut away and the relevant holes drilled into and through it to accept the brass rod.

The bag of cheap brass tubes that I bought from China for use as gun barrels. Easy to cut, bend and shape!

In the picture above shows two lengths of the brass tubing shown in the previous image, one that is 20mm long and the other that is 11mm. There is also a 2-3mm section of plastic rod that has been bored right through, in order to fit over the end of the main barrel up to half way down its length.

The image shows the three pieces assembled with the two barrel sections glued one on top of the other and the muzzle brake attached onto the end of the main barrels.

There are a couple of extra steps that need to be done at this stage. Firstly the muzzle breaks need to be rounded off by sanding and the recoil buffers on top of the main barrel need to be filled with some kind of epoxy resin such as Magic Sculpt and a short section of thin brass wire inserted leaving a 1mm section extruded from the buffer itself.

Once the barrels are completed the next thing to do is the arms of the gun trails. For each gun being made a single rectangle 25mm long by 2mm wide and 1mm deep is cut and a line scored diagonally from corner to opposing corner on the largest flat side.

These scored plastic strips are then cut. Now I am not the greatest when it comes to precision cutting but the way I counteracted my own inaccuracy was by using a Stanley knife blade that I placed along the score line and pushed down. This provided me with perfect cuts every time.

The image above shows the correct orientation of the gun trail arms with the sloped side uppermost. Also notice the angled cuts at the head of each arm, cut at the angle which you want the arms attached to the trail body. This depends very much on the arm splay that you would like although I would advise checking the splay can still keep the arms on the width of the bases.

In the above picture you can see all of the additional details that need to be added to complete the gun trail arms. 

These include thin brass wire that has been bent around a needle nosed pliers to create the handles glued to the outside of the trail arms. Thin plastic rod that has been used for the push bars just ahead of the trail spades which are simply 5mm long by 2mm wide sections of brass strip bent at 90degrees 1/3 of the way down and glued to the sharp end of the gun trail arms. Finally on the inside edge of the left hand trail arm is a tow ring made out of plastic rod and tube.

The barrels are now assembled with the other parts to create the finished guns. The completed barrel sections are glued into the box hollows in the breech blocks which also have a small section of plastic strip glued to the left outside edge of the breech blocks rear with a small disc glued onto the right hand side and a small section of plastic rod glued along the lower edge on the left hand side.

Its now time to start working on the gun shields. The shield design is quite complex to the point that I wouldn't even know where to begin giving the dimensions so let me just say that the shields are about 25mm by 25mm. Pay attention to the wavy tops that need to be cut into them and pay close attention to the lower outside edge angles that need to be dealt with.

Above you can see the gun shields after they have been cut and filed to smooth out all of the edges.

Once the base shield shapes are completed the additional steps need to be started. Firstly two holes need to be drilled on the lower ends of the shield either side of the barrel channel for the shield hooks.

Four thin plastic rods need to be glued across the top of the shield as the measuring sticks on the actual gun shields. These are book ended with small plastic blocks with three paper thin plastic sheet strips glued across the rods themselves as the leather straps on the actual guns.

Two small squares of extremely thin plastic sheet are glued onto the right hand side of the shield for the viewing hatches, each of which has a small piece of thin plastic rod glued to the outside of the hatch to approximate hinges.

The hooks are created from thin brass wire which are bent as shown above using needle nosed pliers. The precision of the shape of each of the hooks is not so critical as they are very small elements of the guns themselves and as they are positioned under the actual guns is not even so noticeable that it will draw too much attention... although it goes without saying that at least an attempt on precision being made is preferable.

The image above shows the completed gun shields with the hooks pushed through the drilled holes and the rear sides filed flat with the rear of the gun shields.

Where the wheels are concerned I glue a slightly larger disc to the middle of the flattened central bore and glue six tiny rivets around the central disc.

All of these were cut from thin plastic sheets using a selection of micro hole punches which I bought as part of a cheap set from China. Well worth it as a lot of my sculpting of vehicles requires rivets!

At this point brass rod needs to be pushed through the body of the trail. I think I used 1mm brass rod for this and 1.5mm brass rod glued into the top of the gun trail body. The total width of the brass rod that goes through the width of the gun trail body needs to be only as wide as the gun shield once the wheels are mounted. You only need a shorter length of brass rod to be mounted to the top of the gun trail body so long as the gun body can be mounted a couple of millimetres above the trail body itself.

That should give you the completed elements for each gun that now need to be put together.

Once the guns have all of the elements assembled the last thing that need to be added to complete the construction are the two plastic rods that attach the upper rear face of the gun shield to the gun breech block.

These completed guns are now ready to be painted and once we have checked that they all fit on their bases properly we can begin!

Before we go any further I should again point out that every single miniature in this battery was a Battlefront 15mm Romanian OR Japanese (the anti-tank crewmen from this range just could not be argued with!) until I nipped off their heads and replaced them with Peter Pig heads to turn them into Slovaks. Either the ones with the Slovak Helmets that Martin sculpted for me or else the ones with the Soviet Pilotka Caps.

As with my previous artillery post the first thing that I do when building a battery, once the guns are completed is to paint all of the crew that serve them. This obviously took a bit of work so let me take you through it all step by step!

So, where painting all of the infantry is concerned its a relatively simple affair. They are done the way that I do them to look good from about 5ft away. Scrutinise them from up close and all of the flaws in the painting will probably slap you in the face, but from 5ft away I personally think they look tip top!

The first step is to prime, and as with most of my other historical stuff, I prime with a black etch primer. You can buy these from any hardware store but the 'etch' in the primer ensures an exceptionally strong substrate to the acrylic layers that will go over the top. Essentially the etch is a minute amount of acid that eats into the outer layer of the material being sprayed on creating a microscopically uneven surface for the paint to bind to... and don't worry its well below the level that is visible to the naked eye!

The lions share of the work done on WW2 miniatures is the main uniform and where the Slovaks are concerned after a somewhat lengthy research period I decided to ditch the colour photos from the past and go with the uniform colours that all of the re-enactors in Czechoslovakia are using at the moment. In my experience all of these re-enactment guys are anal about accuracy so I would trust their opinions a lot more than raggedy old photos.

My base coat was done with Vallejo's 887 Brown Violet for the deepest layers of the uniform. The first highlight, which presents the largest overall surface area that will be seen at the end was done with MIG's 113 Khaki Green No3 (Brit 1939-1942) with the final highlights along all of the raised edges being completed with MIG's 058 Light Green Khaki. This covers all of the cloth uniform and the puttees.

The helmet has a single coat of 50/50 mix of Vallejo's 897 Bronze Green and Vallejo's 887 Brown Violet with the blue helmet band having a basecoat of Vallejo's 925 Intense Blue, highlighted with a 50/50 mix of Vallejo's 925 Intense Blue and Vallejo's 943 Blue Grey. The little Slovak crosses are all hand painted with thinned down Vallejo's 820 Offwhite. Normally I would provide at least one highlight on a helmet BUT the combination of white Slovak crosses and the blue band provide enough contrasts for the eye in such a small place that a highlight becomes unnecessary.

Everything else is relatively quick and simple after painting the uniform.

All of the Canvas bags and straps have a basecoat of Vallejo's 921 English Uniform applied with block highlights of AK Interactive's 3072 M-44 Uniform Green Ochre Khaki whilst the leather belts and ammo pouches are basecoated in Vallejo's 045 Charred Brown and highlighted with Vallejo's 983 Flat Earth.

The boots are any matt black whilst the Gas Mask Tins are basecoated with Vallejo's 980 Black Green and highlighted with Lifecolor's UA224 Olive Drab Faded Type 2.

The rifle bodies are basecoated with Vallejo's 826 German Camo Medium Brown with the highlighted grain lines painted with Vallejo's 981 Orange Brown. All metal work is painted black firstly and highlighted with Molten Metals Steel. The rifle straps are basecoated with Vallejo's 880 Khaki Grey and highlighted with a 50/50 mix of Vallejo's 880 Khaki Grey and Vallejo's 819 Iraqi Sand.

Where the skin is concerned you can paint it how you please but personally I use one of AK Interactive's paint sets for 'Flesh and Skin Colours' and I've never looked back!

All of the bases are actually really simple. I buy all of my bases from Tony at East Riding Miniatures. Hes a bit of a legend and REALLY helpful. They are all laser cut MDF which allows for easy scoring of the base surface.

I then glue the miniatures to the scored surface and apply a thin layer of tile grout over the top. Once this is dry I glue a layer of one of my sand mixes over the top. Generally speaking I create my own mixes for base coverings as I REALLY don't like a lot of the crap you buy from the shops. Its generally speaking far too gaudy in colour or uniform in texture for my tastes.

I like the generally fine sand BUT I like to have lots of the little stones in there so I can create some colour contrasts with the dirt on the bases.

Once dry the whole base is given a basecoat of Vallejo's 826 German Camo Medium Brown and given a heavy drybrush of Vallejo's 814 Green Ochre.

All of the little stones on the bases are then given a basecoat of Vallejo's 995 German Grey and roughly highlighted (to create a jagged uneven texture) with any lighter grey of your choice but personally I go with Vallejo's 992 Neutral Grey.

The sides of the bases are now painted Matt Black. I never used to bother with this BUT I've really gotten into the clean precise look this lends to the bases. I love it now.

Now we come to the final stage of the bases which is the covering. The static flock that I use is my own mix. I go for something that approximates the dead and dry grass you find on the Steppes with perhaps a little more green in it than usual. This allows an overall base aesthetic that can be used the length of Europe in my opinion.

To provide the final textural boost to the bases though I use a variety of clumps. I had a LOT of problems finding ones that I felt were suitable but after a couple of years I came across a company called Tajima Miniatures whose self adhesive tufts are without a doubt the best I have ever found. I use there stuff by the bucket load now, in great variety. 

These all add to the final colour and texture of the bases of this army.

Now that the bases and the miniatures are all squared away the only thing left to do is sort the guns themselves out...

So the painting of the guns is where the real complexity begins. I should also point out by the way that I have opted not to apply mud and spattering weathering to these artillery pieces as I kind of really like the clean look of them. They do have plenty of knocks and rusty battered parts which adds to the scheme but that is where I have chosen to draw the line.

The main paint scheme of the guns is done by airbrush using my MIG Aircobra for the Priming and Basecoating and my Harder & Steenbeck for all of the shading and highlighting as my H&S has a 0.15 needle and provides a hell of a lot more control... but the MIG is SOOOOO easy to clean it just makes sense to use it where I can...

The Airbrushing steps are as follows:

i) The model is primed with a Matt Black Etch Primer

ii) The basecoat is Tamiya's XF-58's Olive Green

iii) The first highlight is LifeColors UA221 Khaki Olive Drab applied in a panel highlight fashion

iv) The second highlight is LifeColors UA224 Olive Drab Faded Type 2 applied as above but a bit lighter and gathered in along the edges and prominent areas

v) The third highlight is a 50/50 mix of LifeColors UA224 Olive Drab Faded Type 2 with LifeColor 01 White. This is applied sparingly just along the edges and prominent areas.

So that's the airbrushing complete and don't be overly concerned if your third highlight was too heavy as the next two steps will, if done correctly, tone the whole contrasted effect down.

vi) The next step is to apply the colour swatches over the body of the gun that will provide the camouflage pattern. With the green camouflage base now finished off I add swatches of Vallejo's 914 Green Ochre and Vallejo's 826 German Camo Med. Brown to leave an equal balance of all three colours.

vii) Now we apply the Filter over the whole thing to unify the colour aesthetic and clip the contrast a little. I apply MIG's Filter 1506 Brown for Dark Green.

viii) Once dry wipe of any serious excess from where it may have pooled but otherwise leave it untouched.

ix) At this point I apply the first layer of Varnish. It doesn't matter which varnish you choose so long as it fixes the Filter layer to the miniature as its an oil based layer.

Once the varnish is dry its time for the next layer which is where the real depth starts to come out.

x) Over every detail laden part of the model apply a Wash. I use AK Interactives Wash 075 Wash for NATO Camouflage Vehicles. Don't be shy with this step. Slap it on aplenty! Then leave to dry for a while.

xi) Once its dry (or dry-ish) use cotton buds (cue tips for you Yankees out there...) and use a gentle white spirit to wipe away the excess leaving great detail and shadowing around all of your detail areas and a general lowering of the overall chroma luminosity. Personally I use Winsor & Newtons Artists White Spirit as I had a bad experience with normal white spirit stripping away four layers of paint and primer and have no wish to repeat the disaster!

xii) Once the whole piece is dry to the touch apply another layer of varnish to fix everything in place.

... once all of the actual painting steps proper have been squared away the last thing to do on the miniature is actually the rusted patches. For this just use an old kitchen sponge and dab on Vallejo's Panzer Aces 302 Dark Rust along the edges of the gun shield and other edges and spots across different patches of the model.

These Dark Rust elements then have the heaviest sections lined with Vallejo's Model Color 819 Iraqi Sand. These lines need to be very fine but also work well to work in as actual scratches into the overall paint scheme.

The very last thing that needs to be done with the painting is the wheel rims which are painted  with LifeColor's UA733 Tire Black and highlighted with Vallejo's Model Color 995 German Grey.

Varnish one final time with a super matt varnish and that as they say is that!

Remove from workspace and attach to the finished bases at your leisure!

So, there we have it. A nice new battery of anti-tank guns and without a doubt one of the most complex builds you will have to do for your Slovak army. It looks like there is a hell of a lot to do to the point that some people will be intimidated by it. My advice would be to just get through it by concentrating on one step at a time. In no time at all you will have it all finished and be some of the only people on the planet to own a battery of these weapons in 15mm...

...oh yeah, and I'll deal with the trucks and staff cars in another post!

Fix Bayonets!