Bolt Action: VBCW: Warlord Games Heavy Soviet Armoured Scout Car

Soviet six-wheeled BA3/6 armoured cars were developed in the interwar years to fulfil the role of a heavy recon vehicle. Many nations went down this road at the time as armoured cars were considerably cheaper to manufacture than tracked vehicles.

Armoured cars were useful in Western Europe where there were massive road networks but they had poor cross country performance and so struggled in the east. Eventually the BAs were replaced by T60/70 tanks in the heavy scout car role.

BA armoured cars fought in the Spanish Civil War, Khalkhyn Gol, The Winter war and Barbarossa. Thousands were made.

The Germans even used a Spanish-made copy on the Eastern Front Spanish, which is a nice unusual modelling subject.

The cars were heavily armed with the same turret and armament as the T26 and BT tanks but had paper thin armour.

This resin and metal model is made by Warlord Games and I heartily recommend it. I left off the side steps because they are just where you inevitably grip the model and keep falling off. The real cars seem to have had the same problem, going by the photographic evidence.

Spanish Civil War: Requêtés

Requêté is a French word meaning a hunting call. It was also the name of the soldiers who have fought for the Spanish Carlist movement since the First Carlist War of 1839.

The Carlists were a very traditional ultra-conservative Catholic Party and to some degree they were the shock troops of Catholicism. Priests accompanied requêté battalions into combat in the Sanish Civil War. The requêté were relatively well trained by SCW standards and formed the assault groups of the Nationalist armies. Eventually the  Requêté were subsumed into the fascist Falange and their leaders driven into exile.

As a militia they wore a variety of costumes but were distinguished by a red beret with yellow tassle and their brightly coloured Navarre (a region of central northern Spain) blankets.

Carlism died out in 1975 when Spain became a modern South European country.

These figures were sculpted by Paul Hicks for Anglian Miniatures and are now marketed by Empress.