Team Yankee - BAOR Force

When I first got my Wanhao 3D printer I thought about of producing my own Modern British army in 15mm. In those heady days, long before I'd discovered .stl editing and the joys of heated, large sized printing beds, things were challenging.

Printing tank hulls in one piece, often vertically so they fitted in, was fraught with the chance of failure.

Due to this, I'd reached the point where I only had a few Chieftains and FV432 carriers before I put the project on halt.

To try and resurrect things I bought the Battlefront Mechanised Infantry and Milan teams packs, but they just got painted and added to the display cabinet.

Now with my new printer and 3D Builder software I've been able to finally get there!

I have (like my West Germans) created a force that can be either Chieftain/FV432 or Challenger 1/Warrior based - i.e. pre or post 1984/5. Or it could be a larger force with a mixture of both.

In support I have recce platoons using CVR-T AFVs (Scorpion, Scimitar, Striker, Spartan, Sultan and Spartan MCT) as well as the Wheeled version - Fox Armoured Cars. There's even a random Saladin Armoured Car thrown in for good measure!

For fire support I have Abbot SPG with Stalwart and a Chieftain Marksman AA tank.

I am very pleased with these and now feel enthused to press on with my Warsaw Pact forces.

Team Yankee - West German 3D Printed Force - Part Four

I've reached a point with my 15mm Bundeswehr force that I thought it worth sharing once again.

Whilst I intend to try these out with the Seven Days to the River Rhine (SDttRR) rules, I have based the organisation around that in the Team Yankee "Leopard" book, which from what I can ascertain on-line, appears to reflect mid 1980's Bundeswehr organisation pretty accurately.

I've collected together a mixture of figures and vehicles that allow me to field a selection of different forces to suit the scenarios.

This is centred around a front line Kampfgruppe made up of Leopard 2 (base original model) and Marder 1 (again the base model not the A3 up-armoured version) with support elements.

• 3 x Leopard 2
• 3 x Marder 1 IFV
• 2 x Jaguar 2 (TOW)
• 2 x Luchs 8x8 Armoured Car
• 1 x Gepard AA (to shoot down that pesky Hind!)
• 3 x Fuchs 6x6 Wheeled APC
• 2 x VW Iltis Jeeps

when I find a suitable model I'm happy with, I'll add Leopard 1A4's to the force too.

I painted the vehicles up using Battlefront's own Team Yankee West German paint set which contained all I needed for vehicles and figures.

The paint schemes came from the aforementioned "Leopard" book.

I intended to buy Battlefront's Panzer Grenadier Zug to give the force some figures, but it appears to currently be out of production and impossible to buy at a reasonable price.

As an alternative, I bought a selection of 6 packs of figures from QRF.

These on the face of it present good value for money at just £2.70 for a pack of 8 figures. Their modern range covers all posts and they have a very healthy 15mm range of vehicles to back these up too.

An MG Team base - Anti-Tank Launcher, MG3 Team & NCO

However, the figures are a bit hit and miss. Their quality of sculpting is a little below what you'd expect from Battlefront, and a long way from Peter Pig for example. However, they benefit from a careful paint job and can look the part.

Alternative MG Team base - Anti-Tank Launcher, MG3 Team & NCO

In my case I purchased; -

• 2 x Milan team packs (6 launchers)
• 2 x MG3 team packs (8 MG teams)
• 1 x command pack (8 NCO/Officer figures)
• 1 x Panzerfaust 3 pack (8 figures with Anti-Tank launchers)

This equated to 6 Milan team bases + 8 MG team bases of 4 figures each. Each Marder carried an MG team + a Milan team (6 men in total).

Whilst talking about QRF, can I bring to your attention their Decal range. They sell excellent value (£2.00 for 2 sheets) 15mm vehicle markings covering the main symbols you're likely to need, including balkan crosses, turret numbers, allied stars and in this case, Bundeswehr Maltese crosses. Just the job to finish off the AFVs.

Milan Team

The Fuchs could carry 9-10 men so the extra two MG team bases can go with these vehicles or indeed, the VW Jeeps.

The Bundeswehr uniform of the 1980's is great to paint.....basically an all-over grey green! This is broken up by prominent national colours on the upper arm. The uniform and webbing colours come in the Battlefront paint set which made this even simpler.

The bases were 3D printed and roughly mirror the Battlefront standard, slightly tweaked to suit QRF base sizes. I textured the bases with Vallejo White Pumice and flocked when painted.

This little force should prove very flexible on the table. I can use them with the original Team Yankee, SDttRR or my old stand-by, Cold War Commander.

I also have both BAOR and Soviet forces as work in progress, and one day I may even add 1980's French to join them. A 3D printer's work is never done....😀