No one expects micro armour in the mail!

Much to my delight this morning I received a parcel. Idly contemplating what nerd item it might be based on size and weight I was pulling a blank and then I noticed the return address was in the nearby city. My wargaming friend Doug (dots of paint blog) struck again!






No doubt inspired by my Cold War AAR in early January he pulled out some micro armour from his collection that hasn't been getting enough training and sent them to me. SURPRISE THE EAST GERMANS AND CANADIANS ARE CLASHING IN MY HOUSE! A princely gift as I hastened to send him a message.




His note informs me that these are circa '83 forces which happen to be deployed to their bases about that same time (!!). A couple of barrels got repositioned, a few units needed to be reglued to their base, and a missing tank turret, but these veterans have stood the cold war test very well.

More pictures after the break......



 Pardon the over exposed shots, all I had for lighting was a rather lacking spot light which generated as many shadows as it dispelled.  I particularly enjoyed the thick easy to grab bases which are, in fact, dominoes. Very clever indeed.

 The east germans have what looks to be T-72s (some of the variants are extra hard to discern at any scale let alone this one)
 

There are some infantry in BMP-1s, a jeep, hq and motorcycle (recon or messenger maybe?). The three armoured vehicles near the helo which I think are Strelas (Anti air missiles on BRDM2 scout car).
EDIT: SA-9 GASKIN Nato name

 The mentioned helo I think is meant to be a Hind but the sculpting on the canopy doesn't really channel the double pilot bubbles very well (lack of info/pictures when it was sculpted vs limitations in ability to cast certain shapes?)

EDIT: I am informed from Doug that this is a Hind A which was the initial production aircraft. The big flat canopy was poorly protected so got the redesign to the highly recognizable double bubble canopy. Here for more info.


A mystery 4th BRDM scout car with some sort of turret on it....rectangular narrow, possibly two ports/missiles. I'll have to get the cold warriors to weigh in one this one.

The Canadians are mounted on leopard 1 tanks, some jeeps with large recoilless rifles  and some M113 APC with some sort of tube (probably a guided missile).

2 mortar carriers in the back right. 5 M113 APCs and 5 with some sort of turret on them (MBC? Bradley turret perhaps?). On the right are the AVGP Grizzlies (with the skorpion turret and cannon) and Bisons (APC with machine guns in the turret).

There's some sort of command variant APC (probably an M113) as well.

Talk about a windfall! I feel luckier than a shady Ukrainian arms dealer at the end of the cold war. Whooo!