10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade.

I'm on a roll this week...

One of my favorite units from WWII is the Polish 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade.

I have been excited about this project ever since I learned that Blitzkrieg Laboratories and Gorgon Studios were going to release the miniatures for this famous unit. These tough bastards fought the Germans in Poland in 1939. They fought vicious delaying and harassing actions against the 4th Light Division and Gebirgsjagers along the southern Polish border and then in defense of Krakow before escaping into Hungary. They were rebuilt in 1940 in France as the 10th Armord Cavalry Brigade and once again faced the Germans. This time, they fought a tough campaign, fighting almost alone against several German divisions. They somehow managed to escape to Britain where they were rebuilt as the 1st Polish Armoured Division. In 1944 they would find themselves in France for the final drive to Germany and the end of the war. They are a rare unit to have fought the Germans on two fronts and in three campaigns as part of three different armies. The earned their nickname in Poland in 1939 as the "Black Brigade" on account of their distinct uniform of black leather trench coats and Austrian WWI stahlhelms.

These miniatures are all new models from a new company called Blitzkrieg Laboratories jointly released with Gorgon Studios. I had the fortune to be given some promotional models to run a game at the 2012 Fall In convention here in Lancaster, PA. Thanks to Aaron, I was able to deploy a platoon of these awesome models against my Crusader Miniatures early War Germans. Aaron is planning to expand the range and they have also released Gebirgsjagers for the early period of the war. Check them out!

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take pictures of the game I ran. I forgot my camera and my phone ran out of battery power...d'oh!

Here are some pics. They came out a little dark because it was hard to get the settings right to be able to see detail and yet not have the jackets look gray and washed out.

The packs are structured in a way that makes building a platoon very easy. The Anti Tank gun crew are a mortar crew filling in on the job until they release more minis for other support weapons.

The building in the background is from Old Glory. The Bofors ATG an the TKS Tankettes are from Warlord Games.

I plan to do a full, and proper battle report with these guys pretty soon.

Enjoy!

Lieutenant and Driver

Sergeant

Platoon Sergeant and Runner

Second Section

Wz 36 Bofors ATG

Wz 35 Anti Tank Rifle

Wz 36 Granatnik

TKS Tankettes

Polish 10th Motorized (The Black Brigade).

I now have a complete platoon and support, plus tanks for my Polish Black Brigade project. The only thing left to do is finish off some more heavy weapons (mortars and HMGs). I have enough minis to do a second platoon, but that will have to wait until later.

The miniatures are all True North, now owned by Old Glory. They are decent figs, but I am hoping to see Battlefront release their own models of this unit once they start their early war range. The True North figs are slightly too big when standing next to the Command Decision 15mm Germans I have, but that's no big deal.

I had to do some conversion work to get some of the poses I wanted. The packs did not come with any advancing LMGs. I had to take one of the prone LMG gunners, snip off the gun, drill out one of the rifles from a rifleman, add the gun, and the sculpt on new hands with green stuff. Not difficult, just time consuming. I did 4 of them in two different poses. I think the conversion came out pretty well, though part of the reason I am not rushing into a second platoon is the fact that I don't look forward to doing that again...

Now completed:

Command section, motorcycle combo, 4 sections, a truck, 1 armored car, 6 Vickers E 6 ton, 4 TKS (one with 20mm cannon), a 7TP tank, HMG, and a 37mm Antitank gun.

Enjoy!



Platoon (minus 1 truck).



One of the sections of the one squad platoon (their TO&E is rather odd).



Support weapons.



The LMG conversion.



Vickers E 6 Ton.



TKS Tankettes. I love these things. Armored go-carts. Yet one of these little suckers, commanded by Roman Orlik, knocked out 3 German tanks (including a Panzer IV B) in one action, followed by a second run of 3 kills, and a final run of 7 kills in one day.



The 7TP, one of the best Polish tanks. These could go head to head with pretty much the best of German armor in 1939. Unfortunately for the Poles, there were too few. A number of them did some damage in a major counterattack around Bzura before being knocked out.



Armored Car. Fast, cheap, and packs an MG and 37mm gun. Just don't get hit.

So that's it! I just wish someone did this unit in 28mm...