Team Yankee - A Retrospective

One of my earliest memories of PC gaming is a very old title, M1 Battle Tank. This game put me in command of a single vehicle after which the game is named, from there you have to give some vaguely socialist looking polygons a super-sized helping of pixilated democracy. My dad being a former tank mechanic as well, I suppose that rubbed off on me as well. I certainly read Team Yankee as a teenager and revisited it as a young adult. I then went on to read the rest of his books, set in the "Hoyle-verse" so to speak, which largely focused on Cold War style ground combat from the a variety of perspectives ranging from the battalion commander to the trigger puller. They also had the advantage of lacking a lot of the Merica' factor that made the collected works of Tom Clancy a little on the nose for me, as it focused on a real ground war between roughly matched and modern combatants for the most part. This is what contemporary scenarios don't have going for them, modern war is invariably asymmetric war, lacking the sheer destructive potential and an actual fighting chance for both sides, apart from civilian fatigue at home of course and the poor civilians that actually live in the AO bearing the brunt of the collateral liberation.

Team Yankee, the Battlefront rule set for Cold War tank combat, named after the titular book was a pleasant surprise to me. So as you've seen previously on my Tumblr and other socials I bought in, eager to revisit this particular period of warfare that is often overshadow by the contemporary.
I was seriously considering the Americans for a while, though I do have a fondness for massed tanks, and not having to paint masses of camouflage, as well as a general appreciation for Soviet equipment and infantry, so I went with the Reds. In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't actually played the game yet. As is the case most of the time I'm here to talk about the models and painting, sort of a half review, half discussion of technique.

Purchase One - Pochenkov's Bears
The faction starter was the first and obvious purchase for me. Nine tanks was a good deal plus the Hinds. The first thing I attempted was the T-72s, I won't go into detail about how I painted the model, as I detailed it extensively in my article on how to paint Soviet Armour.
The quality of the kit itself I found to be adequate for what I was expecting. Generally it fit together well and the keyed tracks will certainly help you get the alignment right, so no accidentally gluing the tracks in the wrong direction. The turret and hull went together fine and took to magnetization relatively well, so no complaints in that department. My method of painting all of the parts separately, in retrospect led to some particular problems down the track with fitting together later in. The side skirts didn't adhere as well as I would've liked, which left some thin gaps which probably would have benefited from some green stuff work. The real annoyance of the kit were the detachable fuel drums fitted to the rear. I had trouble getting them to stick together without showing a seam and in terms of parts they are some of the more breakable that I have had to deal with. The crew were easy enough to paint up, and mercifully, there were no metal parts with the entire kit.
The Hinds on the other hand I completely screwed up by messing up magnetization, so I shelved them until I can work up the enthusiasm to attempt a fix. The Hinds themselves are quite difficult to put together an will sport a wicked seam line unless you are careful. Furthermore, being aircraft kits, I find them particular vulnerable to accidentally leaving fingerprints in the plastic if you happen to over spill the cement. So definitely one for the more confident builder or someone that is a dabbler in scale modelling.

Purchase Two - Infantry Platoon & BMPs
A full platoon of Soviet Infantry, loaded with all of the kit you would expect in the mid eighties. Mercifully, in drab brown uniforms so no painting masses of DPU fatigues. In retrospect I should've bought a single platoon rather than the company box, but I didn't notice the blister until I had already rung up the purchase, oh well. One thing that was immediately apparent with this kit is the generally varied quality of the casting. There were plenty of instances where the weapons were misshapen, partially filled, or simply not there. There were also a few instances where the mold had been misaligned, resulting in a few equally misaligned troopers here and there. Another major bugbear I have with these kits are the bases, often being extremely thick and require a great deal of grinding and filing in order to get them down to a size that will fit in the Battlefront slot bases. Personally, I look forward to them moving over to plastic if it means that these issues finally disappear. At some point in the future I have some 15mm plastic British Infantry, and my brief look at the molds indicate that the level of quality is overall, much higher.
The painting itself was fairly standard for this scale, base all the colours, wash, reapply bases to 75% of surface area, then accent highlights were it is appropriate. Some of the face casting was pretty bad, so there was only so much I could do to add detail in that space. Otherwise they were a reasonably good paint job, and somewhat fun to paint. But I wouldn't want to paint an entire company of them.
To carry these guys I bought a single box of BMPs. Unfortunately I screwed up the magnetization of one, so I could only form the bare bones platoon. Assembly and painting wise they were much like the T-72s, easy to assemble and easy to paint.

Purchase Three - Shilka Battery
This was one of two support elements I purchased, being well aware of the power of air support I thought it best to get something to counter it. Since I have a love / hate relationship with the Shilka from my Operation Flashpoint days I thought I'd give these beasts a place in my force. The kit itself is way more traditional Battlefront. You have a resin body and turret with metal tracks, the casting of both aren't great. The metal tracks never quite go on straight and the hull required a lot of filing before the tracks would fit in. Not only is the resin dust still a goddamn respiratory hazard (wear your dust mast folks), I managed to snap on of the track guards and park of the front hull off one of the pieces while trying to sand down some resin buildup in a deep corner. Thankfully, once it was all together than paint job went well and quickly, pretty much identical to the T-72s, which is one of the major benefits of painting a large 15mm force of army. Most of your tanks are going to have a similar paint scheme. Fortunately once it all went together it looks good enough for what it is. Though I look forward to the day when all of these kits come out in plastic by default.

Purchase Four - Carnation Battery
This is the second and final support element for my force. These bad boys are essentially 122mm howitzers on a chassis that resembles a scaled up BMP. Much like the Shilka, these are resin bodies and turrets with metal weapons and tracks. Fortunately, they went together far easier than the Shilkas and required far less sanding and preparation. The paint job went on well enough to give it a finish consistent with the rest of the force. My only real complaint is that the weapon barrels are locked level, meaning you can't easily model them set up to fire a barrage unless you put in some conversion work.

Final Thoughts
I am definitely a fan of the subject matter of Team Yankee, and the models are no exception. Again my big complaint with Battlefront kits is that I like them until I meet resin and metal, then I find  the castings tend to drop off in quality. I look forward to the gradual phasing out of metal which they seem to be moving towards because currently the consistent quality in casting is just not there. For upcoming 15mm forces I will probably stick purely with plastic ranges and if none are available, source an alternative from another manufacturer. Anyway, that will do for the time being. More project retrospectives to come.