Sunday, February 8, 2015

The last East German rocket artillery

This post finishes off the unguided rocket artillery for my East Germans (finally!). I've churned out a battery of BM14-16 rocket launchers:

Even though O8 labels this a BM14-16, by 1981, an upgraded version, the BM14M, would have been in service, the difference being that the earlier version was based on a ZiS-151 truck, while the upgrade was based on a ZIL-157. At 1/600 scale, the two are pretty well indistinguishable from each other.

The BM14 fired 140mm unguided rockets and the launchers came in a variety of tube numbers; 16, 18, and 20 being the most common. Though the BM14 was officially replaced with the BM-21 Grad in 1963, the older system was never entirely withdrawn and upgraded versions stayed in frontline service with all WarPac armies until the fall of the Iron Curtin.

Here's my version:
And the usual BTR-60PU for the battery commander:
As well as a 1V18 for the forward observer:

With my past rocket artillery, I've painted the back of the launchers red, as that's the color that the individual reloads were, I suspect because the primer charge was packed in a red wrapper. But every image of the BM14 that I could find showed no red on the backside of the launcher, so I left it off and just went with a dirty, dark rust color to represent the built-up smoke residue from having fired multiple salvos.

That's all for now. On to the next project!

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