'Armour' from TeemuL: A Brothers' Grave for Two / 15mm T-60

Tank Commander Ivan Vaderov here with his faithful T-60 light tank during the battles of spring of 1942.

Quote from Tanks Encyclopedia: "As a result of its poor armor, substandard armament and sluggish performance, it was more dangerous to its crews than anybody else, earning it the title Bratskaya Mogila na Dovoikh, literally: “a brother’s grave for two.”" As this year's challenge is about brotherhood and other stuff like this, I find it proper to present this piece as my first bonus entry.

This is a Battlefront miniature, T-60 obr 1942, half resin, half metal kit. And as you can see, it is poorly assembled, the tower is 180 degrees in the wrong direction, thus the gun is attached to the wrong side... I wonder if the Soviets assembled them in this way as well, anyway they didn't seem to have a very good reputation. This second edition of the tank has thicker armor and disc wheels, making it heavier, slower and more cumbersome than the first edition, but still lacking the protection against the enemy fire and proper gun to return fire...

This T-60 fits nicely my Odds and Ends -theme of the Challenge, as this is in odd Flames of War model. There was a discount on some Flames of War miniatures a while ago in the local store, and I grabbed some, because they were cheap... I have never painted anything in this scale, 15mm or 1:100, so this was a new experience to me. I painted the Memoir '44 tanks in last year's challenge, but they were a bit smaller and lacked a lot of detail compared to this. I really liked how this felt in my hand while I was painting it... It makes me a bit scared, do I really want to start painting models in a completely new era, scale, force etc? It was fascinating to paint this tank and get so much done in so little time. Also, I haven't really painted any historical miniatures before, mainly fantasy or scifi, so this was interesting. My scifi tanks also lack the weathering, but I did it quite a lot here. And probably the color and the markings are historically incorrect as well, but I'll live with it.