Finnish Pak-40 AT Guns

This is the next unit for my Finnish Flames of War infantry company. According to the TO&E for the late war Finnish forces this is a 'Heavy Anti-Tank Platoon' consisting of two sections of 75 PstK/40 Anti-Tank guns. I can optionally add a close-defense infantry squad to each gun section for self defense in assaults. I haven't painted these squads as they're basically the same figures as I'd use for my anti-tank infantry platoon, so I can borrow some stands from that platoon if needed. It's likely that I'll either use the infantry or the guns, but unlikely that I'll want to field both. The figure blister didn't include the required command stand (3 figures) which is disappointing considering the blister costs $18.00 and only includes the two gun models and 8 crew figures. Luckily I have some spares from other units that will work fine, and as of now I'm not fielding all of my units in any one game so I'm all set there.

The crew figures were typical quality for Battlefront figures, but one of the gun models was quite poorly cast. The gun shield had so much flash that I had to file all of the rivet detail off of it just to get it to a reasonably flat shape on each facet of the shield. Both gun models were also poorly designed - the wheels couldn't be glued to the gun frames without scratch building some extensions for the 'axles'. Unmodified the wheels couldn't reach the frame and would be tilted at an awkward and obviously wrong angle. These are my first artillery models from Battlefront so I'm going to give them one more chance, by ordering my heavy artillery (Russian 152mm guns) from them. If the heavy artillery models are as bad as the Pak-40s I'll be switching back to Quality Cast models for guns.  A lot of my Battlefront figures were purchased a while ago, and there's a definite difference in quality between those figures and ones that I've been purchasing recently. This is a disappointing trend.

I've painted up these guns in the standard Finnish late war camouflage  pattern. From what I can tell from my research the Finns liked to paint up their gun pieces when they were able to. I've added some large bushes to the front of the stands to represent a semi-concealed position. I figure if I was going to deploy an anti-tank gun in combat I'd try to find some favorable terrain, so I'm assuming these gun crews would do the same. Without the additional close-support infantry teams these guns cost 120 points, which I think is a pretty good value. I only wish the Finns were allowed to purchase more of them.