Checkpoint Charlie – First Moves

Having now had time to digest the book, it seemed a good time to take a look at what I’ve been up to with Checkpoint Charlie.  

The first dilemma was; what to do?

On the face of it, reading the review PDF, British made sense. A quick perusal of my collection showed that, having built my Chieftains as non-Stillbrew equipped Mk.9s, I could easily do a 100pt force with no additions, save some Wombats:

The only problem was… it just didn’t feel very Checkpoint Charlie like. Save the Wombats (which were, by the 80’s, in TA units and the Berlin Brigade), all of that kit was my regular Brit TY force.

Duncan had been relatively cold of Checkpoint Charlie due to this issue; it just ended up being v1 Team Yankee; before all the 90s kit appeared. However, Duncan was now warming to it because his gaming group had made a decision; limit equipment to being in-service by or before 1966.

Suddenly that gave some impetus to move away from the Chieftains (reaching first regiments by 1967) and CVR(T) (1973) and focus more at the leading edge of the time period. At that point of time, 3RTR would have been entirely equipped with 105mm Centurions! A quick check of the “shelf of opportunity” revealed three Centurions still on the sprue (there were 8 built up; but all as Sho’Ts and I had foolishly thrown away the stowage bustles).

Dumping the Chieftains and CVR(T), and adding the Centurions, gave me a 74pt formation, plus an OP. To get to 100pts, I added a tripod GPMG to the formation to use a spare point up, some Saladins from the Divisional Armoured Car Regiment, plus a pair of Conquerors.

The Conquerors are somewhat questionable; they literally leave service in 1966 and were increasingly consigned to the TA as the regular army switched to 105mm Centurions, but they are relatively imposing models and should prove a useful “Distraction Carnifex” as the kids would say.

About this time, Battlefront were kind enough to provide a pair of starters. Within the Shoot and Scoot team, Eddie was receiving a British starter so that made his allegiance obvious and made my force a little redundant (though, later, Duncan would opt to do Warsaw Pact). As such, I opted to get a Soviet starter.

The T-10M box is, to quote my Time of Day co-host, Mike, a “Solid Starter”. You get a HQ, two decent size “Companies” of T-10M heavy tanks, some recce (BMP), SAM (Gaskins) and a platoon of BTR-60 mounted infantry, all for 87pts, leaving some expansion room. Not bad! The T-10M itself is also an impressive beast; FA16 and an AT19 gun are both very handy with 1966 time limits in place (and still good even against the 70s kit!).

That said, the Gaskins were out of period (1968). Thankfully the kit builds the BRDM2 (1962) so that was a solution. But that also made the BMP recce somewhat redundant. Plus, the BMP is brand new to service, just squeezing into the period with a 1966 entry to service; did the recce units get them that quickly? Probably not.

With no SAM, I needed to turn to traditional gun anti-aircraft in the form of the ZSU-57-2. I also expanded out the infantry company to two platoons, plus Saggers. Finally, I added some BM-21 Grads, as the Carnation is not in period (1973).

That should do nicely, and gave me an excuse to paint up the Hails I had bought when TY first came out and then never used as the Carnations became my go to!

The BTR and ZSU-57-2 I was able to find in various places online and on the stalls at warfare to add to the “to-do” list.

Something else I found whilst looking for Centurions was some T-62 sprues.

Well, I say “some”. It was 15 to be precise! I think these were ear marked for Syrians in Fate of a Nation. Either way, I quickly got them painted up as an alterative tank to the T-10M.

They pretty much slot into the force outline for the T-10M, though I need to drop one Sagger to use all 15 T-62. Again, one “Company” was sized around the 40pt one drop reserve.

Momentum is currently with the Soviets at the moment so I plan to get the BTR-60, ZSU-57 and T-10 done before Christmas, then switch to the Brits. So stay tuned for that!

Also, don’t forget, we have a Youtube channel here. Mike and I have been looking at the Forces, Formations and Starters for Checkpoint Charlie for“ ”Time of Day” and I’ll be doing some unboxings of the T-10M starter, plus some bits I have been buying to support these two forces.

Over at Shoot and Scoot we are looking at the Checkpoint Charlie nations so head there for a more anglo-centric take!