Having seen a picture of a JS-2 in Leipzig during the 1953 East German Worker's Revolt, I thought of depicting a JS-2 going through East Germany. Would the JS-2 be worn or well-maintained and shiny? Also, what does the barrel muzzle look like> Surprisingly I haven't been able to find a close-up picture of it.

Tom,

The only reference I have is the Tankograd Fahrzeug magazine 2/2004 which has an article on early East German armour; this has pictures of T34/85s (no surprise there perhaps) BTR 40s, BTR 152, SU 76s, SU 100s and even a Universal Carrier fitted with a PTRD anti tank rifle - which was a surprise.

Frustratingly, there is only one picture of IS2, depicting 3 aboard a railway flat. The accompanying text states:

"The Paramilitary Police altogether fielded 47 IS II heavy tanks in various versions by 1953. here an IS II9m) Model 1944 of 14th tank regiment, 7th tank division. The IS II was armed with a 122mm D-25T gun and 3 7.62mm machine guns".

The picture shows a fairly clean looking vehicle with crudely painted white bands around the turret and what looks like a 2 digit number but is very difficult to make out. As these were early days there is no evidence of the NVA proper national symbol, but I'm afraid I'm not sure when that came in or if it was ever added to these heavy tanks; I imagine it was.

No matter how well maintained a tank is on exercise it will soon look extremely well worn so you can please yourself how it is finished.

Crews at the time were in blue coveralls, the Soviet tank helmet yet I believe with pink Waffenfarbe (as one would expect perhaps). A splash of colour if you populate your model.

Re the muzzle brake, as I understand it the same main armament was used on the IS 3 and in any case, I imagine there's some coverage somewhere of the IS 2 in detail. From a modelling perspective I also understand that metal barrels are available.

Brian

Thanks, but I was thinking of the Soviet version. I knew East German had some armor, but I didn't think that at that point.

Sorry Tom, I completely missed the point - clearly a "Duh" moment on my part!

Going back to the original question, I wondered what the condition of the Soviet military was in 1953, which Uncle Joe having just died and presumably the old generation of soldiers now departed. The US military let it military fall apart after World War Two, until it got revived during the Korean War.

I imagine from the photos ive seen of various equipment from the period, their condition would be about the same as it would be during any other peace time state. Having Stalin or whoever die and a change in leadership would hardly effect day to day operations in the military in any significant manner, because the leaders didnt run the army, they just pointed them in the direction they needed them to go.

As for weathering and vehicle condition, I imagine the tanks would get as dirty as they would in the field as they normally do peacetime or not. Probably however would have straighter fenders, less likely have missing mudgaurds and or minor external damage as you see on alot of Soviet tanks during the war

Oh, I can imagine that tanks sent out to fight unarmed protestors would sustain little battle damage. I was wondering if, while in depot, they were still studiously maintained or not.

I decided to go with the "shiny and well-maintained" approach, as presumably any tanks used in police actions would have been taken from stocks in good shape, and it would better show that it is not wartime, but tanks used against civilians without real weapons.

Still trying to figure out how the muzzle brake should look though.

The muzzle brake would presumably have the same colour as the rest of the barrel.
Most muzzle brakes direct the flow of gun powder gases outwards so the fad among modellers to make the whole front end look like the tools of a chimney sweeper has very little in common with reality.
When the gun fires it looks like a great big cloud of gases around the muzzle but all of it is moving outwards, not in circles around the barrel and not backwards along the barrel.
The rear side of the baffles in the muzzle brake would probably get dirty after some rounds since they change the direction of the hot gases by almost 90 degrees.

A tank in peacetime would most likely be clean, I do not think the tank would pass inspection after a firing exercise with sooty baffles.
/ Robin