On the trail

There has been a meme running round the wargaming blogs sphere of late about how we should all get better at project management, to avoid project creep and ensure that we don't wind up with piles of lead that we will take to our graves (creating a stack of mini toxic waste dumps in the process).
personally I think its a nice idea, but fat chance of it happening as wargamers as a breed are restrained and sensible creatures when confronted with the latest models.

This was going to be a discussion on what I should buy next army wise, but rethinking it this is a bit boring really. Instead I will go through a bit of research I've been putting together in the last couple of days.

I've been interested in the Austrian army fixed fortifications for a while now. One of my sources of information was this document, a PDF for the fire and fury rule set. Now, while the lists are possibly the worst format I've ever seen (and I've created lists from the DBM medieval German army list), there are some gems buried in there. On page 10 under the panzer battalion notes it suggests that there was still a battalion of M47 tanks in the early 1980's. Initially I was very skeptical of this, as I knew that the Austrian army had brought the M60 in the mid 1960's. However it seems that they only purchased 120 tanks, which is only enough for 2 battalions plus some spares and training tanks. given that there were 3 brigades in the only regular division it seems possible that the 3rd tank battalion was indeed still M47's. good enough form me to buy a battalions worth.

Its hard not to be tempted by the fortification units as well. while the Centurion and M47 turrets make sense,  the Charioteer turrets with a 20 prd gun are just too tempting.