Trachanka Armoured Car Company (VBCW)

When King Edward refused to abdicate in 1936 the resulting constitutional crisis in Britain tore the country apart, and allowed Mr Oswald Moseley to seize power. Moseley's ultra right wing fascist government did not sit well in many of the industrial cities of the north and midlands, and when the dockers in Liverpool refused to unload supplies destined for the fascist forces, the resulting 'mutiny' lead to the formation of the Liverpool Free State. Although the LFS claims to be none-partisan, they are in truth dominated by socialists and communists.
The Wirral, a peninsular of land just south of Liverpool, is likewise dominated by Socialists, this time by the Wirral Socialist Workers Council. The WSW is predominately based in Birkenhead, Ellesmere Port and Helsby, and their control over the more rural parts of the peninsular is less absolute. The WSW claim to be allies to the LFS, but in reality they are nothing but a subservient partner in the relationship. The WSW supply Liverpool with food, steel, the shipyards in Birkenhead, concrete, chemicals, munitions, and in return receive aid in the form of manpower and weapons, including a trickle of Soviet made weapons imported from Russia.
The LFS are aware of just how critical the Wirral is to their continued existence- Without the supplies shipped through the Mersey tunnels the city would have fallen long ago- but with Liverpool besieged on all sides by the forces of king and government, they are hard pressed to free up much resources to help the Wirral Socialist Workers. Therefore, improvisation is often the key. One such examples is the "Trachanka Armoured Car Companies" that have recently been seen in battle. The idea was the brainchild of Spanish war veteran and Communist warrior-poet Juan Caballero. The concept is based on the Russian Civil War era trachanka, a cavalry carriage with a heavy machine gun mounted on the back. Caballero got the ship builders in Birkenhead to add armoured plates to a modified truck, then had them weld a soviet made Maxim HMG to the deck. The results were surprising effective, providing the WSW with some much needed mobile armour, and since then the shipyards have been converting as many trucks as they can find to this role.

The trucks are Lledo die-casts, with plasticard armoured plates added. The crew are by various manufactures- Eureka, Black Tree Designs, Musketeer Miniatures, Wargames Foundry and West Wind. The guns are by Black Tree Designs and Eureka. The Stowage is by Games Workshop.