Here's the second platoon of Israeli infantry finished for my Six Day War mechanised infantry company.
It's always a hard slog through the main infantry element of any new force: a minimum of about a hundred 15mm infantry is always going to take time...but that's two of the three platoons done now, so given command, weapons platoons etc, I'm about half way through.
Here they are:
Dan Wade writes a great wargaming blog called Wade's World of Wargaming. There are loads of great posts and great pictures showing off Dan's collection of beautifully painted figures and terrain.
One of Dan's particular interest is Vietnam, so here's a very quick pic-only AAR from the period which I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing here. The game features a bit of tank-only action: click on the pic below to see all...
The first lot of anti-aircraft guns for my Six Day War Egyptians. These are ZPU-4's: four HMGs mounted together on a towed trolley.
Figures and guns are Peter Pig, from their Modern Africa range (a very useful range for anyone looking for Soviet equipment from the Sixties and Seventies). The guns don't come with any crew, so I used standard "helmeted crew" for the chaps who are standing up; and one of their "seated in helmets for the gunner himself. The gunner actually has a Kalashnikov flat across his lap, but painted black and with all the gun-stuff, it looks like some kind of trigger mechanism...and, anyway, who's going to notice on the tabletop!
The pic above doesn't actually do the little blighters justice. For some reason I decided to use a slightly different technique on these AA guns than I did on the AT guns I've posted previously. Here I sprayed them black, dry-brushed in the colour I wanted, used black ink as a wash, and then dry-brushed again. Looks great on the tabletop, but a bit messy in close-up.
You'll note that I have mounted two guns in AA mode, and two guns depressed for shooting people on the ground. That's because a platoon is four guns-strong, but I can't really see me ever fielding four guns at a time, so now I can field one or two, and swap models dependent on what angle the Israeli attack is coming from!
I have updated the UAR/Egyptian briefing for the Six Day War, largely as a result of looking at the AA assets available in more detail.
All that's changed is a clarification of what AA assets are available, and the addition of separate stats for some of them.
To re-cap, the briefing contains an OOB and arsenal for the following forces for the UAR/Egyptians in the Six Day War:
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My second platoon of anti-tank guns for my UAR/Egyptian force for the Six Day War consists of a couple of gigantic ex-Soviet 100mm BS-3 weapons.
These are truly huge: jutting out from their bases like...well, I'll leave you to choose an appropriate metaphor given their extreme capacity for, er, penetration!
Nice models, but I did find it very difficult to get the gun barrels straight after they arrived in the pack looking like Audrey Horne had done a cherry-stalk number on them!
The crews are again a mixture of Battlefront and Peter Pig.
Now that the infantry and armour are all sorted, it was time to add the other support weapons to my UAR/Egyptian force for the Six Day War. Top of the list had to be anti-tank guns.
Looking at my orders of battle (available here) I could see that the vast majority of Egyptian AT guns were ex-Soviet 57mm Zis-2 pieces (around 300 of them), followed by ex-British 6-pounders (about 100 of them), followed by a smattering of ex-Soviet 100mm BS-3 guns (maybe 70 of them). Off to the Battlefront website to do some buying.
Interesting...the only pack of anti-tank guns that Battlefront has for the Six Day War is a mixed pack of two 82mm recoil-less rifles (which you get as part of the company HQ anyway), one Zis-2, and two BS-3s. Yes, it's technically a three gun platoon, but why use the least common anti-tank gun as the mainstay? Another Battlefront mystery!
So I decided, by buying the two-pack of Zis-3/Zis-2 WW2 Soviet guns, to get two platoons of towed anti-tank guns: one of three Zis-2s, one of two BS-3s. Here is the first off the production line: the Zis-2s.
The crews are a mix of the crews included in the pack with the addition of spares from the helmet-heads within the Peter Pig Modern Africa range (a very useful range indeed for filling in the gaps in any Soviet-equipment-using force).
I decided to give my guns five crew members each, rather than the usual four, as I have a feeling that I might need every man I can get to turn back the eventual Israeli tide!
A quick bit of painting finished: the company HQ for my Six Day War UAR/Egyptian army.
That's all of the core troops done, but I do need to add the HMG platoon and some towed AT assets...and to make things even more complete, I could add the tanks that accompanied the non-mechanised infantry: T-34s and IS-IIIs.
In the meantime, here's the company HQ: two Big Men and a couple of 82mm Recoil-less Rifles.
Finally finished the final UAR/Egyptian infantry platoon for the Six Day War.
See the rest of the troops by clicking here.
That's just about it for the Egyptians now: only the company HQ to go now, and that's only eight figures, including Big Men. Be good to mechanise the little blighters but, as I've said before, I'll wait until the next sale before buying loads of trucks!
Must be time to start on the opposition now. Figures are bought: I just need to work out how best to represent the rather unique colour of Israeli tanks.
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A bit of a change this time: an AAR from the Stipsicz Hussars with an encounter set in French Indochina in 1951.
The game uses IABSM rather than CDS, perhaps appropriate given the period, and features a huge 6m table. A French column begins the game at either end, and heads towards a Point d'Appui in the middle. Needless to say, neither column nor PA escapes the attention of the Vietminh.
Click on the pic below to see all.
Another unit for my Six Day War Egyptians: the Reconnaissance Platoon consisting of three PT-76 amphibious tanks.
Amphibious, eh? Very useful in the desert!
Right: back to the infantry now!
I'm gradually getting to the end of that section of the lead mountain devoted to the UAR or Egyptian forces for the Six Day War. Here's the second infantry platoon, leaving only one more infantry platoon, the Company HQ, finishing the recon tanks, and then what odd bits of support I decide that I need.
The only real pain is the transport for the infantry company. Getting enough of the right sort of truck is going to be expensive: so I shall have to wait until the next Battlefront 40%-off sale!
Anyway, here's another twenty-six infantrymen, painted as before:
Now that I had broken the back of the vehicles needed for my UAR (Egyptian) force for the 6DW, it was time to start on the infantry. Platoons of twenty-six figures: three squads of eight plus a two-man Blindicide team.
These were standard Battlefront 15s, and painted up very nicely. Undercoat in Army Painter Skeleton Bone, then wash with GW Agrax Earthshade, then highlight with Foundry Raw Cotton (helmets); Vallejo Sand Yellow (Uniforms); with webbing in two shades of grey from GW.
Only another two platoons and the Company HQ to go!
You can see the rest of my Six Day War Egyptians by clicking here.
Those of you who follow this blog regularly will know that when I bought Battlefront 15mm plastic SU-100s for my WW2 Soviet army, I also bought another box to use for the Six Day War Egyptians.
The WW2 models turned out pretty well, so I was looking forward to a similar result with the Soviet-cast-offs-now-in-Egyptian-service versions.
Building them was easy: just the same as before but with the additional of an extra storage bin on the right front wing. An undercoat in sprayed on desert yellow was followed by a dark brown wash followed by two highlights: desert yellow again then what I would call a Bleached Bone colour. Tracks painted black with a light dry brush of dark grey, a few other details done, and Bob's your uncle.
Well, that's what I thought.
One thing about metal-and-resin tanks is that you rarely get a totally smooth finish on the model. The very nature of the stuff that they are made of makes them a bit rough: a roughness that comes up during the wash and dry brush process and makes them look a bit less like a toy.
Plastic, on the other hand, has a very smooth finish: the 'finished' tank destroyers looked way, way too clean, even for me, who likes a car-wash finish to his vehicles. These, however, were supposed to represent old vehicles: old vehicles that had spent plenty of time in the desert as well...and with an army not known, even today, for its high standards of maintenance.
They needed weathering in a big way, so it was off down to GW to see whether I could find anything there to help. The very helpful store manager not only sold me a pot of what they call Typhus Corrosion, but even showed me how to use it.
This stuff, TP we'll call it, is like a dark brown wash, but has a sediment in it that sticks to the model as well, nicely roughening it up. It's a bit like the stuff I'm now using on the bases - from the GW Technical range - which is like paint with little mini, mini ball bearings in it.
I painted the TP on just like any other wash, and practically had a heart attack. My lovely, pristine tank destroyers now looked like horrible, crusty brown blobs!
This was only the first stage, however, so once they had dried, I dry brushed in Bleached Bone again, and suddenly the detail came back up again...and came back up again very nicely. I particularly like the effect on the roadwheels.
So, here they are: Soviet cast-off WW2 tank destroyers in Egyptian service: looking every inch of how old they must have been. They'll be a nice contrast to the Israelis (when I get around to painting them) who I'm aiming to do in a showroom finish!
Some of you will remember that I got all excited by the Six Day War sale from Battlefront, and bought a whole load of figures and wrote army lists etc (army lists available here).
Now some six months later, the first of the figures have rolled off the painting table: a company of ten Egyptian T-55 tanks.
I've tried a few new things with these tanks. Firstly, I have used the new Texture basing system from Games Workshop. This is a fancy way of saying a pot of sand-coloured paint with lots of tiny silicon balls in it so that you paint it on and have an immediately, well, textured base. This is obviously a lot faster than my usual 'dipping into ballast' system, and has actually turned out quite well. I'll definitely use it for the rest of my 6DW armies.
The second thing was to use pre-made clumps of desert plants to dress the bases. These are also new from Games Workshop (called Mordenheim Turf or something!) and have also worked out quite well. Ditto as regards using them for the other figures I'll be painting.
Being GW, of course, they are a lot more expensive than you can get this material elsewhere: but then it is so convenient just to be able to pop in and buy what you need. You takes your choice...
Incidentally, I also had to learn how to count in Arabic in order to get the numbering right on the ten tanks. For those who might need to know, here's one to ten:
You can see the Six Day War Egyptian gallery by clicking here.
Regular readers will remember that I had sorted what armour I needed to buy in order to take advantage of the Battlefront Six Day War 40% off sale. It was therefore now time to look at the infantry contingent.
My intention was not to go too crazy here: probably only looking at a single company of Arab troops and a single company of Israeli troops. So I thought I'd start with the Egyptians.
The immediate problem here is matching the Battlefront boxes with the standard TOE for a UAR infantry platoon.
Battlefront’s breakdown, if you follow the way the box sets are put together is as follows:
Lovely figures, but where are all the LMGs? (Both pics from the Battlefront website)
That’s 93 men in all.
However, as far as I can tell from my reading, the UAR were organised on Soviet lines i.e. squads of ten, each with an LMG. That makes three platoons of thirty-one strong plus the CHQ of eight or 101 in all.
Looking at the TOE for a 1973 Yom Kippur war platoon, for example, they had squads of ten comprising NCO, eight men with AK-47s, one with an RPG and one with an LMG. The CHQ would also add an HQ/Weapons squad of eight men.
Now, if we follow the logic, and assume a Soviet breakdown, that means the Battlefront TOE assumes the heavier weapons have been moved to the CHQ (very reasonable) but is still very, very short on LMGs. Weird!
What I would like to model is:
That gives me a company of four Big Men, nine 8-man LMG squads in three platoons, three 2-man bazooka teams, and two 4-man RCL teams: a total of 90 men.
The problem is, of course, that although the numbers are just about the same, the distribution and weapons doesn’t match the BF offering: I’m short loads of LMGs.
Loads.
It must be something to do with modelling game mechanics, in the same way that IABSM doesn't necessarily represent every man in a squad.
missing!
Well this has sort of put a kibosh on the whole affair. If I want to model the company effectively, then I'd have to buy so many sets of the Company HQ that the 40% off is negated.
Unless anyone can come up with a solution, it's going to be an armour only purchase, leaving the infantry to another time...particularly as I've now started to look at Khurasan's Yom Kippur range! Maybe it's time to turn the clock forward a few years...
My regular opponent, Neil, pointed out that Battlefront were having a 40%-off sale on their Six Day War Arab & Israeli range, asking "so what we doing, then?"
Jon Snow and I know nothing about the Six Day War
Well "nothing" was my immediate answer, as my lead mountain has scaled new heights and I have lots of other things to be getting on with.
But my eyes kept getting drawn to his e-mail, until at last I could avoid the truth no longer. No matter that it was a new period for me, no matter that I know nothing about said period, no matter what, in fact: it was a 40%-off sale and I was going to spend lots of money!
That decided, the problem became one of what to buy. As I said, I know less than Jon Snow when it comes to the Six Day War, so a bit of rapid reading was called for. First up, what happened. As far as I can tell, the chronology is something like:
Excellent: all I need to know for the moment!
Now to look at what troops I need to buy. Today I'll look at tanks, as I'm too tired after work to get into the minutiae of infantry!
I'm looking at using the IABSM variant for the 6DW, so company level. According to the lists kindly sent to me by Lardy Nick Overland, a tank company consisted of an HQ of two tanks, and then three platoons of three tanks each.
As its the Israelis, I'll be fielding small numbers of good quality tanks, so I reckon I need four tanks of each of the main types. Looking at the FoW website, and consulting my lists, these seem to be as follows:
An israeli sho't (picture from the Battlefront website)
That's the Israelis sorted. Now for the Arabs.
I'm going to need lots of these, as I want a company-sized force to fight a platoon of Israeli tanks to make it a fair fight.
An Egyptian or Syrian tank company seems to have been an HQ of a single tank, then three platoons of three tanks each. A Jordanian tank company has two HQ tanks then four platoons of three vehicles each. That's 10 or 14 tanks.
Now which tanks to get?
It's a tricky one, as getting more than one tank company is going to be expensive.
UAR T-55 (picture from the Battlefront website)
Okay, let's go for the iconic Soviet tank: the T-55. I'm going to need ten of them, but Battlefront are selling them in three's, so I'll get twelve. I'll also get a single platoon of IS-3s.
Decided, particularly as any T-34/85s I might want can come from PSC.
So, the tank shopping list is as follows:
Gulp! Better start working out which of the children to sell first!
Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction)
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