Friday 26 August 2016

Rapid Fire! Modern Wars in Africa - Mixed bunch of Angolan, Portuguese and South African units.

This new series will show my armies for the long suffering African continent since the beginning of the Portuguese Colonial Wars in 1961 and the conflicts between UNITA, the SADF and MPLA in Angola up to nowadays.

This post was fueled by some well done FB pages on the African modern wars.

Probably I won't be making many updates as this models were built some years by now but we can never know when the African mosquito bites again.


Some Airfix G-91 in Portuguese service. The models were built straight from the box with scratch built rockets. This aircraft was used in the Colonial wars instead of the much faster F-86 Sabre which was had its usage prohibited by NATO. 


After the end of the Portuguese  Colonial wars in 1974, Angola continued receiving Soviet weapons and built its own air force many times operated by Cuban pilots. 

Here you can see two Mig-21 from Fujimi. 


SU-22 from Italeri. 


SU-7 from KP.

Mil-Mi 8 from KP.

Mil-Mi 24 from Airfix.


Aerospatiale Gazelle from Heller with scratch built HOT missiles.




For the MPLA infantry I used ESCI modern Warsaw Pact, Vietcong and also the Spetnaz boxes. The soft hat and berets of the figures of ESCI Nato infantry and ground crew provided the adequate cover for the strong Angolan sun.

Some WWII figures and weapons were occasionally used as crew for mortars and HMGs.




Up to now 3 battalions of RF! MPLA already made. In the future probably some new rounder basing will change its appearance as I want 2s and 3s in each stand in order to move them faster on the table ( "what for you jerk, you never play!").

All figures received a strong coat of PVA as protection and it really works.



Finally a lonely Mirage III from Heller is the only thing the South African air force can use up to now.



Monday 1 August 2016

Rapid Fire! Russian Contemporary Wars in 1/72nd scale - Smerch from Warmaster


As I enjoy a small break from the beach here comes the BM-30 Smerch, a 280mm Russian missile system in service since the 80ies. The model is a Warmaster Die-cast ordered directly from China through AliExpress. 




Very few changes: some lights and flag painted, added antennae and new weathering to match my usual base.