Bir Hakeim in 20mm for Rapid Fire! rules

Another old project of mine got concluded or at least its presentable. Still missing are some vehicle hidings, a pair of 75mm guns, and Koenig's staff car together with Miss Susan Travers. This was another project with plenty of scratch building and some guessing as the Bir Hakeim compound is not easy to understand in all its details.

Rapid Fire! rules - Bir Hakeim 1942 (part 10) - The French anti-tank guns

 

The Free French at Bir hakeim had 30x 75mm guns (6x in RF! terms) in the anti-tank role with cut-out shields and truck tyres in order to make a lower and smaller silhouette. Together with those the French also had 7x 47mm and 18x 25mm anti tank guns. As I already placed 3x 25mm guns in SP mode on top of Morris trucks I just added one more. 

The  FtF 75mm guns had its shields cut like the one present at Les Invalides Army Museum. The 47mm and 25mm are 3d prints in resin by BPM. This brand evolved greatly from the days of the PLA plastic used initially. Unfortunately I just ordered these two hoping that its small weight and size would escape customs. To no avail. BPM dispatched the parcel in a couple of days but it took a month to reach Portugal and then customs made me pay more for it than for the original models. Brexit oblige...

The guns were crewed with old plastic figures from Airfix and Matchbox and some newer ones from StreletsR. Many of the figures had rifles and SMGs taken out and replaced with shells. 

A Chad-Ubangi crewed 75mm gun. I´m not sure about this but I´ve seen a greater number of gun crews with helmets in the period pictures maybe because the artillery spots attracted plenty of artillery fire. 

The extras from the FFL Strelets box of support weapons makes good artillerymen. 

The usage of shells in the old Airfix and figures can be seen in several figures with the 8th Army Vickers No1 (far right making a very good anti-tank crewman). 

The main problem with this batch is the usage of the original FtF wheels as I couldn´t find twelve equal truck tyres. 

This is the Matchbox 1941 Cadillac I found in a supermarket used for scale in a previous post on pine tree woods. It will become the command car of an Umbau column for Holland 1944. Most surely no Cadillac reached Holland after 1940 but even so this one must not be far away from other european classy cars of the period. This one belonged to my youngest and had to be painted and based in the night shift while he was sleeping. 

Next: an Angolan Brigade for Cuito Canavale or the last few walls of Bir Hakeim.

RFR/Able Archer - The Portuguese Brigada Mecanizada 2008-24 in 20mm size

This Brigade is one of the three of the Portuguese army. It's made around a powerful group of Leopard 2A6 and infantry on M-113 under the fire protection of M-109 A5. The models came from a number of different brands like Die-cast Altaya, Riich, 3d BPM and many conversions. The infantry are plastic US, NATO and German figures with cuts in the weapons for them to look like the G3.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - More wheels and tracks for the German side

At the crossroads of Karl-Heinz-Rumenigge, still in German soil, a column of towing vehicle prepares to give a ride to its guns. Lurking in the woods the Neubaufahrzeug of Pz.Abt,zbv 40 prepares its engines to join the column. 

The Kfz 69 are FtF  and the Sdkfz 10 are BPM 3d prints. Both will pull the 37mm Pak, 20mm AA and 75mm IG of several units. The BPM models need some sort of paste in the areas were the printing lines are more visible. Besides the original BPM figures I added a few S&S figures in their relaxed poses to this lot. 

The FtF kits are little marvels of enginneering with lots of detail and very easy to put together. 

And what to say about this BPM model? One piece and its done. 

The S&S passengers are very nice. This one is looking at his wrist watch and holds a map or at least I think thats what he does. The driver is my usual plastic torso with GreenStuff arms.

The Neubaufahrzeug are Minigeneral 3d prints with Fujimi tankers with Greenstuffed bonnet. I painted them in plain Panzer grey as the rest of the lot hoping they can one day reach the plains of Ukraine in 1941. In fact the few Neubaufahrzeug B, after its usage in Norway 1940, were sent to Russia and lost there against BT-7s.

As can be seen here they almost participated in the French campaign but became disheartened at the sight of the Char B1bis and fled to Germany behind their 20mm armour plates... After all they were Propaganda tanks. 

Next: a few more models for the 21st PD in Normandy.

Rapid Fire! Market Garden in 20mm - Oddities and such (part 10) - A few Allied missing bits for the new RF book

This week a few more new models were added to the Allied side. The Armoured Cars and trailers came in recent parcels but the Jeeps were old models waiting to be built or repainted for years. The idea was to make the a Recce squadron for a British divisions at Garden and the first few Jeeps for the US 101st Airborne division. 

The AEC armoured car is a BPM 3d print as well as all trailers. The Staghound A/C is RTR Raventhorpe. The Jeeps are Airfix (the ones that comes with the LVT-4, grey colour), Fujimi (the green one with trailer) and Hasegawa (with the Browning MG). All models got plenty of extras as figures, stowage, jerrycans, windscreen covers, etc. 

The drivers are plastic Esci or Revell figures with arms from the spare box. 

 

These models were great fun to build. I used tissue paper for the windscreen covers and PVA to stick them. 

The MG armed Jeep got a Valiant Browning and the binoculars figure from Hasegawa bent with fire until it could man the MG. 

The final result gives a nice and different model. The helmets of the Hasegawa figures got the 1st aid kit for them to look like paratroopers. The US vehicles were painted GW Castellan Green. 

The RTR is easy to put together with only turret, gun and body as separate parts. The stowage is already modelled in its place so only a figure, an MG and a antenna were necessary as extras. 

The BPM AEC A/C was painted first with thick varnish before the grey primer and again this seems to cover most of the printing lines. Even so this technology is getting better and better and detail is also increasing. These British vehicles were painted Vallejo WW2 Russian Uniform. 

Next: more OMG or France 1940.

Rapid Fire! Desert War 1940-43 in 20mm - Last few PzIII for the DAK

A mixed column of PzIII's both from 15th PD and 21st PD approaches the oasis of Ras-El-Angelamerkel following Rommel's plan to invade Egypt.

 

These PzIII are the last eight I needed for the two DAK Panzer divisions. Now they total forty PzIII and  only one PzIVD and a few PzII are missing for my DAK tanks to be complete. At the same time that it's great to be finishing a Corps size unit like the DAK one can't avoid the feeling of some sadness for something that is now over and that you were building for so many years. Of course giving stupid names to the places were your models are being pictured helps lowering the gloom...

 

 

Six of the Pz III are J versions converted from the PSC PzIIIG/H by changing only the gun barrel.

 

 

The conversion is quite simple. I used some metal hollow metal tubing I bought in my last raid in Lisbon. You just need to drill the jacket with a 2 millimeters driller and insert the metal tubing. The Pz III J already had the long 50mm L/60 gun but still used the mantlet of the shorter L/42 gun instead of the space armour frame of the later L version.

 

                            

                               

 

The two command tanks are S-Models with PSC commanders. They are straight from the box constructions without the typical rear antenna of the standard Panzerbefelhswagen in short supply in the DAK.

 

 

 

 

The two 15Cm sIG33 PzII's are hot from the printers BPM models. They are a nice rendering of this important machine for the OB of the 90th Light Division and a not very common model as only 12 were actually built.

 

The usual stowage, antennae and crew was added as well as a left front vision slit that is missing.

 

 

You can recognize the crew from the old trusty Airfix DAK surrendering figure, Matchbox hard plastic DAK figure; Hasegawa Tiger commander and PSC 50mm gun observer.

 

Next: A return to France 1940 with an other hartbreaking finish of some important machines of this conflict.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - Numbers for the 6th and 7th Panzer Divisions

Piercing the French-German border at the river Meuse close to the village of Je-ne-sais-pas-le-Nom, the Pz 35t's and 38t's of both  6th and 7th PD quickly rush to their objectives.

The Pz35t's are Minigeneral and have early Blitzkrieg marking for one of the battalions of the 6thPD.

Two battalions also finished for the 7thPD with these Minigeneral Pz35t's. I used different markings according to the different battalions they will belong to, one closer to the Polish campaign and the other with the big numbers for the French campaign.

The Sdkfz 221 and 222 are BPM and have the usual extras of crew, stowage, antennae and Nazi SOB flag.

Next: finishing the tanks for the DAK.

Rapid Fire!/ Able Archer, The Gulf War in 20mm - The Iraqi 5th Mechanized Division Mohammed Ibn Al-Kasim (Part 4) - Reconnaissance and Artillery

Both the Reconnaissance Battalion and the Artillery Regiment of the 5th Iraqi MD are still incomplete. The Recce battalion is still missing the BTR-50PU and the artillery has even bigger problem as main source indicates 2S1's as the SPG of the regiment. The problem is that such allocation of 2S1 SPG's is unlikely as Iraq received 50 of them and the 3rd Saladin AD seems to have collected all of them. Once again as both the 5th MD and the 3rd AD operated in the same area there may be a understandable mistake here. Nevertheless I keep without knowing which kind of SPG did this regiment had - if any. 

Regarding what is already in the shelves ready for a fight against the glass, the Recce Battalion has three of the BPM Panhard AML. I just added the optical range finder and some crew. 

May be one day I make a few of them for the Portuguese wars in Africa...

The artillery is the Soviet M-46 130mm. I used some parts of the Irregular Miniatures Really Useful Guns range and scratch built the rest with plastic card and tubing. The wheels are from a 1/43 scale rally car.  The figures are Skytrex WWII Americans turned into Middle Easterners. 

Finally the S-60 AA guns are in fact 37mm WWII Soviet guns (Irregular Miniatures again). The overall difference is some as the S-60 has a shield and is slightly bigger  but if one day I find them I'll send these 37mm to the infantry as Iraq had over 250 of them. 

The crew of this AA gun is the Airfix Bofors crew with new heads. 

Next: more 5th MD and its Artillery Corps support or the attached 20th Infantry Brigade.  

Rapid Fire!/Able Archer, The Gulf War in 20mm - The Iraqi 5th Mechanized Division Mohammed Ibn Al-Kasim (Part 3) - The 26th Armoured Brigade

The 26th Armoured Brigade approaches Khafji with its three tank regiments in front and its mechanized battalion to the rear. This brigade has a total of 21 T-55 based tanks (12 are T-59/69 conversions) all but one being Altaya Die-casts. 

This is the converted Altaya T-55 turned into a T-69 (an easy external difference to distinguish from the T-59 are the headlights, covered here in the T-69 and the same as the original T-55 in the T-59). 

The Chinese T-59/69 in Iraqi service had stowage racks around the turret. 

The stowage racks are very difficult to do, specially when you need them for plenty models, so I used one big piece of two component paste and modelled it accordingly. Then a careful painting tried to disguise the imperfections.  

Comparing the original Altaya in Polish colours and the final conversion. 

The changes were: 

- Hull side protections made in Evergreen plastic card.

- Fume launchers in Evergreen tubing.

- Headlights and turret Laser Range Finder in plastic foam.

- Air conditioning ventilator and stowage racks in turret made out of two component paste. 

Another Ace command 'Enigma' T-55 for one of the tank regiments. 

The Mechanized Battalion of the 26th Brigade was equipped with MTLB APC's. The two models to the right are Cromwell and the one to the left is BPM.

Next: Recce Battalion and artillery of the 5th MD . 

Rapid Fire!/Able Archer, The Gulf War in 20mm - The Iraqi 5th Mechanized Division Mohammed Ibn Al-Kasim (Part 2) - The 20th Mechanized Brigade

The 20th Iraqi Mechanized Brigade gathers around a wadi in southern Kuwait to support the attack on Khafji on the 29th January 1991.

The Armoured battalion of this brigade (the 10th Armoured Regiment) was built around the Hobby Master Die-cast excellent T-55. A very important detail is this model is its metal gun barrel which makes it long lasting. I only added a few crewmen and  repainted a few parts including the main symbol of this Regiment, the red bore evacuator. 

The only non-Hobby Master model in this regiment is this Ace T-55.

The command tank of the regiment is another Ace 'Enigma' T-55, this time with two Skytrex figures. These command tanks had no markings whatsoever which led to some confusion along the years. 

Now problems begin. I couldn't find any certainty about the APC's that the three mechanized battalions of the 20th Brigade had. One source says BMP-1, but I think this is due to the proximity of the 3rd Saladin AD. A picture shows a K-63 with a unit's rectangle that may have been from this brigade. To add to the confusion, the 5h MD had during the Iran-Iraq war plenty OT-64 Skot. So I like to think that each of the three battalions had one of these APC's as its main vehicle. 

So I placed in the 2nd Battalion the OT-64 from BPM, which is one of their best models, simple and with very few printing lines. One of them was converted to a command version. 

The other three are normal OT-64. Maybe even they were  never in the OB of the 5th MD as some sources say this division was fully tracked in its APC's but I like to think the opposite. 

The 1st Battalion is equipped with K-63. This time I had no patience  to build my own 'JP models' and used three S&S models. They are the same length as the Red Star and my copies but a bit wider. As S&S are more recent they probably made it closer to the real vehicle.  

The infantry are my usual Esci conversions with Modern Russian and Vietcong bodies and WWII US heads. 

The support weapons are a mixture of WWII US figures and Skytrex metals. The mortar crew includes a conversion of a Matchbox British paratrooper. 

Next: the 26th Armoured Brigade, 5th Iraqi MD.