Rapid Fire! Gulf wars in 1/72nd scale - Iraqi rocket brigade

With this post starts the presentation of my Gulf Wars ground armies. I have the full Iraqi 3rd Armoured Saladin division, the 5th Mechanized division and  many Qatari, Saudi, US and British  battalion sized units to show you. I'm in the process of basing the tanks for Rapid Fire! but basing is all they need so I hope to speed up the posts to keep your nails and hart safe...

A Frog-7 battalion is parked while the even more famous Scud-B passes guided by a communications Zil-157.

The Zil is an ICM plastic model. The Scud-B is a resin ARMO model. The Frog-7 are conversions from the Uragans of the last post.

The ARMO model is a beauty. The amount of parts and detail forces you to use a careful painting. The figures standing by are ordinary command sections I'll show you when posting the Iraqi infantry.

And here it is the Frog-7 with the famous red triangle of the Republican guard. All vehicles were painted Vallejo Iraqi sand. The missiles on the Frog-7 were painted buff as they appear to be in a different color I saw in photos of captured vehicles. 

Rapid Fire! Gulf Wars in 1/72nd scale - Converted Frog-7 for Iraq

The Frog-7 (Luna M), ground to ground missile system, was one of the last vehicles I still needed for my Gulf Wars Iraqi army.

This vehicle exist in resin but its expensive and I wanted at least three.

Somehow I remembered not to place the missiles from the 4D Puzzle Model S-300 AA missile system inside their tubes. Without knowing I had the beginning of the Frog-7 as the S-300 missiles are similar in shape to the Luna M.

When the Fabbri/Amercom (not sure about the origin) showed up in Portugal with the name Veículos Militares the number 2 was the BM-27 Uragan which uses the same Zil-135 truck as the Frog-7.

After looking carefully at the plans the main changes are relatively easy to be done:

Take out the 16 missile pod and its support from the Uragan and use Plasticard tubing, rod and plate for most of necessary parts.

The launching ramp for the missile is in a triangular shape. Be careful with this part. I made mine 2 or 3 mm thicker and it shows.

The end of the missile (from the S-300 AA missile) had to be increased in 1 cm for proper length.

The missile elevator was the trickiest part. I burned and twisted a number of plastic parts until I got this ugly thing.

The elevator ended a bit shorter and it should be almost as tall as the launching ramp (but as the launching ramp is also too tall, maybe the elevator is not that bad... who knows...).

Three Frog-7 represent a Battalion for Rapid Fire! rules. 

With all this scratch building no Frog-7 is exactly similar to the other but the final result is Ok for me.

One of the most difficult parts in these diecast vehicles is to open them and extract parts as it is needed here. Find a screwdriver that fits ONLY and tightly in one of the three sides of the triangle and apply some strenght in order to unscrew it.  

Most of the faults are hardly seen after priming. 

Lebanon 1982, 1/87th &1/100th scale Syrian Missile battalions and Self-Propelled Artillery

The Syrian Scud B were also placed in Lebanon, but kept as  a strategic reserve. These models are QRF.

Same with the Frog 7, both role and brand.

The BM-21 are QRF and uncamouflaged as some photos I saw.

These are Made In China trucks transformed into BM-21. They are roughly 1/90th scale and fit nicely with the previous QRF´s.

The main changes were new resin wheels (from 1/43 cars) and Evergreen rocket tubes, alongated sides and side exaust tubing.

 These are refuelling trucks of unknown origin, with a new paint job inspired on recent photos of these kind of trucks.

T-34 122mm SP are  conversions from the Kopro T-34  in 1/87th scale. The 122mm had to be scratchbuilt and some rectangular boxes and other details were made in Evergreen. The figures are 15mm Peter Pig Syrians.

The BRDM-2 AT-5 Spandrel are Skytrex.

The 2S1 Gvozdika and  2S3 Akatsyia are also QRF. The latest were not in Lebanon in 1982 but are nice models.