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. 

Rapid Fire!/Able Archer, The Gulf War in 20mm - The Iraqi 5th Mechanized Division Mohammed Ibn Al-Kasim (Part 1) - The 15th Mechanized Brigade

Here the 5th Armoured Regiment (T-59 tanks) enter triumphantly the Saudi border city of Khafji on the night of 29th of January and passes under the famous city arch. The T-59 are Cromwell models and the command 'Enigma' tank is Ace. 

The 'Enigma' Ace model is not the easiest model, which is the usual with this brand, but the final result is quite good and the model is quite sturdy. 

The resin T-59 from Cromwell is very well done, easy to build and quite detailed. The figures are metal Skytrex. 

Up to now a total of 10 K-63 APC are the three Mechanized Battalions of the 15th Brigade. The ideal number is 12 though (4 in each battalion, 1 per company, plus a command version) so still two command K-63 (YW701) to go. The infantry are the usual Esci conversions with many Irregular Miniatures figures. 

Half of the K-63 are resin Red Star models with Skytrex metal HMG. The YW701  also got a DSKH 12,7mm from Skytrex. 

The other half are my own builds. I copied the Red Star measures and duplicated them in Evergreen plastic card. Its not complicated mainly because of the straight lines of the K-63. The HMG's are also scratch built. The top grill is made of some plastic pieces I had around and the hatches are two component paste.

The more difficult are the wheels. As you can see on the JP model (JP its me...) on the right I made the wheel with cut down cylinders from plastic tubing. Then I filled them with two component paste and finally an even small cylinder right in the middle. It was a repetitive procedure but it paid off in the end. On the left you have another Red Star model as comparison. 

Next: Iraqi 20th Mechanized Brigade, 5th Mechanized Division. 

Rapid Fire! / Able Archer - Iraqi Navy 1991 in 20mm - The Patrol Boats of the Khafji operation

On the night of 29th January 1991 the Iraqi navy tried one of its two daring and courageous sea raids of the war. For that the Iraqis used 17 'small Patrol Boats' from which infantry was landed in Saudi Arabian territory in order to support the attack of the III Corps at Khafji. I could never find any information about exactly what these PB's were. Recently I found these pictures in the web: 

They came under a Google search for the Iraqi Swari Patrol Boats and they were referring  to an abandoned Iraqi PB at Ras Al-Ard, Kuwait in 1991. I'm not sure that these kind of PB's were the ones on the 29th of January raid but as I have no more information I had a go at scratch building a couple of them. 

The P6 Torpedo Boat that goes along the two PB's on the first picture already had its article two years ago. If you want to visit it you can go to: 

http://jpwargamingplace.blogspot.com/2016/04/iraqi-p-6-torpedo-boat-kuwait-1991.html

The PB's are apparently indigenous designs but not even that I'm really sure. I used Blue Foam to get the basic shape of the boats and some card for the driver/troop compartment. The figures are Modern Esci figures, the ones holding a MG42. I used two of them as drivers with GreenStuff arms and four others as firers of the BPM ZU-23-2. The original pictures clearly shows the 14,5mm Soviet HMG instead but I didn't had them at hand. 

The boats were painted as close as I could to the photos of the real thing which includes a red triangle on the deck. So may be the raid was made by Republican Guard units? Never find any confirmation. Its just a thought. 

I made the troop compartment large enough for some six/eight figures each. 

The usual anchor chain was added as well a small Iraqi flag. 

The sea was made of a mixture of hot glue and and some ready to use plaster  I had around. 

This raid finished very badly for the Iraqis as the PB force was completely destroyed at sea by RAF Jaguars. Maybe due to the level of destruction this force suffered there aren't many details available about the 'Khafji Patrol Boat Raid' (as I call it...). 

Next: More France 1940. 

Rapid Fire! 20mm Gulf War - Saladin's Division (part 10 and last) - The Divisional artillery

The divisional artillery of the 3rd Saladin AD had 80 2S1 Gvozdika systems and 16 2S3 Akatsya systems divided by six regiments. What I have up to now is the equivalent of just one or  two of those regiments (depending on three models or six per regiment, which is sometimes variable in RF! terms).

The farthest battery (two SPG's) was my first and is made of Cromwell models. The battery to the left is ACE and the one to the right is Armo-Jadar.

Finally I could build a simple and effective ACE model. Its 2S1 is relatively simple with few pieces which helps a lot the deployment of several of them .

This Skytrex 37mm AA gun stands for the S-60 57mm of which I have none. 

This post concludes my Iraqi 3rd Saladin  Armoured Division. This division alone has 100 model vehicles and around 200 figures and this series of posts were a good way to force me to base all vehicles and finish two or three models. 

Later on I´ll do the same with the 5th Mechanized Division, another important part of Iraqi III corps in 1991. 

Next: getting back to WWII (No, no Dukirk. The movie didn't sparked any emotions on me regarding getting back to France 1940. Its a great movie in artistic terms but for me it left a lot to desire in terms of magnitude and scope of the events. So what I'll humbly show you next is what happenned four years later in a stretch of land some 8 km long. Any hints?).

Rapid Fire! 20mm Gulf War - Saladin's Division (part 9) - The 20th Reconnaissance Battalion

The 20th Recce Battalion advances cautiously along a Kuwait side road...

This battalion has BRDM-2 and BTR-50PU in its organization. All models are metal Skytrex with one lonely plastic ACE BTR-50PU. There is also an extra BRDM-2 with AT-5 Spandrel. This one should be in a dedicated A/T battalion but for now he is watching the flank of its parent division.

The ACE model is another enervating model of this company. Plenty of pieces, as well as flash, gives in the end of building a nice representation of the type. I placed an ESCI WWII British tank commander as crew with bended arms and new binoculars like the nice painting in the ACE box artwork.

This Skytrex BTR-50PU started its life as a simple BTR-50P infantry carrier. But then I had no division to allocate this lonely model and I changed it into the Recce version. One more half-turret made of BlueStuff was added to the front and plenty of rear stuctures were made out of EverGreen plastics. Here I just copied the ACE model for the two being as similar as possible.

Next (last post for this division): SP artillery.

Rapid Fire! 20mm Gulf War - Saladin's Division (part 8) - The 95th Air Defence Regiment

The 95th ADR leaves the highway and rushes to the defensive revetments build by the engineers of its Division.

Still incomplete the regiment has four Zsu-23-4 Shilka and two SA-9 Gaskin . The Gaskins are Armo models as well as the closer rank of Shilkas. The farthest Shilkas are Cromwell making this a 100% resin regiment. The figures are metal Skytrex.

 

The SA-2 Guideline is no integral part of the regiment but comes from III Corps support. Its a resin Planet Model with Irregular Miniatures and Skytrex crew.

The SA-8 Gopher is another help from III Corps support. The model is entirely scratchbuilt in Evergreen plastics.

I based this one on 1/35th plans I saw in Millitary Modelling.  On the time of its making there were no commercialy available models of the SA-8.

The Iraqi Air Defense managed to shoot most of the 75 allied aircraft lost during the Kuwait war but was almost obliterated in the process. 

Now some SA-6 Gainful. The first two are Cromwell with additional rails and the last one is a repainted Altaya Die-cast model.

  

 

Finally some Roland on AMX-30 chassis from Altaya simply repainted. These weapons were mostly in the Republican Guard units but some elite units of the army also received them, so its probable they found their way up to III Corps.

Next: Recce Battalion.

Rapid Fire! 20mm Gulf War - Saladin's Division (part 7) - The 8th Mechanized Infantry Brigade

The full 8th Mechanized Brigade assembles by the river Euphrates before invading Kuweit in August 1990...

This brigade is more heavy on infantry (3 regiments/battalions) than on armour (1 regiment). Even though its a quite powerful brigade as all infantry is mounted on BMP-1 and the tanks are T-72's.

As usual all BMP-1 are Skytrex with one ACE model in the middle. The T-72 are a mixture of Skytrex; converted T-80 from Revell and one 4D model ('what, those lousy models from China were all tanks have the same tracks? You're bullshiting me!'. ' Yes' -this is me speaking now- 'one of those! But with many changes'. 'Ahhhhh' - I can hear you say as a sign of relief). 

One of the BMP regiment (3rd Mechanized) had its vehicles camouflaged as the ones that are rotting in a swamp in the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.

I painted all the infantry in this brigade in winter colours. Some of the figures have camouflaged trousers as usual with the Iraqis. The models are mainly ESCI Warsaw Pact, Spetnaz and Vietnamese figures with US M-1 helmets from various origins.

The command groups have Skytrex figures like the Radio Operators, the Sagger and the SA7. The other figures are ESCI including the Dragunov sniper.

Other command groups have the Saggers made out from air-to-air missiles and an AGS-30 granade launcher from Skytrex.

Another of the Mechanized battalions with a total of 32 figures and four vehicles.

The T-72 M1 from Skytrex. A true 'shelf bender'...

And the Revell conversions. These two were the last made and the ones that came out better.

Each of the infantry battalions have one of these Atlantic Jeeps. They pretend to be the Fiat Campagnola sold by yugoslavia to Iraq. But as they have a toy look they will be here until I can find a better replacement.

               

                                                                      

On the first picture of this post (top right corner) you can see the T-72 4D Model. I had to buy all different 16 first generation models from 4D in order to have the three or four that I wanted as they come all together in two separate boxes. Aliexpress site mentions them as 1/72nd scale models, but by scrolling a little more on the page you can see that almost all models share the same wheels and tracks (pretty ugly things, by the way!) and a few of them are clearly much smaller than 1/72nd scale. By looking at the box covers you may think you have first class models... in fact they are mostly toys.

But at 2 Euro each they have to be good for something. I started with the T-72 as the tank battalion of this brigade still didn't have a command vehicle. The wheels are good for nothing and I replaced them with surplus ModelCollect wheels which are excellent. The rear dented wheel is a normal wheel carved with a welding tool.

 

 On the turret the original gun barrel is too short and this one was augmented by carving the mantlet and making it part of the barrel itself and fixing everything to a surplus mantlet from ModelCollect. Also a figure, a Chinese optical dazzler, various pieces for the original incomplete Dshk (in green), the grenade launchers, the headlights, etc were added and made mostly from Evergreen plastics.

In the end the model became nice. If I had started the T-72 fleet more recently I would have made more T-72's in this way probably by moulding some road wheels when the ModelCollect surplus ones were over. 

Osprey book say each T-72 M1 was around 1 million US dollars. They are wrong! If you are patient enough you can buy them for 2 Euro!

Next: the 95th Air Defence Regiment of the Saladin AD.