1st US Armored Division in Tunisia, 1943, in 20mm size and for RF! rules

The green 1st US Armored Division (the "Old Ironsides") is famous for its action - and losses - around mid February 1943 in Tunisia against the DAK veterans. In time the division will become much better and won´t "charge across the planes" as it was taught to do in exercises, only to be picked by flanking fire and became an important unit in the fighting in Italy until the enemy's surrender. The models are: Tanks- Hasegawa, Matchbox, MiniGeneral, Esci and Airfix; M7s - Matchbox; M3 GMC - Airfix conversions; Dodge HMC - Esci.

Rapid Fire! New additions to 1st US Armored Division in Tunisia, 1943 - M-7 SPG battalion

This battalion was made mainly using the Matchbox M-7 Priest, some OP Willys Jeep from Airfix and a Hasegawa 2-1/2 truck for ammo supply.

I tried to get the M-7's as colourful as possible so I grabbed all shiny details applied to US vehicles during the Tunisian campaign. The white stars have a blue background and yellow circle; there is a 'V' marking I saw in a B/W Picture and the US flag used at the time of Operation Torch painted in the MG pulpit. Also different  camouflage was applied.

The figures come from many different places as I had only left a few of the originals. The others are serving Saddam Hussein's army and possibly somewhere else I can't remember. More about this in a series of future posts.

The Willys Jeep had some changes with the loss of the windscreen and the placing of the MG support close to the right seat. In the Tunisian campaign the MG's for the Jeeps were also switched for the more usual Browning .30  and the water cooled .50 instead of the kit's  air cooled .50 cal. The radio figures are metal Irregular Miniatures.

The primer cloud was also used to finish one more M-7 Priest for the 11th Royal Horse Artillery....

... and a M-4 support HT with 81mm mortar for the late war period. 

Rapid Fire! New additions to 1st US Armored division in Tunisia, 1943 - More Shermans.

'Major Jim' was the Sherman from the CO of the 2nd Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment. The hull is the Revell 76mm Sherman and the turret comes from the Matchbox Firefly. The mantlet, gun and bogies  are scratchbuilt for the early version of the M4 Sherman.

And now the reason to get back to Tunisia (there is always a strange reason to get back to a wargaming period...). I had 4 very old soft plastic Atlantic Sherman. Apparently they are useless being short in height and with a strange gun and mantlet. But the rest is reasonable. So I raised the hull from the tracks some 2mm with the help of hot glue, built a new mantlet from GreenStuff and EverGreen styrene and placed an accurate 75mm gun taken from left over Pz IV barrels. The two strange middle wheels close to the bogies were also taken out with an X-Acto.

Like this they become close to the Airfix Sherman and 1st US AD grew in numbers.

I found another half priced Lee from Altaya in a toy fair and repainted it with the colours of the 2nd Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment. The commander is completely scratchbuilt from an Esci British torso from their Churchill tank with german arms with binoculars and GreenStuff helmet.

From left to right the new stuff: The four Atlantic Sherman; 'Major Jim' and the Lee; two M4 from Airfix and an Esci/Italeri in the far end.

For you to find the correct markings for the US 1st Armored in Tunisia you must buy, beg or steal (or ask to JMM, he will find it...) 'First Blood-US 1st Arm.Div. in Tunisia' from Claude Gillono, Firefly Collection.

And now lets give some mobile artillery to 1st Armored otherwise things will be even worse then they historically where.

Rapid Fire! 20mm Tunisia 1943 - US Mechanised Infantry Battalion

Just a few more models for Tunisia 1943 before a few days out. These are some M-3 HT and a few 37mm A/T guns.

Once again there is a mix of old material of mine not yet built and painted and some offerings by JMM and JF. 

This is the classic Hasegawa M-4A1 mortar carrier turned into an M-3 by carving out the winch and mounting an Evergreen unditching roller.

Crew are different scales Revell, Matchbox, Airfix and Irregular Miniatures all happily living together.

This one is a resin Milicast M-3 with added metal sand bags. The winch was also replaced by the roller.

The Italeri M-3 with a crewman with a Valiant british body and American head, looking curious at the camera, Robert de Niro style asking "are you talking to me?...".

The 37mm guns are Hasegawa and Fujimi with Irregular Miniatures crews.

This is the final idea. The infantry is Airfix, Atlantic, Esci and Revell. I have six such battalions, with 6 extra figures (15 total) per company to make Omaha beach D-Day assault companies.

Rapid Fire! M-3 GMC 75mm TD in Tunisia 1943

The problem continued : what to do with the kits JF and JMM gave me. After having read already something about the Tunisian 1943 campaign is easily noticeable the importance of the US Tank Destroyer battalions equipped with M-6 37mm GMC and M-3 75mm GMC. 

 Not  counting the already built ones, you can see here for NW 43-45 campaigns...

... and some other for a british motor battalion, I still had a total of 11 M-3 HT to be built or painted, both my own as well as from last friend's gifts.

 Discounting three each for a 2nd British motor battalion (to go along my new 22nd armoured brigade) and a US mechanised infantry battalion for Tunisia  that left five surplus  M-3,  the right number for a US Rapid Fire TD battalion 1943.

Let's use them then: you need Evergreen plastic card, plate, tubing and rod, 15 artillery figures and some nice plans of the AFV itself. If you don't want to bother too much look in the web for the Griffon 1/35th scale model and you will have detailed photos from all conceivable angles.

This is the general idea. You pick a Matchbox or an Airfix M-3 and build a protective shield for the old 75mm 1897 US French copy.

At the back you need two  large stowage boxes that I just cut from thick styrene.

The ones in the 1st row with a top white wall of styrene are Matchbox (originally with the 4x12,7 AA) gun, the others at the back are Airfix.

The interior was very simplified as the crew will cover most of the detail.

The gun itself was made of three layers of rod and tubing. The rings around the tube are open sections of tubing made to fit the slimmer main tube.

Some of the HT's had no front roller which had to be made from petrol drums of unknown origin.

The artillery crew are 20mm Irregular Miniatures from their excelent Really Useful Range.

And here they are already painted. Two M-3 Lee took the lift of spray and brush but more on these later on.

A few back packs made out of Green Stuff were placed around the crew box.

 

As you can see the crew covers most of the interior detail something I learned from the late Dave Howitt of Brittania Miniatures.

 

At El Guettar the 601stTD battalion lost 21 of it's own TD's but destroyed about 30 panzers.

The two Lee were transformed from Hasegawa 1/72nd scale Grants. They were also offers one from JF and another from JMM and still sported the desert jerboa. The problem was the turret for which I used some 1/76th Airfix Lee turret, left overs from my desert Grants. A simple Evergreen mantlet and the original Hasegawa gun were added and it's done.

Curiously enough the 1/76th turret fits nicely to the 1/72nd hull.

Rapid Fire! 20mm U.S armour in Tunisia 1943

What to do with that sea of plastic armour that JF and JMM gave me?

Normandy ? Ardennes? No, too crowded by now...

Besides most of the kits are Esci and Hasegawa (also some  Fujimi, Matchbox and Airfix) with  that tendency for mid-war period of the older plastic brands...

Tunisia 1943 emerged as the most obvious solution. For the Americans I only had built three M3 Lee fully finished and  based but always wanted to know more about Sidi Bou Zid, Kasserine pass and El Guettar. This was a good way to do it.

After doing some German vehicles you can see in some of the last posts, lets move to the U.S 1st Armored Division. 

One of the most interesting aspects of modelling this division is the yellow markings on their vehicles. It gives these vehicles a unique look and the rest of the markings are also visually appealing. 

Sherman M4 and M4A1. The 13th Armored regiment had big yellow numbers painted on the hull and small black numbers inside the turret star.

 I didn't change the M4 VVS suspension into the M3 bogies as the VVSS were also used as replacements after the initial  heavy casualties, as this photo shows. Then this suspension became famous for many more Sherman types. The only big change was the mantlet that was reduced to the smaller initial version (M34 gun mount).

M3 Lee: besides the yellow markings they sported large white numbers in the front hull.

I placed the counterweight at the end of the 75mm barrel as many had so in the Tunisian TOW.

M3 Stuart: these ones had three red stripes inside the turret star.

This Matchbox Stuart has a crewman from Hasegawa and another one from Skytrex.

Soft skin vehicles: all are Esci.

Dodge WC51 carrying an heavy MG and M3A1 White for command.

GMC M6 37mm with crews from Esci and Hasegawa.

Germans ahead!! Lets get back to Fort Dick, sorry, Dix!...

Rapid Fire! 20mm Tunisia 1943 - More German AFV's

Well, the poll for the brand and scale of the latest Pineapple Miniatures is over as all offers are already sent for many parts of the world, as you can see in those numerous post comments.

Coming back to normal life, a few more German AFV'S for Tunisia.

The Pz III N that accompanied the Tiger I. Repainted Altaya model. 

Sdkfz 233 from Altaya.

The crew is Esci and Atlantic.

38 (t) with 7,5 cm from Esci.

The two crew men that comes with the kit are some 30 years old but still fit very well alongside the more recent ones.

Stug III F/8 from Esci with Hasegawa crewman. Only one model is necessary as only three were given to 10th PD.

Rapid Fire! 20mm Tunisia 1943 - Tiger tanks

The biggest problem about modelling Tunisian German Tigers are their colours and camouflage.

Both Concord, Steel Masters and Squadron Signal books have their own theories and colour plates. From olive green to yellow desert everything is possible but nothing certain.

Some colour photos from old Life magazines showed that at least some Tigers were painted in a dull green/brown. I will avoid the Ral reference but the references to Ral 7008/8020 and 8000 are only more confusing.

Then some light was placed on the subject when one of the few remaining Tiger tanks in the world - the Bovington  Tiger - suffered extensive works that made it operational. 

After lots of money and time being spent by their dedicated personnel we can see a very careful study of colours and camouflage in the Bovington Tiger and, probably, the best up to the moment.  

These tanks are Altaya (back row and crew less) and Hasegawa ( front row). These last two were given to me by Jorge Faria.

The command tank number 100 is hypothetical as there is no reference to it.

The unit just needed a command tank.

Crew is PSC and Hasegawa.

Another figure from PSC, surplus from their PZ III.

Tigers in Tunisia had the Feifel air cleaner assembly which was discarded in later version of the Tiger I.

The markings of the Tigers in Tunisia included the turret numbers, larger and red (some say green/brown tank colour) and white for the 501st Battalion and smaller and red for the ones of 504th Battalion. When the 501st was included in the inner organisation of the 10th PD their turret markings started by 7 and 8, references of their new companies.

I used GW paints, Steel Legion Drab for the base and Catachan Green for the camouflage. Not totally pleased with it but at least they don't get mixed easily with other desert material.