Rapid Fire! Ayatollah's army in 20mm - F-14 Tomcat

Another aircraft for the IRIAF this time an Altaya model F-14 Tomcat repainted with homemade pilots.

Next: France 1940. Stay tunned because includes nude scenes.  

Rapid Fire! 20mm D-Day, the British beaches (part 9) - Characters and small bits.

 

 

 

Here we have the famous beachmaster of Juno fame (Cpt Douglas Maud in reality) on the 1962 D-Day movie. His true dog was a German Shepard but as Pluskatt already had one the movie directors chose 'Winston' the Bulldog instead. Britannia figures including the LCA.

 

 

The happy mayor of Colleville-sur-mer running to meet the liberators with its bottle of champagne. Also a Britannia figure.

 

 

 

Josef 'Pips' Priller on board of its FW190 looking for his 100th victory over the British beaches (which he would achieve on the 15th June). Airfix model.

 

 

The supporting Centaur of the RM Commando. A Revell model with a scratchbuilt 95mm gun and Britannia commander.

 

 

Next: probably the return wether to Iran-Iraq war or France 1940.

 

 

Rapid Fire! 6th Guards Tank Brigade in 20mm - (Part 3) 3rd Scots Guards

 

The 3rd Scots Guard advances to the departure line of Operation Bluecoat where they meet the batteries of Achilles TD that will provide protection against the Panzers...

 

This is the last of the brigade's battalion and its again a 1/76th scale unit: the Churchills are Frontline Wargaming and BPM and the Achilles are Britannia.

 

 

The command group has a Frontline Churchill MKVI and a a Frontline conversion with a 95mm gun.

 

 

The normal Frontline Churchills have the 6pdr gun and a few extras: Britannia figures, extra tracks from Churchills and Shermans, antennae, rear fuel drum and plenty of stowage.

 

 

These are the printed models from BPM. They are very similar to the Frontline models and also received the same extras. As they are the latest builds, have nets and some Hessian tape as camouflage.

 

 

Finally the Britannia Achilles. They also have some of the above extras and use some Airfix crews along the Britannia ones.

 

Next: the last four Churchill to the Coldstream Guards. They are 1/72nd scale PSC and will join the ESCI models of  that battalion.

 

  

Rapid Fire! Ayatollah's army in 20mm - First Iranian tanks and aircrafts

My favourite wargames subjects are the ones I can remember from my youth. Among them are those I could see on the TV news while sitting at the table with my family and listening to my father explaning his version of events.

The Iran-Iraq war acompanied me through my teens and while it fascinated me at the beggining to the

end it clearly became on of those merciless games were gas was cowardly thrown, bad tactics used, no prisoners were taken and the death toll kept on increasing due to 'human wave tactics'.

Recently while reading the new books from the series Middle East@War (Helion publishing) many of these common places were put aside in my head. The Iranian used Infantry attacks due to the lack of armour, but they were many times sucessful even if the Pasdaran and Basiji suffered tremendously. The river and sea assaults by the Iranians are acts of tremendous bravery and their use of the American armour and aircraft from the seventies (up to today) is a proof of skillful engineering even without any support from the producers and without any software related to repair and logistics taken home by the US personnel when the Shah was overthrown (not counting the US satellites which poured information constantly to the Iraqi side in the case of any Iranian movement...).  

Another interesting aspect of the Iranian army  is the mix of the hundreds of British Chieftain and Scorpions, US M-47, M-48 and M-60, Soviet material still bought under the Shah and many other captured from the Iraqi army or bought during the war. Even WWII tanks were still active like Chafee's and M-36 TD's. In the air the famous F-14 - not even sold to Israel - was flying and shooting down dozens of opponents alongside  F-5's and Phantoms.

Finally another good reason to make an Iranian army of the 80's is to have another army to fight with my two Iraqi tank and mechanized divisions in 20mm and its air support.

A few M-60A1 from Esci painted with the closest light green I found to the Iranian AFV colour, Citadel Straken Green. As usual plenty of details were added namely a crewman with the typical M1 helmet and scarf made of GreenStuff.

The small Iranian roundel was constant and these M-60's also carry the symbol of the 12th Imam.

Up to now only one Chieftain, a repaint from Altaya.

Also repaints from Altaya are these two F-5 Tigers the equivalent of the Iraqi Mig-21.

The famous F-4 Phantom (also Altaya repaint). A few were recently seen targetting ISIS in Syria...

Closing this batch a AH-1J Cobra from Italeri. These excellent helicopters were credited with the destruction of hundreds of Iraqi targets with TOW ATGM.

Next: probably more of the same or close. Or maybe the last Churchill tanks for my 6th Tank Brigade.

Rapid Fire! 1/72nd scale British aircraft Gulf War 1991

 

 Now for the British aircraft in the Gulf. Not many up to now but the most important models are here:

  

 

The Tornado GR1 from Airfix.

 

 

The Tornado ADV (fighter version) also from Airfix.

 

 

The Jaguar GR1, a conversion from Hasegawa. 

 

 

And the big and beautifully ugly Blackburn Buccaneers. On the the left an Airfix model and on the right the Altaya die-cast version with home-made pilots.

 

 

Next: Probably more Gulf War aviation or the begginning of my Iranian 1980-88 army or some French WW2 trucks I'm making up.

 

Rapid Fire! Russian Contemporary Wars in 20mm - Georgian Didgori 2

For a long time I've been looking for  non-russian based vehicles to equip my Georgians. I already placed a few BMP-1 with them and some BTR-70 are on the cue but something different would really be ... different. Georgia used Turkish Otokar Cobras on its invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008. I looked for 20mm minis of these things and nothing. Then I looked for the Georgian made Didgori series and I found them! Well, not exactly as you can see in the photo of the real vehicle but close. Didgoris were not still made when the 2008 war happened so this is a compromise. 

The Didgori 2  APC looks to be quite impressed having won a number of orders and faring very well in international trade events. Besides the new Georgian camouflage is just great.

There are obvious differences between the Didgori 2 and my fake Didgoris but my cheap solution catches somehow the main lines of the real vehicle.

The truth disclosed: I found them in a Chinese shop and had to scratchbuilt the firing area in Evergreen and place an ESCI torso to man the Minigun. The Die-cast Humvee that joined the group can be seen in its awful colours trying to flee the picture.

Next: British aircraft in the Gulf 1991