Rapid Fire! Western Desert 1940-43 in 20mm - The beggining of the 4th Indian Infantry Division

 

Many years ago I found some 20 boxes of Esci Muslim Warriors in a supermarket at 50cts each. I already had a few of those with some Portuguese Discoveries, Sudan and Foreign Legion in mind. With such large group two more ideas came up along the time: Turkish Sipahis for Mohacs 1526 and WW2 4th Indian Infantry in the Western Desert. Recently this last one was cooled down when StreletsR showed up with two boxes of WW2 Indian Infantry, one with support weapons and another with rifles and SMGs, making life much easier. In fact in the 70s/80s Atlantic also made a box of those but I could never find any, and when Atlantic moved to Lebanon around 1982 the factory was lost to the chaos of the Israeli invasion. Then the recent war came -again- and I tried to get my hands on the maximum models from StreletsR (Ukraine), Zvezda (Russia) and such. In terms of Strelets Indians I only could find one box of support weapons at Martola and that was it. So the old project of Esci conversions was back. 

This battalion looks too big because it has enough figures and weapons for both the infantry and Motor battalions. 

A rifle company. The figures are made of Esci British Desert infantry bodies with Esci Muslim heads (only the ones with turban were used, obviously). 

The parts were glued with soft plastic glue. Also a few of even older Airfix were also mixed in. 

The 2'' mortar was scratchbuilt and the boys AT rifle is MiniGeneral after cutting out the original Bren from the Esci Figure. 

StreletsR figures were used for the other support weapons and command groups. 

The first dedicated vehicles for the 4th Indian ID are these two Indian Carriers with Hat and StreletsR crew. 

The models are MiniGeneral 3d prints, which are nice and simple models. The Jerrycans are also 3d prints from the Spanish brand Modelismo Y Maquetas. 

Don´t forget to apply two coats of clear varnish in spray before priming. Most of the boring printing lines won't be boring anymore. 

These two Marmon Herrington armoured cars just caught the varnish spray cloud for its pesky printing lines to go. These are very useful reconnaissance vehicles for early desert war. Obviously the painting inspiration came from the nice photo on the first NA supplement of Rapid Fire!

Plenty of details were added as the models came a bit bare. A nice extra touch are the unditching metal planks which can be easily made by touching slightly with the tip of a soldering iron on a piece of EverGreen plastic card.

Other details are made of GreenStuff or Milliput, 3d Jerrycans and broom stick antennas. 

While the other figure is PSC, this one started as an armless Fujimi tank commander. With a bit of GreenStuff both for arms and headphones he is back to business. 

Next: Maybe a video on the German Panzer divisions for Mortain, or one on the Desert British or more Russo-Ukraine war.