RFR/Able Archer - The Iraqi Airforce in 1/72nd scale

This one started to be built during the Gulf War itself as aircraft were some of the miniatures available to portray Iraqis. The vast majority are plastic model kits with a few more recent Die-cast.

RFR/Able Archer - The Iraqi III Army Corps support

This is the last video for the ground troops of Saddam in Kuwait. There is artillery, reconnaissance and some navy for the famous southern Khafji landings. The usual brands are Cromwell, Skytrex, Irregular Miniatures, Altaya with the usual scratch building with help from many other brands.

RFR/Able Archer - The army of Saddam Hussein in Kuwait 91 (part 2), the 5th Mechanized Division

One more division of the Iraqi III corps. This one, the 5th Mechanized Infantry Division Mohammed Ibn Al-Kasim, is another famous big unit of the Iraqi army with participations in the last three wars of the country, the Iran-Iraq War, the invasion of Kuwait and the US invasion of 2003. I became interested in this Division after the opening of the ground war in the 1991 Iraqi Khafji offensive were the 5th MID had a central role. It was equipped with different models of the T-55 series and APCs (in fact Chinese T-59 and K-63). Still a few heavy mortars are missing as well as some tractors for the artillery.

RFR/Able Archer - The army of Saddam Hussein in Kuwait 91 (part 1), the 3rd Saladin Armored Division

This one is really heavy. Not only in the amount of armored vehicles but also because most of the vehicles are Skytrex metal, true shelf benders. This division was the most famous of the regular army (not counting the Iraqi Republican Guard) and fought several wars from 1973 up to 2003. Its armored and mechanized brigades fielded plenty T-72 and BMP-1 and the artillery was crammed with 2S1 and 2S3 systems, which, for those days were quite potent weapons. During Kuwait War the 3rd Saladin opened the ground war with the coalition with the attack on Khafji, together with other units of the Iraqi III corps. Most of the information for making this division was taken from the excellent article on Millitary Modelling Vol.30 No08 by Cookie Sewell.

Rapid Fire!/ Able Archer, The Gulf War in 20mm - The French made AMX -30 AuF1 of the Iraqi Republican Guard

 

These models come from the excellent Altaya range. I ended up with a total of 12 of them, with 6 going to the IRGC (Iraqi Republican Guard Corps) and the other 6 going to one of the Gulf War enemies, the Saudis. At the beggining the RF system was giving two pices of artillery per battery but recently I´ve noticed a decrease with just one model representing the whole battery. So like this you can have one or two battalions of artillery. 

The IRGC apparently got all of the 85 (some sources say around 70) of these artillery systems and they seemed to have mostly survived the Iran-Iraq war, 1991 and 2003 wars as rows of them were present at Camp Taji, Baghdad, after 2003. Probably they were at rear echelons in the 1991 ground battles (even if some show up abandoned/destroyed) and around 2003 they were missing spare parts and became immobilized. I painted the red triangle of the IRGC on both sides of the turret without being sure it was there. I saw modellers painting these but with the top white part painted grey. 

The good thing of having these together with BMP-1s and T-72s of the Saladin AD is to quickly put together an armored or mechanized RG divisions like the Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar, Medinah or the Tawakalma . 

Another possible type of markings is this one as seen on a Hammurabi AD vehicle, a photo I´ve found after finishing this lot.

The models were repainted Vallejo Iraqi sand as usual and changed with the addition of EverGreen plastic side skirts, stowage at the turret rack, antenna and a Soviet AA machine gun. 

Next: a big brawl of WW2 tanks between the Slovaks, Soviets, Japanese and even the Americans. 

Airfix nostalgia batch from the 50´s built and painted

 

Some two years ago I found a batch of eight very old bagged Airfix models from the 50´s and 60´s for sale in our local flea market in Coimbra. They looked OK, for the exception of the card which contained the instructions of the kit, completely ruined. No parts missing and a group that could be useful for a number of wargames scenarios. Besides I could revisit models like the Lysander or the Gladiator that I had decades ago and that got ruined on their own or eaten by my dear Breque, an Epagneul Breton that loved to chew plastic. Probably he simply loved everything I did, and my scent was probably in the painted models. 

They were like this. At the beginning the seller wanted 75 euro each but in the end I took the lot for 90 euros after explaining him that the instructions were not understandable, with paper that got so moldy that self destroyed while touching. Of course this is BS as you can find the instructions easily in the Web. Only the Comet Racer was put aside as it has no purpose in wargaming. All these models took some 20 minutes each to build, with closed cockpits and a flow of super glue in all joints in order to harden the construction. All decals were mostly ruined and markings had to be hand painted. 

I already have a number of these Fiat G.50 bis for my desert Italians so this one was converted for the SCW Nationalists, and the G.50 Freccia version. For that the rotor of the changed and a piece of heated plastic covered the open cockpit. I just followed the nice cover of the AML kit for the painting scheme. 

When I opened the Gladiator bag I could see the very old Airfix way of having a pilot. I think this one must be from around 1957, so 11 years older than me! The pilot convinced me that the Gladiator I had in the past must have been the Matchbox one. 

I used this standard camouflage as it fit the two squadrons present in France 1940 before being replaced by Hurricanes, and the ones present in Crete. 

In the end it became 'Joe' Fraser aircraft of No 112 Squadron at Crete, 1941. 

The Westland Lysander became one from the No 13 Army Cooperation Squadron in France 1939/40.

The only part missing (slipped from the holes in the bag) from the entire lot was the right wheel of the Lysander. I had to built on from scratch in plastic card, GreenStuff and a new small wheel copying the left one. 

I already have several of these both in plastic and die-cast but this P-47D is always a nice addition. 

I like a scruffy finish to the under parts of the aircrafts. Yes, that is the hand of your beloved author but the left one that is only used to hold stuff and not the one that really makes all this magic!

A Grumman Gosling for the RN joined the ranks. Its something virtually useless for wargaming but its cute. The colors are not the right ones as I copied some printed painted instructions. 

The Australian Boomerang is my first and ready to fight the Japanese. Here it shows the colors of  a sample at Mildura in 1943. 

Finally, an Iranian F-5 fighter jet joins two die-casts in the shelves in my struggle to balance my Iraqi air force that counts some 30+ machines.  

Next: a video of the Ukrainian army in 2022/23 or the Iraqi 3rd Saladin AD. 

Rapid Fire!/Able Archer rules - Ayatollah's Army in 20mm - Counterattack!

Warned by the presence of the Iraqi tanks in the region the Iranian army mount a powerfull counterattack led by a Scorpion reconnaissance company.

 A second  Bell AH-1J was added, this time an Italeri model. The symbols were, as usual, handpainted.

Also another Phantom II  entered the collection. This version is the F4E and the model is Revell.

Finally my Iranians have something decent to cope with two Iraqi divisions! These repainted Chieftain Mk5 Fabbri diecasts received different sets of stowage and sandbags. 

The Scorpions on both sides are Airfix  (1/76th scale) and  the one in the middle is Altaya (1/72nd scale). The different sizes can  be attenuated by using the same base size and antennae lenght.

For the crew of some of the AFV's I used some Esci  WW2  Italian torsos with GreenStuff arms.

Next: whether more 80's  Iranians or Samurai as I've just watched Sekigahara (2017). A hell of a movie!

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! 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! 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.