Rapid Fire! Spanish Civil War armies in 20mm

Still far from finished - this one is one of those that will never be finished - you can see here a few models that are enough for some battallion sized RF games on the SCW theme. Together wilth my usual conversions based on Revell, Airfix, Esci and Zvezda there are plenty of proper Irregular Miniatures and some BUM figures. Tanks, artillery and armored cars came from FtF, Minairons, Panzer Garage, Irregular Miniatures and Pegasus. The aircraft are Special Hobby, KP, Azur, Valom, Super Model, Italeri, SMER, Heller and Airfix.

The "Panzer Grey" period of the German army for Rapid Fire! rules in...

Another plastic and resin force amassed through decades representing the Germans present at Poland, France and USSR up to February 1943. The brown camouflaged vehicles of the first few minutes give away to more grey as the video overcomes July 1940. As usual some mistakes are said (once "Barbarossa" is mentioned instead of "Blitzkrieg"). Also the forgotten brand of Renault ADH is ShellHole Scenics.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - Baby Panzersaurus Rex.

After watching the last Jurassic Park on the movies I added some Minairons Pz I A to my  Blitzkrieg Germans. It's my second group of Minairons Pz I, the first being painted as Spanish Civil War insurgents. Only the usual PSC commander and a few antennae were added. 

Rapid Fire! Spanish Civil War in 1/72nd scale - Tanks and Guardias de Asalto

After all they 'pasaran'... At Dos Molinos a column of triumphant PzI advances clearing the Ex Republican positions.

The models are Minairons. They are easy to build, three in a box and they even offer the 20mm Breda conversion turret. In the one above even the Matchbox Monty gave a hand proving the suspicious role the UK had in this war...

This is the standard Pz I this time with a figure from PSC with a new beret.

Hey, Pavlov's T-26 counter attacked and the tiny Pz I are all gone or destroyed! After all they didn't 'pasaran' as it happened so many times during the SCW in which the positions were conquered only to be lost in the next assault.

The T-26 are Minairons again. Simple but well designed models with two in a box. This one has a Irregular Miniatures Russian paratrooper cut to fit the turret with its Degtyarev Mg. The command version on the previous photo has a metal antennae scratch built around its turret.

The ground is only secured with boots on the ground. Six companies of Guardias de Asalto arrive. For Rapid Fire! I represent them with five figures as they were 60 per company only . They are a mixture of metal and soft plastic conversions.

The command stand is a full IM filled with rejubilant figures.

The mortar stand shows the a Guardia de Asalto in blue uniform (right) made out of

a) Head from the Chinese copy of Airfix 8th army officer;

b) Upper body from Esci US WWII mortar firer;

c) Legs from Revell Marines.

The other blue figure is IM and the grey one is again Revell with a new head.

An all IM stand .

In most two-figure stands I try to place one metal and one plastic figure. In all stands you can see the same Revell Marine changed with new headgear and weapons.

More of the same this time. The figures in the extremes are the same Revell Marine figure but one has an Isabelino cap and the other one uses the usual gorra de plato of the Guardias de Asalto.

Next: Legionários or planes, or may be both.

Rapid Fire! Spanish Civil War in 1/72nd scale - Early armour for the Republicans

The Republic rushes reinforcements to the Madrid front in order to stop the Nationalist Army of Africa from taking the capital! The action is taking place near of the pueblo of Dos Casas - easy to see why in the pictures - and it shows a number of early vehicles used in the conflict, sometimes by both sides.

Here a Hispano-Suiza MC-36 from Minairons. It's a simple and big model and at least one was used with a T-26 turret as HQ vehicle also in Franco's army.

This Camion Protegido Nash-Quad is by Panzer-Garage and has an SHQ British paratrooper as commander from the leftover box.

Again by Minairons a pair of Carros Blindados Bilbao Mod.32. They were mostly used by the blue- later grey- clad Guardia de Asalto. The figure comes from the Minairons T-26.

When they started, Irregular Miniatures was so enthusiastic about the SCW that they produced a strange Trubia tank, probably based on the few pictures available some years ago. Now, particularly in Spanish language, there is plenty of information about one of the few real tanks ever produced in Spain (nothing to be ashamed, in Portugal we never had any). The model has several faults mainly the lenght of the track part which is short by some 5mm something hard to come by. Even so I detailed a little bit more the charismatic Hotchkiss Mg's, placed the frontal roller, made the turret cupolla taller and desguised with stowage the rear part as the parts that connect the tail to the hull also don't fit.
 I'm sure that if IM remodels it's Trubia they will solve these problems.

Another IM model, and much better designed, the Schneider tank. I only added the home made rear stowage boxes and the Hotchkiss Mg's.

The Russians arrive! The BA-6 by Pegasus is a quick build model and you get two models in the box which are really good!

Can you imagine the noise produced? Easy to guess why Dos Casas is deserted...