1967 vs 1973: So What To Field...

Over the previous weekend I spotted a few people asking about which models or units they should field, assuming they were planning on building a force based on either a specific battle, or for a '67 game vs a '73 game. I was tempted to start putting together a list based on a combination of my general knowledge and a little extra reading. Luckily for me Michael McSwiney, one of the writers of the updated edition had been thinking the same thing and started work on his own version.

From a rules perspective these in service dates are strictly optional and based on what I currently have painted at the moment I won't be getting too carried away with them as I'd rather keep working on the models for now rather than restricting my gaming options. However they do provide a great resource if you are looking to build a new army with some specific plans in mind.

The links:
Miniature Ordnance Review (Michael's blog)...
Israeli Forces...
Jordanian Forces...
Egyptian Forces...
Syrian Forces...

Time to start planning on what to paint next.

1956 and 1967 Israelis On Display

Last year I painted a fairly decent number of Israelis for both Fate Of A Nation (1967) and my own 1956 project. Just before we broke up before Christmas I hijacked the camera at work and took a few shots. Turns out taking decent "book style" photos is harder than it looks!

1956 - M50 Mk I Shermans

1956 - M1 Super Shermans and M4A3 75mm Sherman Company

1967 - Sho't Platoon

1967 - M3 TCM-20s and M3 D (120mm) guard a crossroads

1967 - M50 Mk II Shermans and M51 Super Shermans

1967 - M51 Super Shermans

1967 - Magach Platoon

1967 - Sayeret (Recon) with AMX and M3 A

1956 - And still unfinished 25pdr battery.... 18 months after I started them. Maybe in 2014!

FlamesCon - Day Two

Day one had gone better than I expected and having knocked of Daniel in the last round I felt like I was in good shape. I knew today I would be coming up again Rob and his very Canadian Recon list so I spent a little time the night before thinking about how to play the game, little did I know he would be my first opponent and the game would set the tone for the rest of the day...

Round 4 vs Rob (Canadian Armoured Recce Squadron from Market Garden) and Hold The Line

Rob won the dice off to defend and picked the large cornfields for his Cautious Movement Canadians to hide in. I put one tank platoon on the right flank and rushed the rest up the left behind the forest.

My artillery managed to range in a couple of times but did nothing and Rob was able to move from the templates without giving his position away, so I chose to burst out before his artillery came on from reserve and knocked out mine. Lots of shots.... no hits... my trained tanks in the open...

Return fire...

Recon scrambles to keep me in the game for one more turn (to try to break a platoon) but the dice abandon me..

The game against was really disappointing for two reasons: 1, I went down 1-6 and pretty much ended my chances of a good result, and 2, I played the game really poorly! I should have pushed a single tank out to close range and started shooting him, forcing him to fire and me and give away his gone to ground advantage. It would have cost me my 2iC but I could have then pushed up and tried to knock out his tanks more effectively....
Round 5 vs Aussie Rob (British Assault Company from Overlord) and Free For All

Rob deployed over a broad frontage with his tanks in the middle, infantry on either side interspersed with 6pdrs,recon,  with some AA the middle and a Cruiser off-table to provide support. I decided to hold the left with a token force, push the middle with a single tank platoon and try to roll up the right and then along his line.

We skirmished on the left and centre, Rob loosing a couple of platoons whilst NFGS (Naval Gunfire Support) rained down on my middle tanks.

He retreated his tanks behind the hedges and we stopped to duel for a few turns. Eventually I knocked them out but a stray 6"round from the HMS Glasgow knocked out my camera and I failed to take any more pictures. I managed to roll up and get my 3 points but by then the damage was done and it was all over.

Round 6 vs BF Wayne (Hungarian Zrinyi Company) and Hasty Attack

I setup with tanks on both sides, with the artillery in the middle, Wayne spread his Zrinyi platoons, Panthers on his right flank and Nebelwerfers at the back

Wayne advanced his Panthers shooting a couple of Shermans, my Shermans on my right advanced to get flank shots on the Panthers (missing) and then died to his Zrinyi platoon. My artillery hit ranged in on two Panthers (missing them) and his Company Commander (which I bailed). The Shermans achieved nothing.

And three died (triple 1s on the dice) to the Nebelwerfers....!

Before the rest were finished off by the Panthers....

At a rough calculation I threw around 20 dice in the game, 2 or 3 of which rolled a four or more and the game took around 10-15 minutes to set up and 5-10 minutes to play.... on the good side my easy capitulation catapulted Wayne up the table to take out third place (so a good result for team BF!).

15 points on day one.... 5 points on day two. Not a great finish but at least I had a lot of fun and managed to get my 1956 Israeli tank company much further down the path to being almost painted! Although I think I'll take a break from Olive Drab for a while and do a little Dunklegelb for a change.

FlamesCon - Day One

Into the gaming!

Round 1 vs Heloise (German Panzers from Devils Charge) and Dust Up

I put all my tanks on the table, Heloise opted for Panzers and Nebelwerfers, putting more Panzers and King Tiger in reserve

My Spearhead Move put me in the middle of the table, Heloise moved up and missed with everything (and bogged her captured Firefly down in the woods). My shooting was considerably more accurate.

I weathered some more inaccurate fire, moved up and mopped up the majority of the Panzers.

A Panzer platoon came on from reserve knocking out a couple of tanks but I had swamped the objective, winning 6-1

Round 2 vs Patrick(Kampfgruppe Swoboda - yes 12 88's!) and Surrounded.

Patrick concentrated most of his force in the centre deployed 2 of his batteries of 88's (1 in ambush) covering most of the table. I opted to put one tank platoon hidden at the far end of the table, and the rest behind a tree line where I could take out an 88 platoon and 2cm platoon.

I overran the 88's and 2cm quite quickly with only a few losses and then moved up to the tree line. Keeping my spare Sherman platoon behind a ridge awaiting Pat's ambush.

88's come out of hiding in the vineyard and knock out some Shermans, I move up and work over the CT Tiger platoon and 88s.

We trade some more shots, my spare Sherman platoon moves up and.....

Dies heroically! By now my recon is moving around the flank to threaten the objective but I know I need to break his company or loose the game.

A final round of accurate shooting by the last of the Shermans breaks Pat's army, but the losses were heavy! 4-3 to me.

Round 2 vs Daniel(21st Panzer) and Breakthrough
Sadly I did not take many pictures of this game - Dan is a long time gamer that I almost never get to play in tournaments despite playing in many FOW and Warhammer tournaments over the past 15 years. He also plays a lot more than me these days so I put my game face on and forgot to grab the camera...

Dan put an infantry screen across half the table, with 88's and 3.7cm guns covering the cornfield. Despite a convenient tree line that I knew his 15cm SP artillery and 2 units of Beute Stugs I knew I had to push through their gun line.

In the end I broke through but only had a handful of tanks left, however my recon came on from reserve and captured the objective whilst the remaining Shermans formed a screen to stop any counterattacks. A tough 5-2 win.

End of day one and I am feeling good, sitting in second or third and having knocked off a tough opponent to finish the day. Thinking about day two I knew I was going to be in for some tough match ups.

FlamesCon - The Event

I've been struggling to find the time to write up a bit of an event report from FlamesCon. After the weekend I was completely shattered and since then I only time I have spent on the computer at home as been doing work.... So I thought I would break the event down into bite sized chunks, and stick to primarily pictures (I've been learning from the graphics guys!).

First up - some general shots from the event:

Setting up the venue - Mike had it all mapped out and planned down to the square metre

Just add gamers, terrain and armies!

Evan hard at work

John-Paul with a large bag of confectionery

Phil showing his WW2 plane game that he has been working on

Flames of Tanks with Sean and Andrew

My List for the weekend..
I didn't get my 1956 Israeli Tank Company list finished before the weekend so instead I reverted back to Blood, Guts & Glory as an easy standby.
HQ:
Creighton Abrams in a M4A1 76mm Sherman - although over the weekend his tank was an M50 Sherman (early)
Company Commander in a M4A1 76mm Sherman
M32 TRV

Combat Platoons:
2 M4A1 76mm Shermans with 1 M4A3 (late) Sherman
2 M4A1 76mm Shermans with 1 M4A3 (late) Sherman

2 M4A1 76mm Shermans with 1 M4A3 (late) Sherman

Weapons Platoons:
3 M4 81mm Mortar Carriers with 1 M3 Halftrack
Cavalry Platoon with two jeeps and one M8 (played by a Staghound since the Israelis had a small number of them)

Divisional Support:
4 105mm Howitzers with HQ (played by a battery of 25pdrs since this is what the Israelis had)

Without wanting to go into specifics about how the army went and spoil the surprise... it was a really fun list. Abrams gave the list a few surprises that people really did not expect and whilst Trained is my least favourite skill level, it is appropriate for the Israelis in '56 even though I found it hard work in places. The list was definitely missing "something" though and my plan is to finish off a few little bits and pieces here and there (most notably the 25pdrs since I had to borrow some from work), and then play around with some options like SP AA and Limited Air Support (Mustangs with Napalm anyone...).

Next up, Day One!

 

Painting Israeli Tanks

I posted this on the Flames Of War site, but thought I would put it here too...

When Fate of a Nation changed status from being a project that I hoped would one day happen, to an actual project with Phil working on it I found myself quickly volun-told to paint the Israeli vehicles. 

What colour is Sinai Grey?
The colour of Israeli tanks is the subject of almost as much debate as what is the correct colour for Dunklegelb (WW2 German tank colour). Over the years Sinai Grey has also changed numerous times to make it more appropriate for the battlefield and once you add in slight regional differences caused by local commanders and the effects of weathering it gives you a lot of scope to pick and choose. Trawling through books and internet sites (most of which disagree on the “perfect” colour) I’ve come to the conclusion that you should pick the colour that you feel is right and in our case we have chosen Green Grey or German Camo Beige as the base colour.  

Step 1: I undercoated the vehicles black and then put a basecoat of Green Grey (886) on the tank. I airbrushed the base coat on for speed, using a 2/3 to 1/3 mix of Green Grey to Mr Muscle glass cleaner (think Windex). The Vallejo went through the airbrush nicely, although it did need a good clean afterwards. I now have an almost empty spare Tamiya bottle of my Sinai Grey mix that needs topping up!

Step 2: Grab your biggest brush and give the entire tank a dry brush of Stone Grey (884). This will help the details pop out a little and give some early contrast to the model.

Step 3: Recently I’ve been experimenting with the MiG Productions and AK Interactive range washes. I carefully pin washed the model with MiG Dark Wash, then used a spare brush (with a little white spirits) and cotton bud to clean up any excess wash. I was quite rough with the clean-up as I quite like the effect of a little bleed around the areas you are washing because once you add a couple of layers of light drybrushes and a final weathering over the top it helps to give some nice colour depth. As you can see in the photo it really helps to define the detail of the model as well.

Step 4: Next I painted the tracks, road wheels, exhausts, .50cal and tank commander black. The tracks (and .50cal) were then given a light dry brush of Black Grey (862) and then Oily Steel (865) whilst the gun mantlet cover was painted English Uniform (921) The whole model was given another dry brush of Stone Grey. This helped to tidy up any spots where the wash had gone astray.

Step 5: On to the finishing steps, I painted the exhausts Flat Brown, and then stippled a little Light Brown. The tank commander was painted Khaki (988) and Leather Brown (871), whilst the Searchlight had a little blue and white at the top (I prefer the slightly more cartoon look for glass).

Step 6: Decals maketh the tank! I put chevrons on the skirts, battalion rings on the barrel, number plates on the right side of the lower turret and on the underside of the hull (below the spare track links) and a great big platoon/tank number on the rear of the turret. I didn’t put air recognition panels on as I have not seen any photos of Centurions with them, however I have seen Sherman tanks, Magach tanks and M3 halftracks with and without them so it stands to reason that some Centurions (or Sh’ots) would have had them.

Looking online there are plenty of places you could put decals, especially number plates and brigade symbols. I chose to put the decals in these positions as they seemed to be correct for 1967, but like everything to do with the Israeli army there is a fair amount of secrecy surrounding markings so you should feel free to have a look on the internet for inspiration and once again do what looks right (or cool) to you.

Step 7: This last step is optional. I chose to break out the airbrush and give the model a little weathering with Iraqi Sand, thinned down a little with glass cleaner. This helped to make the decals look like they were more natural as they were then covered in dust and sand.

All finished!

Close up of the Searchlight after a little gloss varnish

Platoon decal on the rear turret bin

Fate Of A Nation - Arab-Israeli Wars

Ever since Pete mentioned the idea of doing a Vietnam game as a Wargames Illustrated "exclusive" all those years ago, I have been quietly hoping and not so quietly agitating for an Arab-Israel version of Flames Of War. Earlier this year I got my wish and so for the past few months Phil has been busily studying every AIW book on my shelf, plus a few more to get his head around a conflict that has kept the attention of the world for so many years.

Best of all, with a lot of guidance from James I was able to paint all the Israeli vehicles in the book (which is one of the reasons I have been a little quiet on the blog since I had so little I could share). I still have a few more to paint for the next Wargames Illustrated deadline in about 3 weeks as Casey and I are going head to head in a battle report (Casey painted all the Egyptians in the book). Really looking forward to putting my Magach and M50/M51 Shermans on the table!

The commercial plug... Fate Of A Nation is coming out FREE with Wargames Illustrated 312, on shelves late September, so tell your retailer you want a copy because once the copies of the mag run out, thats the whole print run of the book gone (as far as I am aware!).