AHPC XII: From MikeW - Warlord Games ACW Epic - Union Regiment

 I've had these figures under my workbench pretty much since they were released by Warlord Games, about a year or more ago, the concept really caught my imagination, although I have a pretty large 15mm ACW collection, I wanted to get in on this bandwagon.

The Union Infantry Regiment with accompanying mounted Officer and Artillery Battery

I did paint-up one stand of Rebel figures but my enthusiasm was dampened by the fact that my old eyes were not quite up to the job (in my opinion!). There's a reason why my preferred gaming & painting scales have gradually increased from 15mm to 25m to 28mm and now the heroic 32mm figures!

So the sprues have languished under the workbench until now. With Warlord now releasing their Napoleonic Epic figures and hinting that there may be other period in the works I thought it time to retry the concept!

Close-up of the Infantry Regiment

So here is a 'bog standard' Union Regiment of 100 figures on five stands. I undercoated these all with Ultramarine Blue - yes a departure from my usual white. I thought that due to the scale it might work better to go with a base colour that needed little further work.

I added sky blue trousers the same evening - although these had to be retouched due to me missing a lot of detail - due to poor light. Lesson learnt! Boots, hats and belts were added in black, I used a Black Sharpie pen for the belts but paint for the rest.

Close-up on Officer and Infantry

Muskets were done in brown and then steel barrels added before adding in brass details on muskets, belt buckles etc. Flesh was then added along with a variety of hair colours.

I then spent quite some time fixing my mistakes and better defining details etc before applying an Army Painter Dark Wash.

Close-up on Artillery and Infantry

Basing was tricky - I added one rank at a time, with fine sand and electrostatic grass, before repeating when adding the second rank. 

I did a similar process for the gun and officer figure.

Close-up on Artillery Battery

Controversially, when it came to points I have taken a per figure value of 1.5 Points each. In my opinion these are not 15mm figures, they actually match 12mm figures pretty well, so I have gone for a mid point value between 10mm & 15mm figures as noted on the Challenge listings.

Finally a close-up on the Officer, apologies for the quality of the shots,
photographing such small figures is a challenge in its self!

AHPC X - MikeW - 11 x 1/144 (10mm) Arab-Israeli Tanks (33 Points)

Arab-Israeli AFVS, waiting a pint job!

Rummaging around in my workbench drawers I came across another bundle of 1/144 (10mm) tanks earmarked for the Arab-Israeli Wars collection, this time the majority were for the Egyptian Army, you may remember earlier in this Challenge, I was able to do 5 Israeli Super Shermans <here>.

In this batch  have just two Israeli Tanks - their Recon AMX-13 Tanks, acquired from the French, the only country in the 1950s that would openly sell military vehicles to Isreal. It had a unique design in that the engine runs the length of the tank on the right side, with the driver on the left.

Top / Down Views of Israeli AMX-13s

It features an uncommon two-part FL-10 oscillating turret, where the gun is fixed to the turret and the entire upper turret changes elevation. The turret its-self is set to the rear of the vehicle and holds the commander and gunner.

The weakness of the design was that the main gun was serviced by pre-loaded 12 round auto-feeders, when ammunition was expended the vehicle had to retreat to cover to allow the auto-feeders to be restocked by the crew form outside the vehicle!

Side shots of the AMX-13s

By 1967, Israel had acquired about 400 AMX-13s and formed three AMX-13 battalions, all of which fought actively on all fronts during the Six-Day War.

Despite its limitations, these vehicles were used as front line battle tanks, as and when needs required.

The remainder of the post is made up from Egyptian tanks and AFVs, in their distinctive sand yellow paint schemes.

First there are three T34/85 Tanks, even by standards of the time an ancient relic, used by the Egyptians in an Infantry Support role, but often forced into armour v armour actions due to the speed of movement in the wars of the 1960s & 1970s.

3 x T34/85 Infantry Support Tanks

Also adding support to the Egyptian infantry units are the equally venerable SU-85 and SU-100, the SU-100 being identifiable by the 'pulpit' cupola on the right side of the fighting compartment of the vehicle. These vehicles tended to be in emplacements, to defend fortified positions occupied by their infantry comrades. I have one of each in this post.

The venerable Egyptian SU-85 

and it's big brother the SU-100, note pulpit cupola...

Next are three BMP-1s, these were available to Egypt for teh 1973 Yom Kippur War - where the BMP-1 was tested in combat for the first time on 8 October 1973. Egypt had received its first batch of 80 brand new IFVs in July and August 1973. A second batch of 150 vehicles was delivered between August and September. The Egyptian army used BMP-1s in mechanized infantry battalions of tank and mechanized infantry divisions (32–40 BMP-1s per battalion).

3 x Eygptian BMP-1s, ready for 1973, Yom Kippur Scenarios

Another view of the BMP-1 models

These three vehicles are my first specifically for the 1973 war, all of the rest of the collection are usable on both the 1967 & 1973 wars.

Finally we have an instance of an Egyptian Sherman M4/FL10 , whilst it is well known that Israel used Shermans and developed their own unique brand of Super Sherman and Isherman vehicles, Egypt was also a user of Shermans...

The unique Egyptian Sherman

Egypt, used about 150 of these tanks in combat during its 1956, 1967 and 1973 wars with Israel, and they developed their own unique variation with a French M4/FL10  75mm gun turret, taken from the AMX-13 vehicles it had captured in earlier wars, or sourced from elsewhere.

and another view...

And so the final vehicle in this group is an example of this mash-up!

POINTS
11 x 10mm Tanks @ 3 points Each = 33 Points