At Last, a Yom Kippur War Game!

After some months of collecting and painting my own Egyptian and Israeli forces for the 1973 Yom Kippur War, I'm finally hosting a game*, set in the Sinai during the latter part of the war. The Israelis have crossed the Suez and are wreaking some havoc in the rear areas of the Egyptian army, basically trying to do all they can before the inevitable ceasefire.

I've set up a pretty straightforward three-objective game: the objectives being the SA-2 Guideline SAM at bottom, the house at centre, and the well in the courtyard at top. The Egyptians start with an infantry section and ISU-152 near the SAM but otherwise the forces start off-table. We used Bolt Action 3rd Ed for the game, leaving the movement and weapons ranges the same despite the models being 15mm rather than 28mm. I think it looks cooler that way.

  

The SAM with attendant infantry and SP howitzer.

The Israelis had four infantry squads in M3 halftracks, two weapons sections and the command squad in a fifth halftrack, three M51 Ishermans and four Magach-6 tanks. They faced three Egyptian infantry sections, two DShK HMG teams, two AT-3 Sagger ATGW teams, three T-62s and five T-55 tanks.

Egyptian infantry rushes towards the centre objective.

Conscript Mike picking out reinforcements coming on-table while Conscript Dave surveys the landscape.

Two Magach-6s and more infantry reinforce the attack on the SAM position.

DShK teams move up to join the infantry in the centre while Egyptian tanks sweep to the left to support the SAM position.

IDF infantry deploys in the wadi and open up on the Egyptian infantry.

 

Meanwhile, the Egyptian infantry occupies the objective and the DShK teams deploy in support.

Around the SAM position the original Egyptian infantry section was wiped out but a reinforcing section arrives from reserve.

Having taken the far objective (well) the IDF sweeps towards the centre. The Egyptians were all set to unload on the advancing IDF infantry but they were hosed off with supporting fire. Nice coordination!

IDF infantry rushes the ground floor of the building. This is where they'd end the game.

Over on the Israeli left the IDF infantry have taken the well objective with the heavy weapons sections and command squad. Their FN MAGs, light mortars and Blindicide rocket launchers have reached out and touched some Egyptian assets but have taken a few pins and casualties as well.

On the other flank the Israeli assault has kind of stalled - the infantry in the wadi were cut up by the Egyptian infantry that's now close enough to control the SAM objective. After much discussion the Israelis decided not to send their infantry up - they'd end up too far away to contest the objective before the end of the game. 

The M51 Ishermans pounded away at the opposing T-62 and succeeded in immobilizing it.

Egyptian tanks sweep around the centre objective and knock out a distant Magach-6.

Takeaways: it was a really good looking game (IMHO) but maybe a bit on the big side for a Thursday Bolt Action scrap, there were 14 or 15 order dice per side which is a lot for us. After the first turn I decided to allow activation of a tank TROOP on one dice which sped things up a bit. 

There weren't as many burning tanks as I would have liked to see either. I'd based the BA stats on relative gun/armour stats for the models in Fate of a Nation, the Flames of War Arab-Israeli wargame. The 115mm guns of the Egyptians were penetration 8+, the 100mm and 105mm guns, and Saggers, were penetration 7+, the Blindicides and RPG-7s were penetration 5+. As for armour I rated the Shermans as Medium tanks (9+), T-55s and T-62s as Heavy tanks (10+), and the Magach-6s as 11+ armour. So an AT-3 (if it hit) would glance a Sherman on a 2 and penetrate on 3+, or glance a Magach-6 on a 4 and penetrate on a 5+, all from the front. Comments welcome.

All in all a fun time and I think for the next one I might turn up the AT weapons a bit and make the game a bit smaller. But this one was fun and looked great.

Shalom and yo'um said!    
 

*of course Conscript Greg has an amazing collection of YKW stuff and has staged many games, including our Prairiecon game that made it into Wargames Illustrated! But this was the first YKW game staged with the models all painted by me :-) 

Egyptian T-62s and BTR-60s, Israeli M48 Chaparral for the Yom Kippur War

Popping in a quick post here with some more work done on the YKW project. First up are three Battlefront T-62s. These are great looking tanks, not much extra work required on them, I just filled in the mounting holes for the snorkel at the back of the turret with greenstuff.

I took inspiration for the three-colour camo pattern from AK's excellent book, "Middle East Wars - Arab-Israeli Conflict 1948-1973" by the unlikely duo of Pere Valls and "Zachary Sex". As someone with an unusual name, I feel for that dude, I really do.

Anyway I painted the tank with Tallarn Sand over Morgrot Hide, Skrag Brown over Doombull Brown, and Death World Forest over Castellan Green, washed with Agrax and re-highlighted Tallarn. Looks OK I reckon.

These three will join nine Khurasan T-55s... speaking of which...

Here's one on the left. Notice that the Khurasan model is about 10% smaller than the Battlefront tank. I know the hull of the T-62 was "a few centimetres longer and wider" than that of the T-55 but this is a bit much. Oh well.

Next up is some motorized transport for the Egyptians - BTR-60s.

Again, Battlefront models. These are really good kits. I stuck some spare fuel cans on 'em but otherwise left them built from the box.

Love the commanders included with these.

I used the technical pen to add some tactical numbers to the hulls.

Last up is a "speculative" vehicle. After painting a bunch of Israeli and Egyptian jets it is only prudent to paint some anti-aircraft defence. I have Shilkas coming for the Egyptians (and the SA-2 SAM of course) but that left the IDF to consider. I've read that they captured Shilkas from the Egyptians during the 1973 war, but can't find any pictures of them in action. What else did they have? 

Well, I understand that the IDF did get some of the new M48 Chaparral anti-aircraft missile platforms and they were used in the 1973 war, one apparently shooting down a MiG-17. Good enough for me.

This is a 3D-printed model from "3D Battlefield Miniatures" - he also sold me the T-62 sprues. It's a really nice crisp resin print but came with one of the missile tailsections broken off. No problem, I just cut off the nose and that was a missile that had already been fired off. The missile rack was even pre-magnetized, which was nice! It's painted in Grey-Green washed with Agrax, like my other IDF vehicles.

The model didn't come with crew though, so I pinched a couple of crew figures from the Battlefront Israeli/Iranian (!) TOW jeeps I have on the painting table. Of course I built the jeeps with Israeli crew, but one 15mm crewman is very much like another, so I did a quick head swap on the Iranians with a couple of US WW2 halftrack passengers left over from my PSC project. Hey presto, crew dudes for the M48. The only thing is... the driver is hanging onto a steering wheel, but the Chaparral was controlled with levers. As you can well imagine, I'm not particularly bothered.

Til next time... youm sa'id and shalom!

 
 

IDF Infantry Platoons, Halftracks, and some more Egyptian Infantry for the Yom Kippur War! And Palm Trees!

Back with some more "content" from the Yom Kippur War. This time we'll start off with the IDF infantry I've finished off.

The models are quite nice, they're from Khurasan of course. I ordered enough models for two "understrength platoons", as Mr K. described them.

What you get in an understrength platoon is this: two rifle packs (FN FAL), one Uzi pack, and one section weapons and command pack. This gives you enough for the whole platoon: two sections each of seven men with FN FAL, one man with a heavy-barrel FN FAL and rifle grenades, and a couple Uzi-toting dudes as leaders. For the record these guys' uniforms are painted GW Death World Forest and the webbing and helmets are Vallejo Khaki. Everything is washed with Agrax Earthshade and re-highlighted in the base colours.

The weapons section of the platoon is a man with an FN MAG (light machinegun), Blindicide (anti-tank) team, light mortarman, and another Uzi-toter. Sorted!

I also built a weapons platoon to support this understrength company. That's two M2 Browning HMGs (Khurasan also provides .30 MGs if you prefer) and two mortars and crews. Fun.

Lastly for the IDF, I've done up five M3 halftracks. These are plastic kits from Plastic Soldier Company and I think they worked OK. I am given to understand that the IDF didn't use the cupolas from the M3A1 and just went with a pintle-mounted .50 cal Browning. But they also equipped each track with a .30 MG sticking out the driver's side "front window"! To model this I used a small square of plasticard drilled to take a scale .30 cal barrel. I didn't bother with modelling the breach-end of the weapon as it's pretty much hidden anyway.

Of course I painted the typical white stripes (no blackline as these guys didn't get the memo) and as always, I painted some crew too. 

You have to squint a bit at these guys as they are WW2 Americans. Most are unarmed but there are a couple Garands and Thompsons in there. I don't know of anyone that sells IDF seated infantry (Peter Pig's have Galils I think) so these will do. I also loaded up the vehicle sides with stowage.

Of course these guys have to have some terrain to fight over so I bought (more) palm trees from an Amazon seller, I think it was $18 CAD for 20 trees, which seemed to me a bit of a bargain.

I based the larger trees on washers and the small ones on pennies. The smallest ones are pretty small (these are a Perry DAK dude and a 15mm Khurasan Egyptian) but most of the trees will work.

Lastly for this post are some more Egyptian infantry from Khurasan. Right here we've got two squads and a weapons platoon.

I had to re-work the paint formula as I'd painted the first bunch of these guys over 10 years ago, and (of course) GW has redone all its colours since then. Anyway these guys' uniforms are Rakarth Flesh, washed with Agrax and highlighted again with Rakarth and then with Rakarth mixed with a splash of Pallid Witch Flesh to lighten it a bit. The assault vests are Tallarn Sand washed Agrax and re-highlighted. Skin is Doombull Brown and Ratskin Flesh. 

Each squad is seven guys with AKMs, an RPG-7 gunner, and one man with an RPD or RPK LMG. The squad leader has an AKM or Port Said SMG.

 

Here's the heavy weapons - two Sagger ATGM teams, a heavy machinegun team (DShK) and a mortar.

Would hate to be an IDF tanker looking down the end of this!

Anyway I think that's mostly sorted the IDF and Egyptians for now, I just have some BTR-60s to paint yet as well as some Israeli recce and TOW jeeps. But more importantly we need to get this stuff out for a game!

Shalom and Youm Sa'id!

M51 Ishermans and F4-E Phantom for the Yom Kippur War!

More escalation for the YKW! First we have a platoon of upgraded M51 Shermans from Khurasan. Love that massive 105mm gun right?!?!

I really like these models. They aren't supplied with crew, but I swapped in a tank commander from Battlefront's range. If he looks a little on the larger side, more on that later...

The models are really straightforward to build. I painted them in the usual style - AK Grey-Green, light Agrax Earthshade wash, sponge chipping.

Chevrons pointing forward indicate the second company (pointing down, first company; pointing up, third company).

OK so this marking I completely messed up. The Hebrew letter (aleph) indicates the individual vehicle within the platoon (here, the first vehicle) - the numeral indicates the platoon number (second platoon, in this case). I assumed the opposite when I put on the decals. Ugh. I might fix this, or maybe not.

EDIT: I couldn't not fix the tactical markings so I did that today. First I put second battalion markings on the gun barrels, then replaced the markings on the turrets.

Now we have call signs "Aleph", "Bet", and "Gimel" of the 1st Platoon.

Unfortunately, for some reason the Battlefront decal sheet only had decals for Aleph and Gimel, so I painted Bet's marking by hand. I also put vehicle ID plates on the tanks, they're Battlefront decals too.

So these vehicles are now officially done!

Anyway onto the next thing. This is an Academy F4-E Phantom in 1/144 scale, marked for the 107th Squadron of the Israeli air force, 1973.

Pretty easy to paint, I used the same colours as on my Skyhawks.

The roundels are from the same sheet as used for the Skyhawks, too. The tail numbers are hand-done with a fine-tipped technical pen. The red vertical stabilizer and emblem are distinctions of the 107th squadron based at Hatzerim. This aircraft is based on an illustration in the Osprey "Israeli F-4 Phantom II Aces" book by Shlomo Aloni.

So the only thing about the Khurasan models is that they're a bit smaller than other 15mm models. It's OK when they're by themselves but don't put 'em too close to the plastic Battlefront Shermans. This one is an old metal Sherman, maybe from Command Decision? But still bigger than the Khurasan model.

Stay tuned for more from the YKW. I have a few Israeli jeeps and something for the Egyptians to use to defend themselves from Israeli air attack. Shalom!