Iranian M113s - WIP - part II

My headless Iranians are no longer! The Peter Pig order arrived promptly as always and I set about added the American M1 helmets, which I think are my best option.

I got the green stuff out and added quite a few scarfs, these probably have a proper name but are prevalent in most pictures and videos of the period.

Some minor stowage work as well, usual random tarpaulin sheets and on one some make shift sandbag protection .

It's been quite a bit of work, but I think the end result will be worth it, am really liking the look of these. 

I do have the figures for a Pasdaran and a regular Infantry battalion now, but they will have to wait a bit for commission work.

That's these for now, they will migrate into a building batch ready for priming .

Neil

Tinkering with.. Berlin Camo Chieftain

The progress so far.... Just finished the basic masking and airbrushing stage, these need to dry and be sealed before the detailing and weathering.

Here are two Armies Army Chieftains with pre shade prior to base coat, these are the Iranian ones so a slightly different approach to the Berlin two, below.

These have been also been preshaded but then had their base coat of white applied, now comes the masking.

The Berlin camo is a fixed pattern and applied universally, therefore both tanks needed to look the same. I've followed references so they should be spot on.

Masking being built up, these is really laborious!

Next up the light blue, you probably can't tell from the pictures but there's two shades in use, as usual mixed by eye using tamiya paints.

The blue is masked ready for the top coat brown.

Again another by eye mix, for the brown and green, it will darken on weathering.

The debris! 

So back were I started, pretty pleased with the result so far, a few errors in masking, but I'll rectify that later. 

Weathering to come....

Tinkering with..... Iranian Skytrex M113

The go-to 15mm M113 has to be the BF plastic offering, indeed am converting some now into IDF command posts, anyway.....

I had three skytrex in my stock pile so following on from the Armies Army  Chieftians (now drying, see below) I thought they could be usefull employed with my Iranians.

I am collecting a library of Iran Iraq war photos and the Iranian M113s seem to be fairly light on stowage generally and armed with a mixture of .50cals and russian Dshk mgs, admittedly,  probably not in the same units?

 

I'm aesthetically drawn to irregularity of the IIW, particularly in this case the Iranian forces. This usually expresses itself best in stowage, but that wasn't really an option here so it had to be the "crew", luckily the Iranians seem perfect for this.

So, using a variety of Peter pig figures, from various ranges, I started bending, cutting, filling and drilling suitable poses to resemble the infantry sitting on the m113, effectively using them as battle taxis.

You'll notice the missing heads!  these figures are awaiting a Peter Pig resupply, I will be using American ww2 helmets as that's the best I can find to represent what I think were West German m1 helmets in the main, but regardless, they lot "right" ( certainly in 15mm).

I thought I'd add some variety to the mix, with the commanders, in that there's a mixture of 50 cals and Dshk and Russian tankers helmets.

And finally for now... 

Here's the armies armies "batch" from earlier. I have performed standard prep:

- halfords primer

- halfords black base

- enamel black "touch up"

Once dry I will add the pre-shade. 

Tinkering with...15mm BTR-D SPAAG Armies Army (Kickstarter)

Sometimes I buy on aesthetic impulse, these BTR-D SPAAGs from Armies Army were just that! The ubiquitous ZU-23-2 has some many options, so I ordered a few. First up are two BTR-Ds with the 23mm mounted, one centrally, one at the rear. 

I added some details around the AA piece, primarily crew seats (a crewman is supplied) and mudguards, I'm not going for 100% accuracy, these are 15mm gaming items after all.

The second was mounted more traditionally, at the rear, again only minor mods just for flavour really.

Crew figures are Peter Pig and battlefront, with some additional tarps added on the rear deck.

Not entirely sure on the future for these, they don't fit in my Middle East extravaganzas, so they will probably be paint opportunities for me and then open to new homes.

I sneaked in another quick mod, this time the skytrex BT152, with mod'd Peter Pig crew ( two missed the photo-op). This will probaby embelish an Egptian HQ's element, but can slip in anywhre really.

neil

Tinkering with....15mm Chieftains - Armies Army (Kickstarter)

If you're of a certain age, and growing up in the UK then there's really only one iconic tank for us... that's the Chieftain. 

A package arrived this week with some lovely goodies from Keith Armstrong's Armies Army Kickstarter. I ordered a number of items, but will focus on the iconic Chieftains here.

If you follow my blog, you'll note my interest in the middle east, primarily '73 October War, but on the advent of Chieftains becoming available, a slight "scope creep" into the Iran Iraq War. So these two will be the first Iranian tanks, no real mods just added some crew from the spares box, I was originally going to have soviet tankers headgear, but it looks like they used American or British tankers helmets (which would make sense I suppose with electrical fits etc). I did add a Peter Pig figure in peaked cap to add some irregularity. 

Of the pictures of non-destroyed Iranian armour, there seems plenty of tarpaulins and stowage crammed on the turrets mainly. I augmented the supplied stowage and racks with some grey-stuff stowage, hopefully to make these as ramshackle as I can.

For the next two Chieftains, with something special in mind later, I built these as they came, one opened up with the AA crew, one closed down, not to much stowage, which will become apparent later.

These four are now primered and curing, it may be while before the get their livery, so watch this space, there's an email subscribe function on the right ----->

As always, any suggestions, errors or corrections welcome, Chieftains are fairly new to me, modelling wise.