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..... 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. 

October War - IDF - WIP - M113 command and TRV

Back to some work for my own collection, again more "back office" vehicles for the IDF in the Sinai. I have been working on the M32 TRV and the command versions of the M113.

The TRV is a basic Battlefront M51 hull with the addition of a Spare skytrex M32 superstructure/ turret. ( the remainder Skytrex M32 is destined to modified with the disc mineroller assembly, at some point.....)

As you can see there's a lot of plasticard additions, I haven't religiously copied any one reference, hopefully just enough to capture the vehicle in miniature.

Quite a bit of work required at the back end, again not up to Rivet counting standard but a good representation. I will add more detail in time, particularly the tarp covers and recognition panels, and it needs to be messier!

Not sure at the moment how to base this one, either as a standard base for game play or more of a vignette for table aesthics, either way I will need to convert some crew.

Here we have the start of two M113 command vehicles to serve as battalion and brigade commanders vehicles. The idf modified these quite heavily so there's still lots of work to do but my reference library is growing. I am finding it difficult in general to establish vehicle timelines with IDF modifications, the inevitable result of a adapting to continual war footing, so hopefully there's no '82 mods here.

I am building these with the top decks free as these will be a two part paint, interior and exterior so they are just placed on for the time being.

An interesting little detail is the commanders cupola rotated so that the hatch opens to the side. Opening to the rear will cause it to clash with the map board assembly. 

This does mean cutting the 50cal mount off, repositioning and adding a missing visor, detail that will inevitably lost!  also note the removed aerial guards another IDF mod.

I've started on the rear stowage boxes and as you can see some rudimentary benches and interior. These have been fabricated using the unused track guards! I'm not going too heavy on the interior detail, mainly what's visible through the hatches. 

These will be modelled, one as battalion command moving ( ramp up) with the top map board in use and the brigade one will be modelled stationary with two map board boxes deployed at the side, ramp down, again a dilemma on basing:

• the Battalion command will be a standard base, in keeping with rest of the battalion;
• the Brigade command will be a slightly larger ensemble, probably alongside a jeep, and at some stage a Revel Bell Huey will be painted up to represent a command "runner".  My current read ( On the Banks of the Suez :Adan) highlights the significant employment of helicopters to move officers between the various command groups.

As with all this work I will need to modify some figures but am keen to add a Peter Pig dog sculpt on brigade base !

As always, comments welcome especially to correct any build errors.

Neil

M113 ACAV - Vietnam

What have we here then.... This is one of those projects that ran away with itself. Previously I had a commission for some JB Model ACAV M113's ( in my flickr somewhere) which i did with some SHQ "riders". In a moment of madness I thought i'd try and improve using the S Models kits, overlooking the "ACAV" bit! Anyways after some helpfull chaps over on the guild (Alan "Dadmassu" & Phil "Tinned Fruit") sorted me out with their excess ACAV turrets I was good to go. 

The four M113's have been built with commanders turrets ( mixture of SHQ and S&S figures) but with the rear open, some rear doors opened up and two with fixed MG shields.

The infantry figures are SHQ that I have configured togetther so that they fit on the rear decks of the M113. there are three "sabots" of infantry, plus two "plug-in" MG gunner sets. Hopefully this should be obvious in the pictures below.

The S models kit is clearly superior to the JB/Airfix, but lack of the ACAV turret does make things difficult! In general i'm really pleased with how these came out, although the pictures aren't really up to scratch.

I've had my fun with these so tehy will need new homes, one way or another, anybody interested then just shout!

neil"at"troop-of-shewe.co.uk

As always full photo shoot up on flickr.

PS. I'm away with "real" work next week so thats effectively two weekends of painting wiped out,  and my comms may be a bit intermitterant, please bear with me......