Painting Merdc or Not

Well, the paint that I bought wasn't what I thought I was getting. So matching the color on my existing vehicles has proven to be very difficult. I stopped by Hobby Lobby to buy some paints but found out they nolonger stock Vallejo paint. The Hobby Shop near my house is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I will try again today. I did manage to use superglue without gluing my fingers to each other or the model. I built out two BMP-2s and a BMP-1. I need to get some primer and a forest green paint. hopefully, I can get that sorted tonight and get to work on these remaining figures. I really want to get a game of Cold War Chain of Command done.

Waiting for the primer I have an M577 command track, a T-72, a pair of BRDMs, another pair with rockets instead of a turret, about 20 or so Soviet Infantry, a couple of BMP-2s. There is also a M60A3, at least 1 M1 Abrams and a few other things I can't remember. Looking forward to getting moving on these.

I also found a sprue of a Merkava 1 that I had bought on eBay a year ago. The hull went together very well. But the turret is proving to be more of a challenge. I am trying to figure out which pieces go where. I need to look online for some instructions.

I also need to finish out my Operation Battleaxe campaign. Honestly, each of the player squadrons are so shot up, I don't think there will be any other big games. Not much of an update but I am trying to keep moving forward. My British Legion infantry keeps looking at me from the side of my painting table and making me feel guilty. I will have to get to them soon as well.

Happy New Year

2023 has come to a close and 2024 has started. I had a good Christmas that netted me some new books. I picked up British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 by Rif Winfield. While it is outside of the period that I am working on for the AWI scenarios, it is actually a significant help. It has shed some light on ships from the AWI as there were numbers of veterans of the AWI that continued service into the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. I also picked up James Henderson's Frigates - Sloops & Brigs. It is two books published together and was a great read. It gave me some ideas about the use of tenders. The British had armed tenders serving larger vessels to expand their reach. I have previously looked at examples around Charelston in the early stages of the AWI. These two have given me additional information to push forward on the AWI scenarios.

I also picked up Sacrifice on the Steppe: The Italian Alpine Corps in the Stalingrad Campaign, 1942–1943 by Hope Hamilton. This could become a follow up to In the Name of Roma.

Santa left me two new jugs of water washable rein under the tree this year. I have already used it to print out some 1/700th scale ships for a convoy scenario for To Covet Glory. With 1/700th scale, I find that I can get more than one complete ship on the build plate unlike 1/300th scale. I am trying to find out how to print out some smaller vessels than what are currently available. I am having fun with the resin printer. It seems to be much more straight forward than the filament printer I was using earlier.

I have found a figure to convert for my 1982 Israelis for Lebanon. I plan on printing a few and seeing how they look when I match them with my exising Peter Pig miniatures. I printed a Merkava Mk2 that came out rather well. I need to sand the barrel a bit to fit with the turret. Somehow I lost the turret hatch cover and need to print that.

------- 15 days later ---------

Somehow I forgot to hit the publish button here. I found out that even with water washable resin, you MUST wear gloves. The resin gave me a bad rash and swelling around both eyes when printing. It took about a week to heal. I am going to invest in lots of gloves. Will probably wear a mask and goggles as well.

I did purchase a 3d Model for a Bermuda Sloop from Wargaming3d. The model is very nice and the producer was more than willing to talk to me. I am shrinking the hull down to 1/700the scale. I am printing it with and without guns. For a mast and spars set, I had tinkered with some for a cutter a while back and I am going to try to reuse that even though the topsail will be too large for a Bermuda sloop.

I had done some more work on my AWI book for To Covet Glory. I am having great fun going through Winfield's book on the Royal Navy in the Age of Sail. He has a vast amount of information on ships below the rate. Thus far I have been making ship stats for all of the Ship Sloops of the Royal Navy. It has shown me a few mistakes in the original To Covet Glory. I will have to update the book at somepoint.

Revisiting The Cold War

I broke out the figures that I had and did a little cleaning up. I still have a tiny bit of work to do to round out this force. The one item that i want the most is Israeli M203 gunners. I think I can make it work with a 3dBreed Vietname M203 gunner. I would like 4 of them and 3dBreed sells them in a 4 pack. Amazingly, I found a business card with the notes on how I painted them. I have some additional Galil armed infantry with a few extras that are painted as well.

The next thing I need is some .30 cal MGs to add to the last M113. they just have to be glued and painted. I also wish to 3d Print a Merkava II and another Magach 6. I also have the Peter Pig model of Nagma Shot. It is only undercoated and needs to be painted. Lastly, I have three jeeps. I have one mounted with a machine gun but it needs to be painted. I would like to buy the Peter Pig recoiless rifle pack as it mentions that it can be vehicle mounted. This should give me plenty of support troops and enough to get in a game of What a Tanker with them as well.

My Syrians are not as far along as I thought. I have a full Motor Rifle platoon minus the designated marksmen with a Dragunov. I am not finding any miniatures for them at the moment. Definitely a nice to have rather that a must have. I have a QRF Sagger team that is undercoated. It is lacking a crew member but I will just add a kneeling infantryman with it. The bases are not yet painted but that should be simple enough. I do need to paint up an additional RPG-7 gunner.

My European troops are looking a fair bit better. I have plenty of Soviets to fill out a BMP mounted platoon. I have a box of BMPs from Team Yankee that need to be assembled. Not sure I even remember buying these. But the thought is to assemble three as BMP-2s and two as BMP-1s (to give to the Syrians). I have three painted and ready BMP-1s that are metal. Not really sure of the make at this point. Old Glory maybe? I also have a painted T-72 and a painted T-64 for my Soviet force. I also have a box of T-72s from Team Yankee. This is where my painted T-72 came from. The plan is to paint at least two of these for the Syrians above and the rest for the Soviets. I have an additional 3 unpainted T64s in metal as well. Possibly QRF or Old Glory, just not sure. For supports, I have a painted automatic grenade launcher and a heavy machinegun team. If I want to go with a later era force, I have six painted Soviets with under barrel grenade launchers.

Lastly, my Amerian force is doing pretty good. I have four M113s. Three are complete with MERDEC camo. The fourth has the base coat for the MERDEC that I never finished. I have a complete platoon of mechanized infantry ready to go. I do need to paint some additional riflemen but the force is largely complete. I also have a single painted M1 Abrams. It is not in MERDEC. I regret not painting it in the camo as the M113s came out really well. I do have the remainder of the Team Yankee box to assemble and paint as well.

I do know that I have a Cold War British platoon. I just couldn't find it. Somewhere in my games room are the miniatures that I got for Christmas several years ago. But I plan on getting some STL files for their FV432s and printing some up. I am not sure if I will get any British tanks to go with that force or not. Probably will get something that I will 3D print.

The only other force that I have is a contingent of 8 PLO militia men. With my current interest being actions of the IDF against the Syrians, I am not sure that any additional troops will be added here. Since the PLO wore a wide variety of uniform, adding in a few PLO militia into a Syrian platoon wouldn't really be totally out of place if I wanted to game some of the actions in Beirut.

All in all, these troops are in pretty good shape. I am happy with where they are and it was nice to work on miniatures again. It has been a while.

Just a reminder, since it is October, I am running my Annual Birthday sale. PLease stop by https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen and use coupon code Birthday2023 to get 50% off anything in the store.

A Great Weekend

I managed to catch up with Mark at Gigabytes and get in a few minutes of an excellent game of Sharp Practice. We just began to maneuver some troops around when I had to leave. It was still good to get caught up with him. He presented me with a box of books. These belonged to Jim who is having some health problems. There are some fantastic sources for the 1982 Operation Peace for Galilee. I have been meaning to dust off these figures for a while and this may lead to me doing just that.

I really want to do some more scenarios for the Rock the Casbah supplement. I am not sure why this is buried in the IABSM section of the Lardies web site instead of in Troops, Weapons and Tactics. I would like to see if I can tune them more towards Chain of Command and What a Tanker. I don't have many tanks for the period but I do have a number of BMPs and M113s. I plan on printing some 3d models for the Magach 6, Merkava II and the T-72 for the period. I do have a Magach 6 that I made from a M60 QRF model that I made my own ERA armor for. It looks OK, but the 3d print should be better. For Syrian tanks I have two. Both are T-55s and one is the Peter Pig destroyed model that I received as a Christmas present several years ago from Francis. It is better painted than the non-destroyed one.

I have completed a couple more scenarios for To Covet Glory. I am working my way through a great article about a British Privateer during the American Revolution. While there are several good sources for Rebel privateers, this is the first I have found in detail on British privateers. i would love to find something on Spanish and French privateers during the same period. The To Covet Glory supplement is currently around 32 pages of scenarios. I hope to have a beta release of it by the end of the month. The problem is finding interesting scenarios not involving unarmed merchant men. I have some ideas about convoy raids that could be interesting but will have to see.

Lastly, since it is October, I am running my Annual Birthday sale. PLease stop by https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen and use coupon code Birthday2023 to get 50% off anything in the store.

Progress on tmy Anglo-Zulu War Project or My Return to my Lebanon Project

Best Intentions

What began an attempt to duplicate the instructions offered on the Architects of War website for how to make forests took a turn. I have the canopy well started. I managed to cut it to shape and since I did not have a black piece of foam core, I pained the foamcore. Of course it warped when I had painted the first side. A heavy coat on the reverse side did nto help but just bent the board in new directions. So off to the garrage to place something heavy on top of it for a while.

Well there I was next to the games cabinet and started thinking. Always a dangerous proposition. So instead of finishing up my Zulus, I dragged out my forces for the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon (1982).

Israelis

I looked at what I had ready to go and was pleasantly surprised. My Israelis were in good shape. I have enough troops for either a Regular infantry platoon or a reservist platoon. For transport, I have three Old Glory M113 carriers and a command track that is one of the Peter Pig Zelda's with the Toga armor. For armor support, I have a Magach 5 that started life as a Old Glory M48. I had made applique armor for it and it looks servicable. All ready to go to the table top. But there was more. There was the makings of two other squads there. I had painted up a bunch of extra infantry back at one point. I have enough Isrealis with M16s for another squad and spare Peter Pig troops for an additional squad.

Then I looked at the unpainted pile of lead. There is a M113 mortar carrier that I have no clue what to do with in a skirmish game. Objective or something? No idea. But the useful piece of kit was a Nagma Sho't carrier. It is basically a Centurion with no turret and four machineguns. It was a very successful personel carrier design used in Lebanon.

That lead me to think of what was missing. The most notable, to me anyway, was the lack of Israeli figures with a 203. There is supposed to be one per squad. I could try to scratch build it of course. But the way the front hand is on all of the soldiers carrying a Galil, I would have to file off part of the hand or their hand would be under the 203. Peter Pig does not make Israelis with 203s. They have Modern Marines with them though. That means I would have to attempt a headswap. That is a task that I do not like doing in 15mm. I have done it several times and the result has never been pretty. I guess it is time to break out the file. Strange that neitehr Peter Pig nor QRF do these as there was a 203 gunner in every squad (both regular and reservist) in Lebanon.

Next up was armor. The Merkava tank is just cool looking. I have never gotten around to getting one. That needs to get on the to do list. QRF and Quality Castings both do them. QRF's is the Mk I model while QC is the Mk II. I also want an M109A3 self propelled gun. Granted that the M109A3 is nearly useless for skirmish games, I have an interest in the vehicle. Mainly because when I was in college, my Dad did the Sar-El program. Having helped a friend of his take apart and repair a deisel Volkswagen Bug, he believed he was a qualified deisel engine mechanic and convinced the Israeli army of the same. I received pictures at school of my Dad working on the engine deck of 109s in the Negev. I just hope he did more good than harm. For the last few years of his life, he just loved to tell stories about that summer. Still makes me smile thinking about it.

Did I mention that I wanted Israelis with a 203? Oh, I guess I did. Well lastly for the Israelis, I need casulaty figures. Fortunately, Peter Pig has these guys.

Syrians

Then once I had looked at the Israelis, I just had to jump into the drawer of PLO and Syrians. Again, another treasure trove.

Recently, I had been gifted some of the new 15mm Khurasan miniatures of their Syrian infantry. (Thanks Jon!) As I looked at them, I thought they would make a great commando squad that caused the Israeli armor so much fits.

I have all of the miniatures that I need for a Motor Rifle Platoon with BTR60PBs to mount them in. The paint jobs on the BTR60s was a bit bland and probably could use a little update. I also noted I am just one RPG figure away from having all of the needed figures to field a Armored Infantry Platoon. They are nearly the same organization but have less guys with AKs and an extra RPG guy. But what about their vehicles? Sure enough, there were 3 unpainted and unassembled Old Glory BMP-1s right there in the drawer. Sitting on my painting table was some super glue and a few minutes of work and I have 3 assembled BMP-1s.

Great, this is looking good. But what about the designated Marksmen? Each squad is suppoesed to sport a designated markman hauling a Dragunov rifle. Well, I did not have one of those. I honestly am not sure if the Syrians had enough to equip all of their squads or not. Then there is the Sagger team for the Motor Rifle Platoon. I have some prone guys from QRF that are tinkering with something that I think is supposed to be a Sagger. I may pull the Sagger from one of the BMP-1s and use it there instead of the awkward looking sticks that came with the figure.

For my Syrian armor, I have a nice Old Glory T55 that I had painted up years ago. I thought it was great. Then, for Christmas, I received Santa (Thanks Fran) a marvelous Peter Pig wrecked T55. Aw man! The wrecked one looks better than my one in working shape.

I want to beef up my Syrian armor. I think a T-62 would be a good addition. That and two more T-55s. That and I need more casualty figures. Always more casualty figures.

PLO

The PLO are another kettle of fish all together. I have a squad worth of them painted up and ready for the table. The job I did on their head scarves are not great but passable. I have two more packs of these guys unopened. I would love to get one of the Peter Pig Toyota Pickup Trucks with the Vehicle mounted MG and crew. That would round out the force rather nicely.

What to do with them?

That is the question. I have gotten in a number of games of Troops, Weapons and Tactics with these figures. I want to give Chain of Command a try.

Looking at the master weapons table, I think the bulk of the infantry weapons are already present in the main rules. From my Rock the Casbah supplement I can calculate out some basics for the armor I have. The changes in Rock the Casbah separate armor values against RPGs as compared to a main gun. It also has separate armor values for ATGM's as well. What it does not have is the HE values for the main weapons on the vehicles. I may try to tinker with this by the weekend.

Here is what I am playing with.

Vehicle	AC	AP	HE	Speed	Notes
M113	0/0	1*	MGs	Fast	Has 4 mounted MGs
M133 Toga	1(2)/1(2)	1*	MGs	Fast	Has 4 mounted MGs
Magach 5	3(4)/1(2)	5	4@	Average
Nagma Sho't	4(5)/3(4)	1*	MGs	Average	Has no less than 4 MGs
BMP-1	1/0	3/5**	3	Fast	Coax MG
BTR-60PB	1/0	1	3	Average	Coax MG
T-55	4/1	5	4@	Average	Coax MG

* Is for the 50 cal MG onboard.
** The 3 is for the 73mm main gun and the 5 is for the Sagger ATGM
@ Wild ass guess
Infantry AT Weapons

Weapon	0-6"	6-9"	9-18"	18-24"	24-48"	HE
RPG-7	3	3	3	3	-	2
M203	2	2	2	-	-	3
Dragon ATGM	-	-	6	6	6	2
Sagger ATGM	-	-	5	5	5	2

So much for working on my Anglo-Zulu War project.