Prairiecon XXXV - Battle of the Chinese Farm, 15mm Yom Kippur War!

Forces ready for deployment at Prairiecon

Prairiecon XXV took place over the past weekend, and the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts hit the event in style! Dallas and I each ran a game on the Saturday. Dallas did one of his super fun Star Wars Miniature Battles, and I did a 15mm Yom Kippur War game.  The scenario was titled "The Suez Shore" and was set during the desperate fighting between the IDF and Egyptian armies around an old agricultural research station known as the "Chinese Farm". 

Platoon of M51 Shermans from Battlefront

For rules we used Dallas' excellent home made "Red Storm" rules.  I think we have been using these rules for post-WW2 gaming for something like seven years now? 

IDF Mechanized troops

Dallas also supplied the Egyptian side, as well as some great custom terrain pieces.  In all, the scenario pitted a small company of hard-hitting IDF troops against a reinforced company of Egyptians! That is one of the great things about Dallas' "Red Storm" rules. As we were discussing during the event, it may not have some of the flashier aspects you see in newer rules today, but you can put a pile of stuff out on the table and settle things in a couple of hours. Using 15mm figures and vehicles, we had almost 30 vehicles and 50 infantry between both sides engage across an 8' x 4' table.  Cool!

IDF Magach 3s

The scenario was brutally simple - the IDF had 8 turns to seize a house in the middle of the farm, and had to do it with infantry, not tanks. Both sides started with a small portion of the force on the table, and would roll to bring on reserves.  

Egyptian SU-100 tank destroyers

The IDF are approaching the target

The house in the centre is the objective

Egyptian AT-3 Sagger team, out to cause trouble - these things drove the IDF players nuts and they went out of their way to knock them out

SU-100s backing the Egyptian line - Dallas did an amazing job on these figures

Egyptian infantry holding the objective

T-55s approaching to support the Egyptian infantry

A Magach 3 knocked out of action...I'm such a moron, I forgot my flame markers at home - duh! But even so, this is similar to photos you see from the period...nasty stuff happens when something hits the ammo inside your tank...

PT-76 scout tank knocked out - but not before it had taken a Magach 3! Well done Byron

Dallas' Egyptian T-55s - these are from Khurasan, real beauties (if they are ever in stock)

M51 Sherman - a crowd favourite and one of my favourite tanks from any era - these puppies dished out abuse but had a "glass jaw", so to speak.  I love the 40k-esque gun, complete with bonkers muzzle brake

More Egyptian armour

Magach 3 moving toward the objective

This Egyptian HMG team managed to hold out for the whole game with tanks, shells etc. whizzing all around them

Magachs push forward to knife-fighting range...

The IDF infantry dismount from their M3 tracks and make their move!

A rather determined Magach - now supporting IDF troops who have captured the building! But what happened to the second story of the building?

The Egyptians throw everything they have into their last turn...if you look closely, you can see someone blew the top of the objective away...

The game ended dramatically - the IDF infantry grabbed the building at the bottom of the seventh turn, and held out while the Egyptians hammered them in the eighth turn.  One T-55 managed to land an HE round right into the building, removing the top story and several IDF troops along with it. In the end it was a win for the IDF, but the infantry paid a steep price - a "historical" outcome, one might say.

In the 1973 battle around the Chinese Farm the IDF took very heavy losses during some extremely tough fighting.  It was a crucial engagement, vital to securing the flanks of the IDF counter-crossing into Egypt that ultimately secured victory in the fighting for Israel. But it was also central to the shock the Yom Kippur War had on Israel's society and political class.  The Chinese Farm was a victory to be sure, but for a people grown very confident of relatively easy and sweeping victory in the wake of the 1967 Six Days War, the stiff price in blood paid to oust the very determined Egyptian troops from the Sinai was a rude awakening to some of Israel's broader geo-political realities.

I have to say the Egyptian players during our game had some pretty rough luck with the dice rolling...early on, I thought it was going to be a shooting gallery for them as they engaged the IDF tanks coming up the road - the but their dice luck dried up by the third turn, while the IDF players suddenly got the hot dice...that's gaming for you :) They also had a bad break with their reserve rolls...if that infantry platoon had arrived sooner, it probably would have been a different outcome!

Prairiecon seems to get better every year.  The crowd is excellent, there is a lot of stuff going on, there is a great venue, and Brandon is a great city.  It was awesome to see so many of the Conscripts make the trip to the event this year.  And I have to thank Dallas for his help in putting this game together.  He did the Egyptians, some great terrain and also took most of these photos! Very nice to have the Yom Kippur War project now expanded to the Sinai front - thanks dude!

Let the plotting for Prairiecon XXXVI begin...

Egyptian IS-3 in 15mm

IS-3 for Fate of A Nation

This beast is an IS-3 tank from Battlefront, released as part of their "Fate of A Nation" supplement for the Flames of War game. The Egyptians had these tanks in 1967 - I believe they were part of the arsenal in the infantry divisions of the Sinai Field Army. 

The last of the "heavy tanks"

The Battlefront model is a mostly-resin kit, with pewter accessories.  The resin casting is generally top-notch, with great details. There was a slight bowing in the hull on this tank, visible in the space between the skirts over the tops of the tracks and the main hull on one side of the vehicle.  If I was hard core I would have filled that with putty or something.  But this will be one of like at least six tanks on the table in a unit, so I am expecting the issue will be a lot less visible once I paint up its buddies to go with it.

You can see the seam caused by warped resin in the space between the track skirts and the hull.  Out of six models, fortunately I only had this issue on this one tank

The decals on the turret are from Battlefront - I think that might be some kind of eagle-style national symbol for Egypt/UAR? I'm not 100% sure - but it looked really cool on the box art, so I used it on the model.

The IS-3 looks spooky, with a pointed-near-prow on the front, ominous turret and a huge frigging gun (122mm, I think).  One would assume this tank is a total bad-ass.  But that's why I am a civilian.  I understand, bad-ass looks aside, these vehicles had a mixed record at best in combat.  The Egyptians had some reasonable use of them if they were dug into prepared positions - the thick front armour and heavy gun would give the IDF tankers something to think about.  But overall, this was an old tank by 1967 and its overall operability (is that a word?) was reflected in serious combat challenges.

122mm gun ready to rip into some M51 Shermans...

These things are deployed in company strength in Flames of War, so I have six of them to paint up in total. One down, five to go. They will get brewed up in no time at all by a combination of awesome IDF gunnery and the Israeli Air Force, but they will look cool before they get smoked out - an important factor in gaming!

15mm Egyptian Mech Infantry for Fate Of A Nation

UAR Mechanized Infantry from Battlefront

Ok, ok, so I am officially diverted. Not that it takes much - I have a pea-brained attention span when it comes to this hobby. I have been painting away for much of the late winter and "spring" on my Legion Project, but as Prairiecon 2014 approaches, I put down the GW stuff to do some 15mm Arab-Israeli war stuff for the Yom Kippur War game we will be running at the Con.  The items were drawn from a big order of Battlefront stuff I had made back when they came out with the "Fate Of A Nation" supplement last fall.

Assault rifle stands and BTR-152 APCs

A few tanks led to some APCs, which led to some AAA guns, which led to...well, I just figured I might as well get everything built and based, and just paint a bunch of it while I'm in the mood.  So here is a platoon of Egyptian mechanized troops in 15mm from Battlefront.

This isn't even a whole selection on the UAR force chart...it's 1/3 of one...

These troops are from the Six Day War in 1967, which is the subject of "Fate Of A Nation", and not the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which has been my interest so far. But these would not be terribly out of place in a 1973 game, and at any rate, I want to try "Fate Of A Nation" so I might as well paint this stuff up.

A "Blindicide" team...what's with all the Belgian AT weapons in the Middle East? Did Belgium have some kind of special anti-tank crown corporation?

The gaming allure of the 1967 war is similar to that of the 1973 one in that you can legitimately fill the table with tanks, but I want to get some infantry in there as well so I started with the Egyptian mechanized foot sloggers. 

BTR-152s - the SUV of 1967...

The UAR infantry castings are OK - I suspect highly similar to Battlefront's NVA/PAVN castings from their Vietnam War range, although I don't know for sure. That's a fun thing about 15mm scale...with some slight changes and different paint, you would never know the difference when it comes to a lot of the infantry...the sculpt quality is a little worse than Peter Pig, same with the casting quality, but not by much.  And the thing I like about a Battlefront pack is that you get pretty much everything!

A surprising amount of detail on the interiors...well done on that score

The BTR-152 APCs are OK...they are mixed metal and resin, like a lot of Battlefront stuff.  My only gripe is that the resin walls of the troop compartment were pretty thin, and three of them broke in the package, requiring some careful repair (one was too far gone, so it gets to be "battle damaged" - I'll worry about that one later).  Also, some more thought should have been given to the front wheel wells in the resin mold - they are not straight, and end up set to point the wheels inward.  It looks a little funny when you seen the vehicle from straight on, but basing the vehicle obscures it enough.  Besides - Soviet-era construction was a little whacky, after all...

Apparently 28 guys squeeze into these two vehicles...I bet that is a lot of fun...

And so here are six infantry bases and a blindicide bazooka team (apparently the Egyptians did not use the RPGs in 1967) along with a pair of BTR-152s to use for a ride into battle against the IDF.  This does not even comprise an entire selection in the force chart - I will need at least one more group similar to this, as well as the command elements (MGs and recoilles rifles).

Spare tire on the back...nice touch

How much more stuff do I have? Well, for the Egyptians, more infantry and lots and lots of tanks - T-55s, IS-3s, PT-76s, and some BTR-50PKs to boot.

One more pic of the bazooka team

For the IDF? Well, you don't need a lot of them for a "Fate Of A Nation" game, it seems.  I already have a pile of M51 Sherman tanks and also Centurions painted up.  I want to add a mechanized infantry platoon for them as well.  I'm hoping I can knock all of this stuff off by the end of June...barring further diversions, that is...

Battlefront's Egyptian ZSU-57-2 AAA Tanks - 15mm Arab-Israeli Wars

Eyes on the skies in the Middle East...

Continuing the theme of escalation in the 15mm Arab-Israeli Wars category here are a pair of ZSU-57-2 anti-aircraft artillery tanks. The models are from Battlefront's "Fate of A Nation" range.  They are very nice models and a breeze to paint.  The only challenge I had was to get the twin barrels to sit straight...I didn't quite meet it, but they don't look too cross-eyed :)

Zandri dust was the main paint colour, weathered, chipped and pin washed

These would have been important anti-aircraft assets for the Egyptian troops in 1967 - given the fact that the Egyptian Air Force was essentially obliterated on the ground by the Israelis, kit like this was all the desperate Egyptian troops in the Sinai could really hope for in terms of keeping the Israeli jets at bay!

The guns seem almost-straight from this angle..not bad...

The Egyptians took the terrible lessons learned in 1967 to heart, and their Soviet patrons started equipping them with much more serious kit. By the time of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Egypt's Operation Badr, the crossing of the Suez Canal, was covered by a lethal network of SAM missiles and ZSU-23-4 AAA tanks.  The Israeli Air Force paid a dear price against it. I think the ZSU-57-2 took a back seat to this newer kit in 1973, but they were still in the OOB somewhere...

These will come in handy for Yom Kippur War games as Dallas continues to build on his excellent assortment of Egyptians.  Like any wargamer, the first time I see a AAA tank, I think of how mean it would be to use against infantry and light vehicles, as opposed to its actual stated purpose :)  Those IDF jeeps with recoilless rifles would not be too happy to see these things...

I do want to do some Flames of War games set in the Six-Day War too (once I get enough relevant models painted :)  I have a pile of T-55s, BTR-152s and other Egyptian goodies waiting around for time on the paint table to take on my pile of IDF Shermans. It won't be anytime soon, however, as I need to get back to my Legion Project! Volkite Calivers are waiting...

15mm Egyptian Infantry Platoon, 1973

Tonight I finished* my platoon of Egyptian infantry for Conscript Greg's planned Prairiecon Yom Kippur War game.

 

The figures are from Khurasan, and the platoon is organized per the excellent information on the Khurasan website. Two sections of eleven men including one RPG, one RPD, and squad leader with Port Said SMG; one section organized the same way adding the platoon commander; and a support element of two Sagger teams and a mortar. The way the Khurasan packs worked out I ended up with three extra figures: one leader-type, an RPD gunner and a guy toting an RPG. Not bad.

The figures are excellent - just as you'd expect from Khurasan. Most of them (in fact all except the RPG gunners) are wearing the unique "assault vest" favoured by the Egyptian frontline troops in the YKW.

The troops also feature a good mix of poses. There are several obvious leader-types and lots of guys at the ready or firing their AK-47s.

The Sagger teams come in two flavours - prone...

...and kneeling. The weapons look very nice and they all fit well on a washer.

The support weapons pack comes with a mortar pack too, as well as a heavy machinegun (not shown QED)

The models were pretty straightforward to paint, too. I sprayed flat black as a primer, then painted most of the figure GW Calthan Brown as a basecoat. The vest was highlighted with Zandri Dust then Desert Yellow, while the sleeves, pants and helmet were highlighted with Deneb Stone.

Flesh got painted Dark Flesh highlighted with Dwarf Flesh. Woodwork on the weapons was painted Vermin Brown and the metal parts, Leadbelcher.

After this step the entire figure got a wash of Agrax Earthshade, and the component parts highlighted once more with the lightest tone - either Desert Yellow or Deneb Stone - save for the helmet covers.

  

I had a tough time figuring out how to do the camo covers for the helmets. I didn't want to make them too obviously "camo" but at the same time, wanted to differentiate them from the colour of the tan pants and sleeves. I ended up just stippling the Deneb Stone over top of the Agrax wash, leaving random slightly darker blotches showing through.
 

The last step was to paint the bases (Desert Yellow over Calthan Brown) and add GW Dead Grass and Army Painter tufts to taste.

And hey presto! Platoon complete - well, except for those pesky machinegunners. A quick trip to Home Depot or Rona will get the base sorted and they'll only take an hour or so to paint. These should be enough to play a Chain of Command or Red Storm! game, with tanks and tank destroyers added to taste.

*Obviously they're not "finished" as I've not painted the heavy machinegun and crew. Unfortunately I didn't have enough large washers on hand. So it goes...