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| Dassault Ouragan from Battlefront Miniatures |
More "Fate Of A Nation" stuff. This is a 1/144 scale Dassault Ouragan from Battlefront, a resin and metal kit released as part of their "Fate Of A Nation" supplement to the Flames of War game. I finished this off this past weekend, where it rained for pretty much 48 hours straight. The prairie climate can pretty much just go f*ck itself, but I digress...
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| Inspiring box art |
Near-total air superiority was one of the key factors of the IDF's stunning success in the Six Day War in 1967. The IDF opened the war with "Operation Moked", a surprise air assault by the Israeli Air Force that caught the Egyptian air force on the ground and pretty much toasted it. I think they took out something like 400 Arab aircraft. After that, the IDF armoured brigades could roll out into the Sinai with full-on air cover.
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| I suppose the artful nose was a common thing on these planes? |
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| Beautiful plane! The golden age of jets! |
With the Egyptian Air Force in tatters, the IAF was free to strafe and bomb the Arab columns as they tried to fall back to the Suez Canal. French-built beauties like these prowled the skies over the Sinai, crushing the Egyptian troops. No wonder the thing was over in a matter of days.
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| Nuln Oil pin washes are your friend |
With all of this in mind, I thought it would be fun for the IDF to have some air support when we try "Fate Of A Nation" at some point in the future. Besides, the
Egyptian ZSU-57-2s will need something to shoot at, right? And air support activity always seems to be fraught with drama during Conscript games - see
here,
here and
here for a couple of examples. Goodness knows what the heck will happen when this puppy gets called in...
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| Couple of bombs underneath |
The Dassault Ouragan carried bombs and was armed with four 20mm cannons. All useful for tuning up enemy armoured columns!
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| Flight stand from Battelfront includes magnets - brilliant! |
The Battlefront model is very nice. The base is sturdy, and you get magnets to boot - yay! The decals are great too. You can't go wrong with the whole growling-face-on-the-front-of-the-plane motif. I wondered where this symbol came from - it seemed awfully custom, but a cursory online search seems to reveal that it was popular in the IAF. Or perhaps just popular with model box art people :) Either way, I love the look of it.
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| I think the dice is supposed to represent how strong the actual mission is? I don't really know Flames of War that well |
My only gripe? I wish it was 1/100 scale, like the other vehicles - not that it matters at all in terms of the gaming, just a pedant tic in my own mind. The model would probably be impractical at 1/100 for gaming...
So my IDF now have tanks, some infantry and air support. Need to focus on the Egyptians now. Stay tuned for more "Fate Of A Nation" stuff...
