Musings on Arab-Israeli project

Progress has concentrated on the Soldier King project, with work on flags for Estavia (still need work), but I've also been musing on my Arab-Israeli stuff.

A post on Tim Gow's blog prompted some of the thinking:

http://megablitzandmore.blogspot.com/2022/11/sinai-1967-megablitz-game-revisited.html

My armies are being built for Megablitz and Tim's orbats that he published on his blog were part of the inspiration. Tim has focussed on Sinai for 1967, where the main fighting occurred, although I've researched the Jordanian and Syrian fronts in addition to cover the whole Six Days War.

My obsession with the various Arab -Israeli wars goes back much further. My first attempt was in 1/285th; living in Northumberland I naturally gravitated to GHQ being sold at the time by New Hope Design then in Rothbury.

My research was minimal; Bruce Quarrie's guide and a Born in Battle magazine identified the main tanks used, so I ordered a selection of what I thought were Israeli vehicles from a paper list without pictures. The Shermans were OK, but the Centurions were probably the later version. I had also ordered "Pattons"; these turned out to be M47 rather than the M48 I was expecting.

Peter Gilder had just written a painting guide published in Military Modelling. His advice was to undercoat black and drybrush. Filled with enthusiasm, I bought a large can of black car primer from a car parts shop in Alnwick. Disaster! Whether it was old stock or I managed to buy the only faulty can in the shop, whatever the cause it failed to spray and the nozzle kept clogging! Perhaps it was an omen.....

I ended up undercoating by hand and drybrushed them grey; they looked.......OK. Enthusiasm quashed, I dug them out a few years later and played a game. Ended up passing them to a friend. I had encountered one of the downfalls of micro armour for me; the tendency to try and field 1:1 forces which ended up with wall to wall tanks, instead of  using the scale to fight on smaller tables for example.

Many years later, played some more Arab-Israeli games with GHQ 1:285 again, this time using Modern Spearhead. Playing out a scenario based on a historical encounter, sadly revealed the limitations of the rules; no benefits for troop quality and no restrictions on Soviet armour firing from higher ground (in reality unable to depress their guns), no airpower for the Israelis ( umpire decided not to use).

My interest lay dormant until it resurfaced many years later. This was long before Battlefront brought out their 15mm ranges. I toyed with micro, but past experience had put me off. Then musing one day, I realised Roco Minitanks had many of the vehicles, being from the 1960s and having WW2 surplus as used by many European armies. M48s, Sherman, M3 halftrack, Centurion (rare) were all available or already in my stash (only 4 Centurions at that point). For the Arabs, T34/85, T54/55, JS3 were also available (if crude).

The downside was the fact that many needed converting. I remembered one of the earliest inspirations; an article in Military Modelling from around 1977 converting smaller scale vehicles to Arab-Israeli, mostly Airfix, but with Roco  mentioned in the list of available vehicles.

Aircraft could be sourced from Heller and Tamiya  in 1:100, more crude 1960s models which somehow seemed to fit. Most of the French types could be sourced.

But what rules to use? I had rejected the idea of rules requiring multiple models (due to the need to convert most) for company or platoon level. Martin Rapier had some very high level (stand = brigade) but were a bit too abstract. Then inspiration struck. What about Megablitz with 1 stand = 1 battalion with the added attraction of the ethos of bodging vehicles to look roughly like what they are supposed to? 

Once started, it's taken on a life of its own as the pictures of conversions and modelling on this blog will attest. Tim's post has inspired me to get on with finishing it!