A Gift From An Old Friend - Part 1

 I recently inherited my friend Al's beautiful Fate of a Nation Israeli army.  I say inherited deliberately as Al recently passed away.  This is not how I wanted things to turn out but I am honored to have this collection.

Al was an avid gamer and one of the nicest people I have ever known.  This army was in his collection for a long time and I think he painted most, if not all, himself.  The models are all Battlefront.

M50 Platoon 1

M50 Platoon 2

M51 Platoon 1

M51 Platoon 2

Magach 3 Platoon 1

Magach 3 Platoon 2

AMX Company

Sho't Platoon 1

Sho't Platoon 2

M113 Mech platoon.  A few of the infantry stands have gone missing.  I will need to see what I can do to fill out the ranks.

Miscellaneous items.  Over the years some items have been lost. I might have some extras of these in my unbuilt pile.

The complete army minus three Ouragan aircraft that are in really rough shape.

A couple years ago, when Al was down-sizing, I picked up a lot of his unbuilt models.  I don't even remember what all I got.  Needless to say, between this collection, my existing collection, and the unbuilt stuff I have a really huge Israeli army.  I will gradually work to touch-up and repair these models and to base and weather them to match my existing force.

Al is the second of my long-time game friends to have passed away in the last few weeks and it is very sobering.  Neither was old enough for this to be expected and really, they should both should still be around enjoying life.  I need to re-evaluate my own life because I ain't getting any younger myself.

I have plans for a memorial game using Al's models very soon.  Stay tuned and stay healthy!

Israeli P'lugah Tan'kim continued

A few years ago I built an Israeli tank company for Fate of a Nation when it first came out.  This original project was centered on M50 and M51 Shermans with Sho't as a support.  Those first game were fun but I quickly discovered that the Sherman force was just not viable.  Most of the Israeli stuff was WAY too expensive points wise to be competitive. My primary opponent had Jordanians.  Jordanians lacked all the bells and whistles of the Israelis but there stuff was cheap and plentiful and very dangerous.  Fast forward to today and we have a new version of Fate of a Nation based on the Flames of War version 4 rules and 100 point system.  With this new version my old Israeli army was in need of an update.  My old army was about half the size needed for a standard game.  This gave me an opportunity to add more Sho't tanks to the force and give it much more punch.  I bought the new Jordanian starter set which gets you 5 Centurions which can be build as the Israeli Sho't version.

With these 5 additional tanks I now  have enough Sho't to build a formation of these tough tanks.  This will now be the backbone of my army.

Seven Sho't tanks come in at 63 point which is nearly 2/3 the entire points for the army.  Fortunately, everything else I have is supper cheap which will allow me to run a second formation of Shermans and still have lots of points left for support units.

I still need to get a few additional models to fully flesh the army out to 100 points but I am very close.  I actually think 100 point games might be too big for this period.  This army is heavily themed on the 6 Day War but my friends seems to be moving more towards the Yom Kippur War which means tougher Soviet tanks.  This may force me to look at adding Magach 6 tanks to stay in the fight.

Israeli Ch'ir Anti-Tank Platoon

My final installment, for now anyway, of my 1967 Israeli army is the Ch'ir Anti-Tank Platoon.  This platoon consists of two Jeeps with 106mm recoilless rifles mounted on the back.  I was super excited about getting these on the table.  They are basically the same gun as he M51 Isherman with a 3+ save like recce units.  I had plans of these zipping around the table and causing havoc with my enemies.  Unfortunately, I missed the awkward layout.  This really limits the usefulness as you are move or shoot.  The models are very cool and I am sure after some thought I will find the right roll for these.  In fact, I am pretty sure I need a couple more.

Israeli Sayur Platoon

This is my Sayur platoon for my 1967 Israeli army.  These are some really great little models and as they are Jeeps they are near and dear to me.  These are Combat Patrols and I am not sure if they follow the standard recce rules, but after my first couple of games, and a re-read, I don't think they do.  I still have lots to learn on the proper application of this unit.

Israeli M3 TCM-20 Anti-Aircraft Platoon

Time for more Israeli models.  Next we have the anti-aircraft platoon equipped with M3 TCM-20.  Not too much to say about these.  I am not sure how much AA work they will get to do but they should be hell on infantry and light vehicles.

Israeli Sho't Platoon

Continuing on with my Israeli Tank Company, we have the Sho't platoon.  I was really excited to add these tanks to the army as they are by far the best tanks of the 6 Day War.  Their AT18 can and will kill any tank in the game.  The armor is no better than any of the other top of the line tanks of the period but the gun is great.

As excited as I am about these tanks, in game terms, I must say that the models truly suck.  The first attempt to build this unit involved hulls and track assemblies that were so warped they were unusable.  Battlefront did, eventually, make this right but it took 10 weeks to get replacement tracks and hulls.  Another huge flaw in these models is that the tracks are resin and extremely fragile.  This is the reason that they are based and ultimately the reason the entire army is based.  I would love to have more of these tanks in the army but the models are so bad I will never buy more.

Israeli M50 'French' Sherman Platoon

This installment of my Israeli P'Lugah Tan'kim for Fate of a Nation is the M50 'French' Sherman platoon.  These are called French Shermans due to the use of the French 75mm gun from the AMX tank.  This gun is based on the German Panther gun from WWII.  In fact, it is a direct copy of the German gun.  Unfortunately, by 1967 the gun was really show its age.  I am not sure this unit will stay in the army after the first game.  At only AT14 compared to the AT16 of the M51 for only a 20 point difference per tank I am not sure these are worth taking in the long run.

All in all I am not a big fan of the model.  It seems that they modeled the tank as an M4A1 on the front but the rear half is a welded hull more like an M4A3.  This is not how the real tanks looked.  It is a fairly inaccurate model.

I must say I don't really like the aesthetics of the original tank much either. The M50 is an ugly tank with a very impractical layout.  The long mantle of the 75mm gun overhangs the driver and radioman hatches when the gun is facing forward.  Not a good place to be if the tank takes a hit.

Israeli M51 Tan'kim Platoon

Next up for the Israeli 6 Day War project is the first Tan'kim platoon.  This platoon consists of two M51 Isherman tanks.

Pretty much everything I said in the HQ post is true here as they are the same tanks.  I love these models and I am sure I will add more to the collection.  I might convert this entire army to M51 at some point.

Israeli P'lugah Tan'kim HQ

After a very long production drought I am finally back to painting.  My current project is my long neglected Israeli P'lugah Tan'kim army.  For this army I am doing mostly Sherman variants to represent a tank brigade on the West Bank.  First up for this project is the company HQ of two M51 Isherman tanks.

I love the M51 models.  These are some of the best models Battlefront has put out in years.  These tanks are from the second battalion, as represented by the two stripes on the gun barrel.  They are also from the first company as denoted by the chevron on the side.  I could not find any details about company HQ specific markings so I just went with plain tanks other than the company and battalion markings.

This is a close-up of the company commander tank.  I really love the search lights.

The HQ racing across the desert.

This is just the first installment of many for the project.  I am actually very close to having this project done and on the table.

P'Lugah Tan'kim Progress

My Israeli army for Flames of War is slowly taking shape.  I have assembled the first 8 tanks, 4 M50 and 4 M51, shermans.  I have several Jeeps to assemble next and I am still awaiting my Sho't from Battlefront.  I really like the M51 Isherman models.  These are some amazing models.  It would have been nice to see some stowage variation or even some extra bits to break up the uniformity a little.  The M50 model is not quite a cool.  Part of it is it is a really ugly tank.  But the hull of this model is a little odd.  The front is clearly from the M4A1 Sherman but the rear looks like it is from the A3.  It does not have the fully rounded hull they is typical of the A1 and the model is a different hull from the M51 kit.

I have already decided that I will be expanding this force.  I am thinking of using my US Easy 8 Shermans as Israeli M1.  Most of the M1 tanks were based on the M4A1 cast hull but there are lots of pictures of M4A3 based tanks as well.  This will work nicely I think as they would not require any conversion work.  Battlefront recommends using the M4A1 WW2 kit and using the HVSS tracks to model the M1.  To me this poses too many problems.  First the M4A1 lit lacks the fenders for the wider HVSS tracks.  Then there is the problem of the muzzle break - the M4A1 kits does not have it and the E8 does.  These are key features for me and just cannot be left off.

Fate of a Nation Plans - Israel

With the release of the new, full size, Fate of a Nation book it is time to get serious about my plans for this period.  I really think the 1967 War is a great setting for Flames of War and makes much more sense than Vietnam.  When the Wargames Illustrated min-book came out last year I was excited but I wanted to wait and see what Battlefront's level of support was going to be before I jumped in.  With the new book it look like this might have some legs so it is time to make a plan.

My favorite tanks for this conflict are all the cool Sherman variants so it is only natural that I start with an Israeli force.  I like to plan a new FoW project around 1500 points.  This is the most common game size I play and it allows me to build a solid core army that is easy to expand later.

P'lugah Tan'kim

HQ
2 M51 Isherman      240pts

Combat Platoons
2 M51 Isherman      240pts

4 M50 'French' Sherman    390ps

2 Centurion        350pts

Support Platoons
4 Patrol Jeep       80pts

2 Anti-tank Jeeps      100pts

2 M3 TCM-20           100pts

Total points - 1500

I really like this as starting force.  There are lots of cool franken-shermans and a couple of heavy hitter tanks.  It has recce as well as light AT to support it.  It also has AA.  I think this will be a really fun army to play.  I was a little surprised that this army will only cost about $210 at full retail so I should be able to put is together for less than $200 with some bargain shopping.  Now I just need to collect the models before BF lets them go out of production....