1991 Desert Storm - Iraqi Army Progress

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Project Entry by oriskany

Veteran's Day Progress: 1991 Marines and Iraqis (Desert Storm)

November 11, 2019

For Veteran’s Day I switched gears again and got back to my ongoing USMC and Iraqi 15mm forces for the 1991 Gulf War. Long way to go on this one, and more vehicles are coming (BTR-60s for the Iraqis, Infantry, and of course Marine infantry and weapons teams as well).

USMC vehicles are now primed. Airbrush coming out today to base color in desert sand.

Iraqi force started as well. Built and primed. I used to Syrian T-54 battalion from Fate of a Nation - it's close enough and I'm not going to run around buying from 12 different sources to cobble together a force of different vendors, detail levels, and materials.

The kit comes with 9 T-54s. Three I built as straight up T-54s. Three I built as T-54s with side skirts on them (records show a mix of T-54s/55s, some with skirts, many without). I also used some of the T-55AM2 kit pieces, other bits out of my "botz box", etc, to covert three of these into Type 59 IIs, an upgraded Chinese knock-off of the T-54 that actually made up a large part (up to 1500) of Iraqi ARMY (not republican Guard) tank brigades and divisions in 1991.

The only part of this army I'm not 100% sure of are the two ZSU-23-4 Shilkas. Iraq did have about 200 of these, and the Marines even captured a handful and they're being used out at 29 Palms and Fort Irwin / NTC. But I don't know how many of these would have been left after 6 weeks of Desert Storm air campaign. Furthermore, these are clearly from an earlier Battlefront kit (resin and metal, not plastic) and I am not convinced at about the scale. The ZSU-23-4 is based ona PT-76 light amphibious tank chassis, I think these are WAY too big in scale against the T-54s.

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templar007

That’s good to know, that some ran with side skirts some did not.

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oriskany

@templar007 – That’s what I’m seeing in photos. Some T-54/55s (and definitely those, not the Type 59 IIs, you can tell instantly looking at the gun barrel) had the Soviet-style side skirts. Definitely the majority did not. Some of the Type 59 IIs also had them. Note I’m not even counting the T-55 “Enigma” – which according to what I’m reading were exceedingly rare and perhaps only used as brigade command vehicles (like 5-10 of them in the whole war). Now to be fair and honest, some people are also calling these “skirted” T-55s as “Type 69s” probably another Chinese… Read more »