Emergency Miniature Work - 15mm USMC Super Cobra

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Project Entry by oriskany

Iraqi Armor Finished

September 23, 2020

I have now finished my Iraqi Army armor force for upcoming games / content on the 1991 Gulf War (15mm Battlefront, various sets from Team Yankee and Fate of a Nation).

Next up, Infantry! (ugh …) I have a box of 140+ 15mm Soviet Cold War infantry I’ll be working on … half of this will be painted as 1991 Iraqi Army infantry (plenty for this project), the rest will stay as Soviets for various Cold War games in the future.

First platoon of T-55s I had to do the best I could with T-54s from the Syrian "Fate of a Nation" set. Note the unit markings on the bore evacuators. Apparently that's where the Iraqis put them (various yellows, greens, browns, sometimes with white stripes). Also added antennae.

A platoon of five BTR-60 infantry carriers. Drilled small holes for the antennae.

Second platoon of tanks. These were kit-bashed into an approximation of Type 59 Type IIs. These were Chinese knock-offs of T-55s ... but then subsequently upgraded with L7 105mm rifles and rudimentary laser range finders. So an upgrade of a knockoff? Yeah, weird. But those L7s made them pretty dangerous in 1991.

Second platoon of T-55s. Note these have side skirts, the others did not. Wartime photos show plenty of 1991 Iraqi T-55s with both configurations, some with ... some without.

The Iraqi Army had plenty of ZSU-23-4 Shilka SPAAGs in 1991. However, I doubt many of these would be left when then the ground war actually started on 24 February 1991. Nevertheless I have two of them here just in case their USMC opponents will get cute with their AH-1 Cobras and AV-8B Harriers (or hell, F/A-18 Hornets).