1991 Desert Storm – Iraqi Army Progress

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Project Blog by oriskany

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About the Project

This is a project close to my heart, and one I've been putting off for FAR too long. For almost two years now I've been wanting to build a US Marine Corps Team Yankee force, but instead of using them in a fictional war in Europe, I wanted to build them for 1991 historical Desert Storm.

So I finally broke down and bought it all, enough to field a respectable US Marine Corps force approximately as it would have appeared in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, along with some enemy forces I can tweak into the T-55s, Type 59s, BTRs, and other vehicles used by the Iraqi divisions holding this section of the line. Possible recreations may include part of the Battle of Khafji in January 1991.

This project will cover the construction and painting of these forces, using mostly Battlefront 15mm from Teak Yankee and Fate of a Nation.

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Painting started - 1991 USMC vehicles

Nov 12 2019

Tutoring 5

Skill 8

Idea 8

1 Comment

Started work on my US Marine Corps Desert Storm force – in earnest. Building and priming was done, now fired up the airbrush (many problems there, but worked through them) and put a sand base color, then a dirt-brown “undersplash”, then started hand-painting tires, tracks, and running gear. Mostly done with the running gear, but a little more to do for the wheels on the tanks.

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

Nov 11 2019

Tutoring 9

Skill 7

Idea 8

2 Comments

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.

Getting Started ...

Nov 6 2019

Tutoring 10

Skill 10

Idea 13

2 Comments

This is a project close to my heart, and one I’ve been putting off for far too long. For almost two years now I’ve been wanting to build a US Marine Corps Team Yankee force, but instead of using them in a fictional war in Europe, I wanted to build them for 1991 historical Desert Storm.

So I finally broke down and bought it all, enough to field a respectable US Marine Corps force approximately as it would have appeared in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, along with some enemy forces I can tweak into the T-55s, Type 59s, BTRs, and other vehicles used by the Iraqi divisions holding this section of the line. Possible recreations may include part of the Battle of Khafji in January 1991.

This project will cover the construction and painting of these forces, using mostly Battlefront 15mm from Teak Yankee and Fate of a Nation.

Here are the kits I bought for this project. I'm looking to build a passable for for both sides that historically faced off in this part of the 1991 Gulf War. Nothing here is an EXACT match, there is no "Gulf War" kit. So I'll have to figure out a way to turn those M60A1s to USMC M60A1s with ERA reactive armor panels, and update those T-54s into T-55s and Type 59s used by Iraqi Army divisions (No T-72s "Lions of Babylon," those were Republican Guard divisions further north and west).

Start off with the USMC LAV-25 platoon. They give you a lot of choices here.

So out of my five LAVs, I built three with the standard autocannon (one commander), one with the mortar, and one with TOW-II ATGW mount to help deal with Iraqi tanks.

The main body of my little task force, the "standard" Marine Corps "Ryan's Leathernecks." Great kit, except again, I'll had to figure out how to add ERA reactive armor panels (without going crazy by cutting and mounting hundreds of armor slabs).

The Ryan's Leathernecks kit comes with six of the older-model HMMWVs. I made one with the TOW ATGW, one with the Mark 19 Automatic grenade launcher, and the rest with the redoubtable .50 M2HB heavy machine gun.

The kit also comes with three M60 main battle tanks. Indeed, the Marine Corps was still using M60s during the 1991 Gulf War. The only difference is the ERA reactive armor I'll have to figure out how to fabricate and mount.