IDF – Sho´t tank company

After nearly 3 years I managed to get back to my Team Yankee IDF project. For a long time they were just sitting in my shelf because the whole concept of the infantry company was not working very well for me to a point were I did not enjoyed the game anymore.

However things changed since Battlefront released a PDF list for a Sho´t company in March  this year. With the M60 (or Magach) there already was a List for cheap tanks in the book but I never liked the look of them.

The new list consists of the Israeli Centurion or Sho´t Kal tanks which are similar to the M60 (1 point of armour less in front and side, but laser rangefinder) but they are equiped with ERA. Most importantly however I really like the look of them so I was hooked to finally get back finishing this army.

I started of with a rough list concept and soon realised that I want to field a full Sho´t company of 10 tanks. The support looks similar to my old build with mortars, TOW jeeps (they got better rockets with the PDF), Pereh and Merkava tanks.

New is the addition of jets, the A-4 the Israelis can field are quiet cheap so I decidet to use 4 of them but I dont like the model so I printed myself some Mirage III as a count as.

The Infantry is now part of my tank formation, a small platoon of 9 bases with 3 M113 (they too got some new missile options). Since I play a tank formation now I have access to recce which comes in form of 3 M113, they are a mix of my old transport vehicles and even include a Fitter recovery vehicle just to made them stand out a bit.

I ordered 2 boxes of Centurions (great kits) and converted them a bit to look more like the israeli ones. I rebuild the turret baskets, added alot of stowage and the ID panels. Every tank will get a set of printed smoke dischargers since they used a different version and more MGs.

6 of the tanks will be the older Sho´t Kal Gimel which use the barrel without thermal sleeve and .30 cal MGs the other 4 will be Sho´t Kal Dalet, they have thermal sleeves on the barrels and will get printed FN MAG MGs for commander and loader.

There is still plenty of work to do on these tanks but i hope that I can get start with priming and preshading next week.

I started on the Sho’t tanks. This time I used pre shading to add debth to the overall look.

I started on the Sho’t tanks. This time I used pre shading to add debth to the overall look.

I finished the first platoon of Shot Kal Gimel tanks.

Hopefully the others will be finished a bit faster.

While working on the first platoon of tanks I encountered some issues with the varnish/ oil wash nearly ruining some of my tanks. So instead of just pinwashing and removing the excess with white spirit making this a fast and easy process I had to alter my workflow here putting me way behind scedule.

While I painted alot of Dystopian Wars ships in the meantime I came to the conclusion that I had to apply a “pinwash” by brush quiet carefully. This results in a fiddly blacklining process.

However the Sho´t are now in the final stages. They just need some dust and metal effects on the tracks, teir tank commanders and maybe some flags.

But at least I found the time to play some games with these tanks. They dont hold up quiet well against bigger MBT but the extra protetion against rockets saved alot of them.

While working on the first platoon of tanks I encountered some issues with the varnish/ oil wash nearly ruining some of my tanks. So instead of just pinwashing and removing the excess with white spirit making this a fast and easy process I had to alter my workflow here putting me way behind scedule.

While I painted alot of Dystopian Wars ships in the meantime I came to the conclusion that I had to apply a “pinwash” by brush quiet carefully. This results in a fiddly blacklining process.

However the Sho´t are now in the final stages. They just need some dust and metal effects on the tracks, teir tank commanders and maybe some flags.

But at least I found the time to play some games with these tanks. They dont hold up quiet well against bigger MBT but the extra protetion against rockets saved alot of them.

The tanks for the IDF are done now, roughly a month behind scedule but done.