What Colour Paint for IDF vehicles? - Arab-Israeli Wars in 12mm

 Tinkering with 3D Builder and the multitude of Bergman AFV files on Thingiverse, I decided I’d like to print myself an Israeli Super Sherman. I found a file someone had created in 15mm and married the hull & turret to Marco Bergman’s M4A3E8 running gear and sized it all to print at my 1-130th (12mm) standard.

Pleased with the results I then looked to my quite extensive paint collection and pondered “what colour do I paint it”?

Years ago I’d painted 6mm IDF forces and had relied on good old Vallejo Iraqi Sand but I knew that this wasn’t wholly accurate, though adequate at this small scale. Most colour pictures I’d seen looked like the vehicles of the Six-Day War era were a sort of light greeny grey. As time went on this appeared to darken by the 1982 Lebanon invasion.

Finished article. A M51 Isherman with French 105mm MAin Gun.

I’m not a fan of mixing paints so I turned to the interweb for help and very quickly found the answers I needed.

My paint of choice, Vallejo, had Israeli Sand Grey (71-141) which was a perfect match, but only appears to be available in Model Air or Primer, not the brush paint formulation. So this appeared to be a dead end as I wanted to brush paint.

The process is; two coats of sand grey, followed by shadow added with Army Painter DArk Tone wash and finally, high-lighting added  by dry-brushing Iraqi Sand.

Then I looked a bit further and discovered the MIG Ammo range of paints – a new one to me that I’ve never used before. They offer a (rather expensive!) boxed set for finishing IDF AFVs of all wars or each are available separately in 17ml dropper bottles.

The one that suited my purpose was called Real IDF Sand Grey ’73 (A. MIG -0132) which was ideal for either the Six-Day or Yom Kippur wars. This was duly ordered from eBay and arrived a couple of days later. Incidentally, they also do the darker version for 1982 onwards as Real IDF Sand Grey ’82 (A. MIG -0131).

Firstly, I was very impressed that the bottle comes with a ball bearing inside to agitate the paint as you shake. I bought a pack of ball-bearings for this reason a while back and find them really good.

The colour of the paint was perfect. However, in use I have a few of observations; -

1. • Painting over white primer it takes two coats to cover, the pigment is a little lacking.
2. • It dries to a slight sheen rather than a dull matt
3. • It is terribly slow to dry (could be that the temp in the Loser Shed is dropping due to winter approaching?) – taking a least 24 hours – which in MIG's defence it does says on the label.

But all in all, I’m very happy with the end result. Obviously, one IDF AFV wasn’t enough for me, I now have two small armies for the 1967 conflict printed up, with Minifigs figures ordered to match! But more of that another day.

Team Yankee - West German 3D Printed Force - Part Four

I've reached a point with my 15mm Bundeswehr force that I thought it worth sharing once again.

Whilst I intend to try these out with the Seven Days to the River Rhine (SDttRR) rules, I have based the organisation around that in the Team Yankee "Leopard" book, which from what I can ascertain on-line, appears to reflect mid 1980's Bundeswehr organisation pretty accurately.

I've collected together a mixture of figures and vehicles that allow me to field a selection of different forces to suit the scenarios.

This is centred around a front line Kampfgruppe made up of Leopard 2 (base original model) and Marder 1 (again the base model not the A3 up-armoured version) with support elements.

• 3 x Leopard 2
• 3 x Marder 1 IFV
• 2 x Jaguar 2 (TOW)
• 2 x Luchs 8x8 Armoured Car
• 1 x Gepard AA (to shoot down that pesky Hind!)
• 3 x Fuchs 6x6 Wheeled APC
• 2 x VW Iltis Jeeps

when I find a suitable model I'm happy with, I'll add Leopard 1A4's to the force too.

I painted the vehicles up using Battlefront's own Team Yankee West German paint set which contained all I needed for vehicles and figures.

The paint schemes came from the aforementioned "Leopard" book.

I intended to buy Battlefront's Panzer Grenadier Zug to give the force some figures, but it appears to currently be out of production and impossible to buy at a reasonable price.

As an alternative, I bought a selection of 6 packs of figures from QRF.

These on the face of it present good value for money at just £2.70 for a pack of 8 figures. Their modern range covers all posts and they have a very healthy 15mm range of vehicles to back these up too.

An MG Team base - Anti-Tank Launcher, MG3 Team & NCO

However, the figures are a bit hit and miss. Their quality of sculpting is a little below what you'd expect from Battlefront, and a long way from Peter Pig for example. However, they benefit from a careful paint job and can look the part.

Alternative MG Team base - Anti-Tank Launcher, MG3 Team & NCO

In my case I purchased; -

• 2 x Milan team packs (6 launchers)
• 2 x MG3 team packs (8 MG teams)
• 1 x command pack (8 NCO/Officer figures)
• 1 x Panzerfaust 3 pack (8 figures with Anti-Tank launchers)

This equated to 6 Milan team bases + 8 MG team bases of 4 figures each. Each Marder carried an MG team + a Milan team (6 men in total).

Whilst talking about QRF, can I bring to your attention their Decal range. They sell excellent value (£2.00 for 2 sheets) 15mm vehicle markings covering the main symbols you're likely to need, including balkan crosses, turret numbers, allied stars and in this case, Bundeswehr Maltese crosses. Just the job to finish off the AFVs.

Milan Team

The Fuchs could carry 9-10 men so the extra two MG team bases can go with these vehicles or indeed, the VW Jeeps.

The Bundeswehr uniform of the 1980's is great to paint.....basically an all-over grey green! This is broken up by prominent national colours on the upper arm. The uniform and webbing colours come in the Battlefront paint set which made this even simpler.

The bases were 3D printed and roughly mirror the Battlefront standard, slightly tweaked to suit QRF base sizes. I textured the bases with Vallejo White Pumice and flocked when painted.

This little force should prove very flexible on the table. I can use them with the original Team Yankee, SDttRR or my old stand-by, Cold War Commander.

I also have both BAOR and Soviet forces as work in progress, and one day I may even add 1980's French to join them. A 3D printer's work is never done....😀