"Scratch-built Paley Republican Army (Hammers Slammers)" Topic

The following are pictures of my suggestions for a range of scratch-built vehicles to cover the main PRA forces for a major Hammer's Slammers confrontation involving the "…large, tough, well-trained…" PRA vs a force of rebels assisted by the mercenary Ariete Division.

Given that the PRA won their war in the end, I reasoned that they must have had quite good basic equipment, if not up to top current standards. I therefore assumed that they would be similar to the Ariete (i.e. all-tracked) but they may have bought and converted various older vehicles which were now considered ‘2nd line', a bit like the Germans using 1940 period armour to make quite potent 1944 SPs; or Israeli forces in the 1950s-70s, mounting modern guns in old Sherman chassis and creating ‘heavy' APCs (an idea first introduced by the Canadians in Normandy) by gutting lots of old or captured tanks. The latter then not only offered excellent protection but were now also very fast after removing the massive weight of the old MBT turret! Even today the arms market is full of old, ‘unfashionable' equipment so why not the future?

This rationale fitted perfectly with my modelling plans, which was to try and utilize some of my dearly loved but under-used collection of Roco/Herpa Minitanks, a beautifully detailed range of vehicles from WW2-1980s in 1/87th scale, now hardly out of place among ‘big' 15mm! True, the early ones are a bit basic and strict adherence to scale was obviously optional(!); but the later examples are both consistent and wonderfully detailed.

My main criteria was therefore to use some of the more obscure and wacky-looking items, doing a ‘mix-and-match' of chassis and turrets, just never using any model whole/as is. In the end, I settled on a few key US chassis but – as the Germans – using them to mount a wide variety of weapon-systems.

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The two minor exceptions to this are my favourite ‘HQ complex' and ARVE bridge-layer…..

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As yo can clearly see I'm no painter, but in all instances the basic models were enhanced with stowage, extras and crew figures from the likes of Hobby Master, Peter Pig, GZG, Brigade etc. I thoroughly recommend them to you.

Note – my take on the Ariete (currently under construction) will be done the same way, but in this case I am using the slightly larger West German equipment models for the MBTs and the lovely Marder as their main APC. As before, some turrets will be Minitanks, others from the ‘Mechwarrior' range. More on these when I've finished… enjoy.

A few more pics…

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Nice work there, been thinking about doing something similar, but haven't a clue as to which 1/87 manufacturers are the ones to buy. Inspiring stuff Peter, thanks.

Very nice work !

Amazingly effective

Nice. I think I see M60A2 turrets and FV432 chassises… What else do you have here?

Sweet very creative….

Very frak'n clever. Nice work.

Many thanks for all the comments (and John Treadaway for the pics). I had hoped to spark some interest along these lines, so will hopefully be creating a reference page for the main Hammers Slammers wargaming site in due course. I'll also see if I can create an extract of the vehicle reference numbers which were used in the next day or so.

In the meantime, I thought you might like to see some of the rebels….?

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That the rebels were rich is obvious – they had to be, to hire the Ariete! – but they were obviously also outclassed in longer, stand-up fights on their own, a bit like the Boer republics in 1899-1902. It therefore seemed reasonable to make them miners, with some light imported weapons (ATGM, light support weapons) often mounted on civilian trucks.

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To represent the few available vehicles, I turned to the ‘Mechwarrior' range. Whilst most of these are too small for 15mm, some are difficult to judge by eye and so provided the ‘tracked technical' equivalent (from all the mines), plus some light but powerful SP/AT guns which could also be shipped-in easily and would be high on the shopping list to counter the armour-rich PRA forces.

Oh, and while I was at it, I also took the Boer analogy a stage further by creating some actual mounted units (using various ‘post-apocalyse' figures), as for a far-flung, rugged planet, horses can represent an excellent, self-replicating source of transport? And if you can fire a rifle from horseback, you can certainly fire a homing buzz-bomb, or fling a satchel-charge. PRA watch out!

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Enjoy…

Don't think they are Fv432, might be paladin chassis, some are Sheridan hulls.

Wow. I love huge themed kitbashing projects.

Curios as to the source of the crew figs in the odd helmets and "hatch" weapons like the TOW launcher?

Peter Pig?

Great looking stuff Peter,
Even if you say you're no painter you did a good job.
Keep it up.

Z