is not a real big fan of pre-painted minis, and he positively despises randomly-packed "collectable" ones - so why is he writing this article?
The Israelis – since they don't need to worry about transporting their forces all over the globe – are able to make use of retired MBTs as the basis for various support vehicles. Yes, the vehicles tend to be heavy, but that also gives them significant survivability in combat use.
I've just painted up some Soltam 160mm Self-Propelled Mortars for my Israeli forces. I understand this is an ex-Sherman tank, with the turret removed and new superstructure attached. "Soltam" is the name of the large mortar; if the vehicle has a name or nickname, I'm not sure what it is.
I tried using Google to research how to paint this vehicle, but it gets confusing when many of the photos are of vehicles that have been retired to sit in a park somewhere, and painted any which ways (in some cases, even the treads have been painted!).
In the end, my best guess was to paint the whole vehicle in typical Israeli Sand Grey, with lots of weathering because I want these vehicles to look like they've been out on the battlefield.
They look a little bare without crew figures. I may add some crew figures someday.
I bought these 1:300 scale models from Skytrex, but the range has since been sold and are now available from Heroics & Ros.
I painted these up with the intention of using them for some Lebanon War action, but I'm changing my mind… I feel the Yom Kippur War calling to me now… I've got better scenario information for that!