New project - South African Border Wars

As my multitude of followers (thank to all nine) will know, I’ve been waffling on about doing a small scale, larger scope game for some time now.  I felt I was getting a bit samey with a lot of my collection being for infantry centric platoon sized games with minimal support weapons.

After a lot of research and consideration I’d finally narrowed it down to the following: Cold War gone hot; 1967 or 1973 Arab-Israeli Wars; the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War; or the Iran-Iraq Wars.  All of these would give me combined arms action.  Then, when reading the Centurion vs T-55 chapter in the book Battleground, I saw a picture of a South African Oliphant tank (modified Centurion) and down the rabbit hole I went. 

On delving deeper into the South African Border Wars it really capitvated me. It gives me the combined arms aspect in spades.  The conflict lasted a long time, therefore the equipment used and nature of the fighting changed and developed.  This gives lots of scope for the project.

An invaluable source of information and inspiration has been Des Latham's wonderful South African Border Wars podcast.  It covers the historical background and then every stage in detail.  Each episode (currently there are 110) is around 15 to 20 minutes long, nice and succinct and Des's delivery is entertaining and engaging.  He's extremely balanced in his views which could be seen as a surprise as he actually fought in the conflict.

As usual I've been trawling the library system and managed to turn up some books.  I read Battle on the Lomba within days of picking it up.  It's a great first person account of a Ratel IFV commander.  

My favourite book publisher Helion have come up trumps and I've invested in the titles pictured below.  Helion are the champion of the lesser known and less popular conflicts and I could spend a fortune with them.  They also do a lot of offers so it's worth signing up for emails.  All of the below were picked up at sizeable discounts.  

As for miniatures one of the main principles of this project was to do a larger scope project which meant 1/300th/6mm or 10mm scale.  I did a quick search under the larger scales, but as it turned out the only scale that gave the variety of South African vehicles I needed was 1/300th, with only Scotia Grendel doing a comprehensive range. 

Guided by the Force on Force Bush Wars supplement and Helion South African Armoured Vehicles book, I ordered up one of each vehicle involved and some packs of infantry.  Service from Scotia Grendel was excellent and the models were with me in only a few days from ordering.  I’m very pleased with them, they’re cleanly cast with good detail for the scale and at a good price.  

1/300th armour in progress

It’s early days but this is a nice project to get stuck into.  It meets the requirements I’ve been looking for for sometime - combined arms (aircraft will follow), scope for different levels and types of fighting and working in a small scale which is affordable and easier to store.  All in all a nice change.  

As Des would say “It’s time to secure the perimeter.  Until next”.