Armor Of The Arab-Israeli Wars - Or - Mike's Visit To Yad La-Shiryon Part 3

In this third installment of my article covering the plethora of armor at the IDF museum and memorial Yad La-Shiryon we will be looking at the armor of the Arab states, generally Egypt and Syria, used in the 1967 and 1973 wars. One thing to remember from all of these photos, most, if not all, of these tanks have been repainted by museum personnel at some point so the paint colors are not necessarily original.

As Soviet client states, Egypt and Syria began to receive large numbers of T-54 and T-55 tanks, and these would form the backbone of both the Egyptian and Syrian armored forces in both the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The T-54/55 was one of the first true modern main battle tanks, and despite some early teething problems in the late 1940's, it would go on to become the most numerous tank in history (by production numbers) with estimates as high as 100,000 units being produced in total from all sources.

T-54 Tank - this is an earlier version

The T54/55 would go through several modifications over the years, and while the Soviet Union would eventually phase it out in favor of more modern designs, the type remains in use today by over 50 nations - often in highly modernized forms. Unfortunately much of the Soviet armor is parked very close together, so it is hard to get full views of each tank without a wide angle lens, which I didn't have with me for this trip.

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UAR vs the Israelis in a micro armor dust-up

By Eric "Truckstop" Lauterbach

It's part two of the John Desch micro armor battle day! After my first Fate of a Nation game in 6mm with the new rules resulting in a good kick in the pants, I decided I really need to change the list.

First, I found that the Isherman has been priced out of its performance level. So now I think that the, Magach 3 is the way to go for the Israelis. Thus, my new list is made up of two platoons of 3 Magach tanks along with the HQ and 2ic Magach, plus anti-tank gun jeeps and mortar tracks.

John's list did not change from the first game and seams to be a solid way of playing UAR: three companies of T-55s sporting stabilizers and some ZSU anti-air for good measure.

We randomly rolled a mission and dust-up was the answer the dice gave us.  We both thought it would be a good test of the Israeli army so off we went.  Having only 4 platoons hurts, but both sides had this predicament and hard choices were made. ....or not really the Magachs were all going on table! John had two full T-55 companies on table and one off with the ZSU. I of course had my soft and chewy mortar halftracks and jeeps off table. I needed every barrel possible to kill off the tank horde.

The dust up table.

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Free for All - Israeli & Egyptian Tank Forces

By Tom Burgess,

Still smarting from my 5-2 loss against my friend Greg while playing Flames of War's Fate of A Nation rule set, a few days later I got the Israeli tanks out to face another friend, Don's UAR Tank Battalion. Don and I decided to play at 2220points. We rolled up Free-For-All as our mission.

We used the same board that Greg and I played on earlier, but with some slight movement of terrain pieces. The above photo is from the Israeli "Attacker" side of the table. Don and I have complete Battlefront miniatures for our forces and this was the first Fate of a Nation game in our area that did not include any proxying (Normally WW2 Soviets for UAR Ground troops & Guns)

My force included:
HQ: 2 x AMX-13
Plt 1: 4 x AMX-13
Plt 2: 4 x AMX-13
Plt 3: 4 x Sho't
Plt 4: Mechanized Infantry with extra Blinidicide
Plt 5: 3 x 120mm Mortar Halftracks

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Counterattack - Israeli & Egyptian Tank Forces

by Tom Burgess

My friend Greg and I had a chance to get in another Fate of a Nation game recently. With a desert board already set, we rolled up "Counterattack" as a mission. Unfortunately I rolled up as the Defender and thus the Mobile Reserve rule was really going to hamper my force.

I was running an AMX-13 based Israel force with:

HQ: 2 x AMX-13
Plt 1: 4 x AMX-13
Plt 2: 4 x AMX-13
Inf: Full Mechanized Infantry Platoon with extra Blinidicide
MTR: 3 x 120mm Mortar Halftracks
AAA: 2 x 20mm AAA Halftracks

I set my infantry on my right across from the UAR deployment area. The stream/wadi I hoped would help my infantry withstand a full on tank assault.

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Rafah Junction - 20,000 point Fate of a Nation Throw Down

By Tom Burgess

I am truly fortunate to part of a great group of gamers who can come together to play huge scenarios like the Rafah Junction game. In the past we have run a large Kursk battle and a large Hannut  battle as well as several campaigns where we have been able to employ Flames of War as our common rule set.

With the release of the new “Fate of a Nation” Arab-Israeli War book from Battlefront, we thought it might be fun to get out all of our Six Day war forces and run a “Tanksgiving” mega battle. However scheduling precluded us from being able to run a mega game until  a few weeks after Thanksgiving. The good news was this delay allowed our group member Greg to design a scenario for a big multi-player battle that would allow us to use our full current Six Day War collections (and then some) in a mostly historical situation with relatively representative orders of battle.

Greg settled on the Jun 5th 1967 Battle for Rafah Junction where the Israeli 7th and 60th Armored Brigades had to breach the defenses of the United Arab Republic’s 7th Infantry Division near Rafah Junction and then withstand a counter attack by the UAR’s 4th Armored Division and after defeating that, drive on to El Arish.

Greg not only designed the scenario, he also hosted the game in excellent game room using his 6’ x 10’ desert terrain board. To that our group brought 8 players, over 20,000pts total of forces, and over 200 tank models!

The game board looking west from the Israeli deployment areas (inside the blue markers) .

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Fate of the Nation Battle Israeli Tank Company vs United Arab Republic Tank Battalion

By Eric Lauterbach

You may have noticed something looks different about the pictures of tanks in this post, well your eyes are not deceiving you we did this battle in micro armor.

John Desch has a huge micro collection some of the models dating back to when his US Army days and they used them for training. (This what the army did before computers kids)

You will notice in the pictures some of the models are not quite right, which is something you don't notice when putting the force on the table top. From normal eye to table distance you really have to look close to tell a M48 from a M60, pictures have a magnifying effect.

For micro armor we did not change any of the movement or shooting distances. The only real change we had to do was make the small village area terrain because the buildings are two small to get the granularity.

So for our first battle with the Fate of the Nation we went with a basic free-for-all so we could get a feel for how it played.  The forces were an Israeli Tank company with 2 Magach-3 in the HQ, a platoon of 3 Magach-3, a platoon of 4 Isherman, some 4 AT jeeps, and 120mm mortar section.  To face this force the Arabs had 31 T-55s all upgraded with stabilizers in three 10 tank companies and one platoon of two ZSU-57.

The Israeli force

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Review: Battlefront Arab MiG-17

By John Sulek and Eric Lauterbach

The MiG-17 was one of the iconic planes of the Cold War, with over 10,000 produced in all variants. Designed and built by Mikoyan-Gurevich it was the next generation of MiG and improvement over the MiG-15 the main communist fighter of the Korean War. The MiG family can draw its linage back to German early jet designs and research but the end product was purely Soviet. The combat capabilities of the MiG-17 were very good and it was an extremely agile plane. MiGs flown by the North Vietnamese were able to out maneuver heavier US jets and prompted a reintroduction of dog fighting skills.

The Egyptian Air Force at the time of the Six-Day War had 124 MiG-15/17s, and 108 of the MiG-21, 60 Su-7, and large number of transport aircraft and helicopters. A very impressive force which is why the Israelis probably decided to launch a preemptive strike and start the war early.

So lets get into Battlefronts MiG-17 box AAC03

Here is what you get in the box AACO3

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Run Away! Anatomy of a UAR Victory

By Iron Tom

Ron, Tony, Greg and Tom of the BattleVault Gamers got together to play a Flames of War game using the Arab-Israeli “Fate of a Nation” book.  Ron and Tony played the Israelis while Greg and Tom played the United Arab Republic (UAR) Forces.  Both forces were just over 2000 points and we rolled up Fighting Withdrawal as a mission with Greg and Tom’s UAR force defending.

The Battlefield:

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Review: Battlefront T-55 or T-54 Platoon (AARBX02)

Battlefront box AARBX02 T-55 or T-54 Platoon!

The good old T-55/54 series, the most produced tank in history.  I was glad to get a chance to look over Battlefronts version of the T-55.  A big question I have always had is what is the difference between the two tanks and visually its almost nil.  Most of the changes between the models occur inside the vehicle with the only difference being that early T-54s have a slight bump on the turret.


Plus, the Soviets upgraded all their tanks after 7000 km of use, so old T-54s would be brought up to date with newer T-55 performance. So really call them which ever you want but T-55 is probably easier and more accurate.  The T-55 is a descendant of the T-34 with its robust design and easy maintenance, its no wonder the Egyptians loved this tank.

So lets get into this box!

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