This is a project close to my heart, and one I’ve been putting off for <i>far </i>too long. For almost two years now I’ve been wanting to build a US Marine Corps Team Yankee force, but instead of using them in a fictional war in Europe, I wanted to build them for 1991 historical Desert Storm.

So I finally broke down and bought it all, enough to field a respectable US Marine Corps force approximately as it would have appeared in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, along with some enemy forces I can tweak into the T-55s, Type 59s, BTRs, and other vehicles used by the Iraqi divisions holding this section of the line. Possible recreations may include part of the Battle of Khafji in January 1991.  Kits included the Ryan’s Leathernecks, the LAV-25 Platoon, and US Infantry Platoon sets from Battlefront (15mm / 1:100).

Part of the project involved updating some of these vehicles from “Team Yankee” theoretical 1980s combat to 1991 historical combat.  The biggest example of this will be the addition of ERA panels (explosive reactive armor) fitted to USMC M-60A1 main battle tanks for the 1991 Gulf War.

These are sheets of metal and shaped explosive designed to explode outward when hit with slower-velocity projectiles like enemy rockets, missiles, or HEAT warhead shells.

I have reference material showing how these blocks looked in 1991 and how they were generally laid out, so I’m building my own pieces, coloring and scaling them to fit on my three M-60A1s.

US Marine Corps M-60A1 main battle tanks, “almost finished.”

So here is one of the sheets – Photoshop drafted to create the ERA panels, colored and scaled to fit on the tanks, with markings and the “mounting lugs” suggested in the graphic. These will be mounted on very thin cardboard, cut with razors very carefully, mounted in place, then painted around the edges. On the tank I have some color-test pieces just for scale and color.

It took the better part of all evening, but these are the three tanks “finished.” Now … one thing I’m not 100% keen on at this point is <i>spacing </i>of the armor. Everything’s fine on the hull, glacis, and front of the turret (mantlet, etc.). What has me a little peeved are the pieces along the sides of the turret. These should be spaced much further from the tank. So they will be cut off, re-mounted with new seats, and re-painted where needed.

A close-up one of the the tanks before the three side pieces (one on the left side, two on the right side) are re-mounted.

Here are the three tanks again, with the ERA panels re-mounted in much better positions. I’ve also mounted antenna (bristles from a small plastic whisk broom – after drilling the radio antenna mounts). This photo was taken in outdoor daylight in an attempt to give a better impression of what color these vehicles actually are (photographing khaki / sand with indoors light is pretty tough – and I just have an iPhone for a camera).