Battlefront 15mm M4A1 Sherman Armoured Squadron Reinforcements – British 8th Army Desert Rats for Flames of War

Battlefront 15mm M4A1 Sherman Armoured Squadron - British 8th Army Desert Rats for Flames of War, 15mm, 1/100, 1:100, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

So, I mean, technically, this is another Squadron rather than a set of reinforcements for my previous set of these as three models is a self-contained unit. In fact this trio of Shermans will be mixed in with the others, and the two vehicles with tank commanders will serve to designate my command tanks for my Sherman company, as I built and painted the first ones without ever having read the FoW rules (since 1st edition, anyway – and that was a little while ago!) and so missed the importance of needing to be able to see which tanks are the command ones at a glance.

Battlefront 15mm M4A1 Sherman Armoured Company - British 8th Army Desert Rats for Flames of War, 15mm, 1/100, 1:100, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

The addition of these three gives me a command platoon of three, as well as two Sherman platoons, also of three each – and as such – a rather basic, self-contained Sherman company without needing to dip into Lee/grants to make up the numbers or anything like that. Of course, I could still add seven more Shermans to give myself the option of a max-strength Sherman Company, although that really does seem like a waste, given the large variety and number of other tanks I already have painted for this force – and the literally hundreds (probably) of other 15mm tanks I have yet to paint!

Battlefront 15mm U.S. Army Lees in British Service – 8th Army 17th/21st Lancers “Death or Glory” Squadron HQ for Flames of War

Battlefront 15mm U.S. Army Lees in British Service - 8th Army 17th/21st Lancers "Death or Glory" Squadron HQ for Flames of War, 1:100, 1/100, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

This trio represents an interesting little anomaly that I founded listed in the FoW Armoured Fist sourcebook. I’ll quote part of the text here “When the US troops retreated from Tebourba, they left several tanks mired in the winter mud. The 6th Armoured Division recovered several of the big M3 Lee tanks and Major ffrench-Blake’s C Squadron used them in their HQ…” This seemed like a cool and characterful little addition to my 8th Army, and so I decided to add them in – it also gave me an opportunity to test another paint scheme/technique/palette/variation for painting US armour.

Battlefront 15mm U.S. Army Lees in British Service - 8th Army 17th/21st Lancers "Death or Glory" Squadron HQ for Flames of War, 1:100, 1/100, What a Tanker, Battlegroup

As you can see, I decided to keep all of the U.S. markings on these, and simply added the approprate British markings to their hulls. This unit is one of the HQ options for running 6th Armoured Division “Mailed Fist” as part of an 8th Army force, so I guess I’m now going to have to paint the rest of them…