Happy New Year, 2012 – The last year of Man! (Or at least to New Age Mayans.) But more importantly, this is the 30th Anniversary of the South Atlantic War over the Falklands / Malvinas Islands. I am hoping to be running some 20mm games for this conflict during this year. The only thing really holding me back is terrain of bunch of hills, but I am trying to fix that.
Anyway, I have finally given up on my search for trying to find a correct model of LVTP-7 for the Argentine Marines in 20mm. At first, all I could find were 1/72 Dragon kits, of which none were right. All of them have the Up Gunned Weapons Station (UGWS) turrets, which are not correct for the Argentine LVTP-7’s, all though one kit has the old turret which would work. Next problem is that all of the Dragon kits have the ramp / cattle guard looking thing on the front (I am not into studying the Marines, so I really have no clue what that thing is called or what is used for at all.) That would not be so bad, but I would have to cut down the “bumps” on the front from the cattle guards hinges to make the front smooth for the Argentine Marines LVTP-7s. Finally, the headlights are all wrong. The Argentine LVTP-7s had the three lights in each of two circle indentations, where the Dragon models have the current two sets of two rectangular lights on the front. But I recently find that Altaya released a 1/72nd collectible of an AAVP7A1. It still has the wrong headlights, but at least it has the right looking turret and no cattle guard. So, I order two of them to armor up my 20mm Argentine platoon. Now I need to order a 1/72nd Panhard 90mm from S&S Models to give my Argentine conscripts something to fight with my British Scimitar light tank. I also have on order from Liberation some figures that I am hoping to convert to work for Argentine .50 HMG and 107mm Recoilless Rifle teams, but I am still looking for some figures that would work for the M20 Super Bazooka teams without heavy conversions. Then I should be done with my Argentine forces in 20mm, except maybe for a helicopter or two for an air insertion scenario.
See the pictures below for the Argentine LVTP-7 and the kits.
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| Argentine LVTP-7s in Port Stanley |
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| Dragon 1/72nd AAVP7 |
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| Altaya 1/72nd AAVP7 |
Also, I am putting up a picture of an Argentine TAM tank which I found will searching for pictures of the Altaya model of the AAVP7. They did not see action in the Falklands War as they were still under trials and final production. I am only including this picture as I really find the paint job pretty cool.
Finally,I am putting up a picture of one of rare photographs (possibly the only one also) of the Top Malo house before it was destroyed in 1982. It is from the 1930’s and I got it from Gordon Ramsey’s, “Falklands War Then and Now.” Excellent book if you are looking for photographs on the Falklands war.
1 comment:
Happy new Year to you too Joe!
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