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  • #6179
    Avatar photoGeoffQRF
    Participant

    Anybody fancy imaginary gaming in modern South America?  You have Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia all (relatively) close, not to mention the possibility of US, French or possibly other small SF units.

    Not sure what weaponry is in use, but I’m thinking 2 or 3 generic ranges could be used to cover a wide variety of potential conflict points, eg a generic range with M16, SLR, G3…

     

    QRF Models Limited
    www.quickreactionforce.co.uk

    #6183
    Avatar photoPaul
    Participant

    Can’t say no to any 15mm moderns that could be pressed into service as mercenary companies and their dictator-led opponents. Plus with SLRs and G3s, they can proxy for African forces, too.

    Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them!

    #6195
    Avatar photoIvan Sorensen
    Participant

    I imagine there’s an awful lot that can be done with “beret and the M-FAL-AK-G-47-16-3 rifle” look. Ditto with steel helmets.

     

    Rebels, government troops, mercenary types, El Presidente types etc.

     

    Once you’ve made those gas masked soviets, I mean 🙂

    #6252
    Avatar photoMichael Moore
    Participant

    Boonie hats and SLR for SA ,Africa,Vietnam etc sounds tasty

    #6276
    Avatar photoSparker
    Participant

    Also the Peruvians are, or were until recently, fighting a major brown water navy/amphibious war on drugs up in their back country, the headwaters of the Amazon – with some ‘friendly Western Nations’s’ special forces helping them out. (Not me I hasten to add, the closest I got to special forces was remedial PT at Dartmouth) – I was just a military tourist back in 2008, but was staggered at the intensity of the operations up there!

    However, from the sculpting pov, I have to say the Peruvian naval infantry appeared absolutely indistinguishable from their, um, ‘friendly North American’ instructors in terms of clothing, webbing and small arms. Some of the armoured cars in use though looked very interesting, perhaps fairly elderly, and not at all ‘North American’ – more like WW2 Pumas with the centre set of wheels tireless and extra wide, I thought perhaps to give extra purchase on mud and shingle. Painted chocolate brown, iirc! (Which actually was probably the best colour for the area.)

    http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
    'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
    Matthew 5:9

    #6308
    Avatar photoGeoffQRF
    Participant

    Some of the armoured cars in use though looked very interesting, perhaps fairly elderly, and not at all ‘North American’ – more like WW2 Pumas with the centre set of wheels tireless and extra wide, I thought perhaps to give extra purchase on mud and shingle. Painted chocolate brown, iirc! (Which actually was probably the best colour for the area.)

    Peru apparently still operates M8 and M20 Greyhounds. Paraguay claims to have 3 operational M4 Shermans as it’s main battle tank!

    QRF Models Limited
    www.quickreactionforce.co.uk

    #6333
    Avatar photoGeoffQRF
    Participant

    Looking at the current listings for several South American countries, they all semm similar in terms of infantry. Most have something similar to the US M1 helmet, Brazil uses a PASGT. Most seem to be using FN FAl/FN MAG, although M4/M16 shows up for Paraguay, Argentina and Peru. Uruguay lists the Steyr and G36. The AT-4 and M72 law are quite common.

    VEhicle wise, I was suprised to see Ti-67 listed for Uruguay, and the Chinese WZ551 for Argentina

    QRF Models Limited
    www.quickreactionforce.co.uk

    #6405
    Avatar photogrizzlymc
    Participant

    I think Chile uses M16 and derivatives, not sure about LMG.  There are good whatifs – Peru and Bolivia trying to recover lost provinces from 130 years ago, Argie / Chilean tensions over their Patagonian borders.  You can take these back a generation to the ’80s or even further to the ’70s for fun, when you had reasonably up to date infantry and upgraded Shermans.

    #6406
    Avatar photoIvan Sorensen
    Participant

    I imagine if you extrapolate 10-20 years in the future, finding Chinese kit there won’t be that surprising either.

    #6442
    Avatar photoSparker
    Participant

    Paraguay claims to have 3 operational M4 Shermans as it’s main battle tank!

    Not as daft as it sounds – very few logistic and repair issues I would think! And pretty mobile at high altitude! An out-dated runner will beat a state of the art recovery job any day!

    http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
    'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
    Matthew 5:9

    #6676
    Avatar photoGeoffQRF
    Participant

    Chile apparently uses the SiG540, and a variety of LMG options (MG3, Minimi, HK21, M60e): http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_Army

    QRF Models Limited
    www.quickreactionforce.co.uk

    #7065
    Avatar photoAltius
    Participant

    A few years ago, a friend and I put together some forces for a hypothetical conflict between Colombia and Venezuela. The Colombians have some very well-trained airmobile units, but it’s built for COIN and not for fighting external forces. They have a lot of American stuff and some cool Brazilian vehicles. The Venezuelans have a bigger conscript army, and they’ve gone heavily into tanks. I seem to remember a very eclectic mix of different vehicles, but they have a significant amount of French stuff.

    Where there is fire, we will carry gasoline

    #7068
    Avatar photoGeoffQRF
    Participant

    Question is, would you want a range of 15mm figures for it? 🙂

    QRF Models Limited
    www.quickreactionforce.co.uk

    #7488
    Avatar photoCarlos69
    Participant

    Realistically there is little prospect of conflict on the continent. There are only a couple of outstanding territorial disputes, neither of which is likely to lend itself to the outbreak of war.  Relations bewteen neighbours has been enhanced by  increasing economic dependence and the old Cold War bogeyman no longer exists. Internal security remains the primary focus of most militaries and even there the scope of conflict has declined dramatically over the past two decades. Leaving aside a handful of remnant members of Sendero Luminoso in Peru, the only active guerilla groups are really FARC and the ELN in Colombia and the peace talks are edging closer to a resolution of the world’s longest conflict and the last conflict of any size on the continent. I have painted up quite a number of 28mm minis for the region but primarily looking at narco traficantes as opposition.</span>

    Of course none of that should stop you gaming some fantasy scenario…….</span>

    Brazil is in the process of re-equipping its forces. There’s a new rifle family, the IA2 currently being introduced in both 5.56 and 7.62mm.  That will replace the current FAL in service with the army as well as the M16 for the marines and the HK33 for the Airforce. The Minimi has also been adopted as the squad SAW in the last year or so, it’s been in service with the Para brigade and SF for a while now. There’s an new IFV, the Guarani, currently entering serial production. It’s aimed at replacing all the old Engesa Urutus. Argentina has indicated interest and there are big hopes to sell these abroad.

    Chile uses FAMAE/SIG 540s. Colombia uses its own locally produced version of the Galil as its standard rifle. Their SF use large quantities of Tavor.

    Now if you really want to game a fascinating ‘what if’ period, then you only need to look at the very nearly war between Argentina and Chile over the Beagle Chennel in late 1978. It came within hours of a major shooting war, one in which Argentina planned a full scale conventional invasion of Chile. Fascinating kit options for gamers including a few AMX-30, M-41s and Super Shermans on the Chilean side and Sherman Fireflies re-gunned with 105mm guns on the Argentine side.  One of the interesting aspects of this ‘almost war’ is the liklihood it would have drawn in other players. Whilst Chile had an arguably more capable army than Argentina, it would likely have faced Peru and Bolivia taking an opportunity to regain lost territory. We know that Peru had detailed plans in the period for the invasion of northern Chile. That gives the gamer the option of fielding T-55s. Of course if you want to go nuts you can extend things further. Ecuador still had outstanding territorial grievances against Peru in the period.  Brazil actually did mobilize its forces along the border with Argentina during the crisis as a defensive precaution.

    Lot’s of interesting kit, some of which Geoff already does. and at least some historical basis for doing it. Most armies could be covered by M1 tin hats and FALs, Chile being the odd man out using the old SIG 510.

     

    I’d be up for some 1970s Chileans and Brazilians.

     

    #7673
    Avatar photoSparker
    Participant

    Sounds fascinating. I imagine the terrain between Chile and Argentina wouldn’t lend itself too well to full spectrum armoured warfare though…

    http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
    'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
    Matthew 5:9

    #7721
    Avatar photogrizzlymc
    Participant

    You’d be surprised.  In Patagonia you have quite flat areas along the border.  Anywhere north of that a platoon could hold up an army.  From the Chilean point of view Patagonia is the obvious front for a counter attack.  They can then argue for the return of that province along with its hydrocarbons.

     

    The border area with Peru is flat desert dissected by enormous serious, great tank country.

    #7788
    Avatar photoCarlos69
    Participant

    If you search for Operation Soberania you’ll see that the Argentinian army had plans to storm the the Andean passes. Given that Chile’s intelligence services knew what was coming, I wouldn’t have fancied their chances. Chile was able to put its forces on alert and even dynamited a couple of mountain passes.

    The plan involved taking the Beagle Channel islands,  along with simultaneous thrusts through Patagonia  and through the Andean passes. Argentina was actually planning to take Santiago. Meanwhile their northern corps under Galtieri was to adopt a defensive posture against any possible intervention by Brazil.The CoS for the Argentinian army , controversially, gave an interview in which he expressed his belief that Argentina would have lost. In the end it was poor weather on the day that stopped the Argentine fleet from sortying.

    Somewhere here I have a very good piece from a Brazilian military history magazine which goes into considerable detail on the whole thing. On a related note there’s a superb Chilean film on the  phoney war along the Patagonian border Mi mejor enemigo ( My Best Enemy). Well worth watching:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9hpLhhVD2I&list=PL855D1B78E80B476E

    #7815
    Avatar photogrizzlymc
    Participant

    It’s a good film.  The country further north is like that, but once they take it the attentions have nowhere to go.  Santiago is a better objective, but even if they could get through the passes to San Felipe, the ridge to the south of the Colchagua valley is a great defence line.

     

    Attacking Santiago from the south gets difficult.  I have spent years in those mountains.  I know two crossings you could do in summer with men and mules otherwise you are crossing from Bariloche, some 500k to the south.  The naval war would have been quite something.

    Friends of mine who were living here at the time said that there were two fighters with their engines warm at the end of every runway in the country.

    #7966
    Avatar photoCarlos69
    Participant

    Looking at the current listings for several South American countries, they all semm similar in terms of infantry. Most have something similar to the US M1 helmet, Brazil uses a PASGT. Most seem to be using FN FAl/FN MAG, although M4/M16 shows up for Paraguay, Argentina and Peru. Uruguay lists the Steyr and G36. The AT-4 and M72 law are quite common. VEhicle wise, I was suprised to see Ti-67 listed for Uruguay, and the Chinese WZ551 for Argentina

     

    Those Chinese APC’s number about half a dozen IIRC. They were specifically purchased for their  UN peacekeeping contingent  in Haiti.

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