Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Interwar => Topic started by: NickNascati on July 22, 2018, 09:04:39 PM
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All,
Has anyone seen the BUM tanks in the flesh? I'd love to find a cheaper alternative to the Empress and Warlord models.
Nick
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They are poor quality 1/72 resin copies to be avoided.
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A cheaper alternative would be not to buy any tanks, their use is very overstated. At the peak of the conflict each side only had a couple of hundred in operation, as compared to around half a million men under arms, that's like one tank per 1,500 men if they were portioned out, which they weren't.
You might get a platoon or two spearheading each brigade attack in the important offensives, but they didn't feature in day-to-day actions, nor were tank-on-tank encounters common; they were only mustered for attacks or counter-attacks and not part of the defensive lines. The respective 'armies of the south' went through the entire war without any at all, as was the case on the Madrid Front once the action shifted to the North after Spring '37.
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Arlequin, I like the way you think. :)
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... and that's how the 'Anti-Tank' movement began. >:D
Seriously the SCW has a lot going for it, it's been a major interest of mine for over a decade now and there is always something new to learn or uncover. People tend to say stuff like it being a 'proving ground' or a 'prelude', but it was none of these. Nobody really had any idea of the potential of the 'new' weapons they were using and if there were any lessons learnt, it was usually how not to do something.
The particular 'lessons learnt' regarding armour were largely ignored by the Soviets and Germans, which for wargamers is probably a good thing. If they hadn't been, the very idea of developing tanks might have been scrapped, largely thanks to their uselessness and unreliability in Spain. The concepts of armoured warfare that followed were developed in spite of the 'Spanish' experience.
If the SCW was a TV show, tanks were those occasional 'guest appearances' and 'cameos', which typically added a bit of short-lived drama, but had no real impact on the series story line. :)
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Same here, I've been studying it for over 30 years, have about 3 dozen books, 4 films and even some posters. I've done armies probably five times over the years in different scales and material.