Resources for Iran-Iraq War

[Ryltar Thamior]

For awhile now, I've had a bit of a low-key interest in the Iran-Iraq War; and have started to give a bit of thought to gaming it in 15mm. From my more youthful memories of some of the missions in the old Steel Panthers MBT game through to subsequent reading and research in this area it definitely appears there's quite a lot of potential fodder for running engagements set in this period; with an additional bonus that there's just such variety in the styles of conflict and hardware being brought to the field.

However, from what I've seen so far in my cursory googling etc., it doesn't seem like there's a huge amount of material out there and easily findable for actually building forces in miniature for this era [like, TO&Es etc. - and yup, these changed quite significantly, particularly on the Iranian side with the shifts in power internally, difficulty of replacing hardware and such], missions, rules etc.

With that in mind [and after using this forum's own search function a bit], i felt it might be prudent to ask the folk of this forum if they've any ideas about sourcing info for all of the above. And, since this seems like a question that's come up very occasionally, maybe it'll help the next guy who strikes an interest in this particular area if he stumbles across a thread repositoring hte relevant material.

[Ryltar Thamior]

as a cursory of a few things of use I've found:

*rough TO&E information from GHQ - http://www.ghqmodels.com/pdf/14Iran.pdf and http://www.ghqmodels.com/pdf/15Iraq.pdf

*similar from Modern Spearhead - http://modernspearhead.net/iran/iranian-armoured-or-mechanised-division-pre-a-post-revolution and http://modernspearhead.net/iraq/iraqi-armoured-a-mechanised-divisions-1979-88

What this gives us is a brrrrooooaddd inventory and organization for some baseline units on both sides;
viz. Iranians having access to M-47s [various models], M-60s, and Chieftains for MBTs, and BMP-1s and M113s for mech infantry transport; recon being Scorpions, Foxes and BMPs; and anti-armour from 106mm recoilless rifles with occasional TOW-vehicles; as well as quite an array of Western-origin helicopters.

While the Iraqis have a pretty broad range of Soviet gear [with some French stuff thrown in for variety] - ranging from T-54s up to a few T-72s in the War's closing stages for MBTs and everything from BTR-50s to BMP-1s for transport; BRDM-2s, PT-76s, and so forth for recon; Soviet helicopters.

The majority of which is either presently sourceable for me from Battlefront ... or which will *hopefully* be available again before too long when they flesh back out their Arab-Israeli Wars and Vietnam ranges.

Oh, and a scenario also from GHQ [although in a rather larger 'scale' [by which i mean divisional rather than the microarmourness ] than i'd be looking at] http://www.ghqmodels.com/newsletters/janfeb2003.pdf

Now infantry's possibly going to be a bit of an issue, as by the look of things *both sides* appeared to embrace American helmets and Russian weapons - which uh ... other than rendering them rather similar in silhouette [not that it matters overly much at that scale, i suppose], also is going to entail headswapping at 15mm :S ; I also see that Battlefront's taken off the somewhat 'irregular' looking Desert forces it had for its LDRG raiding thing some years ago, so it may prove rather 'interesting' working out what to use for Pasdaran and Basij. And, of course, what to actually arm them with and the levels at which support weapons were distributed etc

And, of course, colourschemes and other modelling elements - which at the moment i'm basically just looking at historical photos and some occasional forces found on blogs.

[carlos marighela]

Actually there has been a series of recent English language books focussing on the military aspects of the war. You'll find the volumes are broken up into various periods of the war. IIRC there's a companion volume/s on the air war.

https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Iran-Iraq-War-Volume-1-E.-R.-Hooton/9781911096566?redirected=true&utm_medium=Google&utm_campaign=Base3&utm_source=AU&utm_content=The-Iran-Iraq-War-Volume-1&selectCurrency=AUD&w=AF45AU96ZHXXB7A80CH3AC34&pdg=kwd-104399949699:cmp-683384041:adg-33254927497:crv-151966416847:pid-9781911096566&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_-771sLm1gIVmQMqCh0lOgrAEAsYASABEgLvDvD_BwE

I've seen them in my local military bookshop and have volumes from other series by the same publisher. They represent decent value for money and would make a good primer for the war.

[Mako]

QRF might assist you with the troops, if you inquire nicely.

May already be in the works, since others have wanted "Americans" with other weapons, e.g. G3s and AKs.

Peter Pig might already do them too, in the Africa Wars/AK-47 rules line.

At 15mm scale, the assault rifles look very similar at arms length.

Also, the Iran-Iraq Air War is quite interesting from a gaming perspective, so you might want to check that out too.  Lots of cool jets, battles, targets, and tactics.

There's even a very large, and I expect, now very expensive book on the subject too.