Our Christmas T-55 Tank Factory!

Yesterday, as an early birthday present to myself, my compliment of 12 UAR/Egyptian T-55s arrived from the War Store.  Needless to say, Nate and I were both excited to start putting these together; hoping to have them ready to go by by next weekend so we can have a small 6-Day War skirmish!  With the Christmas and New Year's holidays providing some free family time, these will hopefully be able to be finished rather quickly and not sit around for a few months like my S'hots and M50 Shermans did!

After our normal evening routine, we settled down at the dining room table and laid out our "Tank Factory":

Here are the 12 T-55s, fresh out of their boxes!

We quickly started to work; Nate helping me unbox and lay out the parts.  Our first task was to remove the fender covers, fuel tanks and hatches from the sprues, which we did in about 15 minutes.

We are now ready to assemble!

The first task we choose was to install the magnets in the hulls and turrets.  Once that was complete, we started gluing on the tracks--which was dramatically helped by the instant bonding glue we were using.  After we got those done, it was time for Nate to head to bed--an hour into our project.

With my helper gone, I was able to pull up the laptop and put on some Babylon 5 while I finished.  My wife kindly brought some strong coffee and some popcorn, and with that fuel I stayed the course completing the assembly of all 12 T-55s by 2300 hrs (that is 11:00 pm in civilian parlance).  That is a total build time of 3.5 hours--or 17 minutes per tank.  Not super fast, but it can be hard to concentrate when watching Ambassadors Mollari and G'Kar square off! (Not to mention the episode of Home Improvement Nate and I were watching before he went to bed!)

And here is the money shot, all 12 ready for painting:

These will give me the basis of my UAR Kateybat Debabbat (tank battalion) with a Battalion HQ and two companies (one with 5 T-55s and the other with 6).  While certainly the most expensive to field dollar wise of the Arab armies from Fate of a Nation, the UAR allows you to build, paint and play with Soviet tanks of the '60s era.  The Jordanians used the same Centurions and M48 Pattons as the Israelis did so by fielding an Egyptian force you get to experience some of that East vs. West Cold War technical and tactical tension only on a much smaller and less lethal scale!

If you are interested in gaming the Six Day War, check the Flames of War landing page here.



See you on the table!


-Travis