Excellent! Thanks for the fascinating step by step.

Don't you think you could remake the hinges for the hatches on the upper hull rear? With all the marvelous detailing you've done they stick out even more like a sore thumb...

Cheers,

Christophe

Hi Christophe- thanks for taking the time to comment- I'm glad you are enjoying the build. And to answer your question- yes I did think about remaking the hinges on the main doors on the upper hull but to be honest I have tried doing that with hinges before and I'm not very good at it! All but one of those doors are actually glued down now so I won't be able to go back and re-do them.
Doing hinges like this is something I will practice and attempt more in the future though as it can come in very handy on quite a number of kits.

My apologies for being so late with the next update.

Last time I introduced the first two of five EPLF figures. I’m now going to introduce the remaining three EPLF figures to go into the dio. The first two comprised a sniper team of spotter and sniper whereas these next three figures are part of an assault team. Again I went with Bravo-6 figures primarily because of the poses but also because the equipment sculpted onto the figures is almost exactly what I wanted. That being said I did have some alterations to make.

The first figure of these three I began working on is the standing figure from this set.



As you can see he is depicted wearing an AK assault vest and is armed with a PPS-43. The head and the PPS were the two major things to get rid of. It was easy enough to cut the head off and drill a hole to accept a new Hornet head depicting a soldier aiming down the sights. I have also given the new head a Russian Afghanistan style cap- these were quite common among EPLF troops. I took the cap from the Tamiya/ICM Russians in Afghanistan set.



The more difficult prospect was, yet again, having to cut the hands off the gun so I could have him holding an AK (from TANK Models). Here you can see the hands attached to the PPS.



I basically cut the hands away using a drill to bore out the pieces of the gun that sat in the hands and then carefully used the drill to remove some more of the gun pieces until the hands would accept the parts of the AK I wanted them holding. I also used a scalpel to shape some of the inside of the hands where the drill bit would not be suitable. Unfortunately the only hold I could get the hands to make on the AK are slightly unorthodox with the left hand gripping the magazine. Its not ideal I know, but I’m just glad I didn’t destroy the hands completely!



Obviously the arms were meant to be holding onto a smaller gun than an AK, hence the hand positioning problem already described, so when I put the arms on the body I still had some work to do to get the AK to sit acceptably.



This wasn’t too difficult- I drilled into the sleeve of the right arm and inserted a small wire and then put some Magic Sculpt onto it before putting the AK in place and forming the Magic Sculpt to fit the area.



The only other modification I made to this figure was to give him a canteen.
The next figure was to be modified from the figure in this set armed with the silenced MAT-49.





This figure required modification along the same lines as that which was described above. First the head was discarded for a Hornet item and given a Russian Afghanistan hat.



Again the hands were moulded onto the weapon and I set about removing the weapon so they would accept another TANK AK-47.





As you can see in the pictures the forward hand is attached to the separated magazine- this is because the pose of the figure allowed me the space to depict him in the process of putting in a new magazine. In order for this to be a bit more believable I have also modified one of the magazine pouches on his assault vest (his leftmost pouch).

I cut the top off the pouch carefully with a scalpel to serve as the top opening. This was then set aside while I sanded down the top half of the magazine pouch and then re-built it using Magic Sculpt and carefully gave it a top opening. Then the top I had cut off was glued back on in an open position so you can see where he has taken the new magazine from. I will obviously also place a magazine near the figure on the ground in the finished scene.



The only thing left to do then was add a canteen and then ensure the hands fitted properly while holding the AK.



The last figure to sort out was the grenadier- from the set posted above. There was nothing I wanted to change about this figure except the head which was, again, replaced with a Hornet item with a cap from the ICM/Tamiya Russians in Afghanistan set.









And so that rounds out the figures for this scene. I have a few ideas on where I’m going to pose them- obviously the Ethiopian Army figures will be going on the BMP. The EPLF sniper team will likely go on an elevated position overlooking the BMP while the assault team will be positioned from a particular side of the BMP. My next updates will cover the items chosen for the scene.

Disaster At Af Abet

The decisive strategic defeat suffered by the Ethiopians during Operation Red Star in 1982 did not put an end to the fighting despite the fact that the next significant battle did not happen until 1988. Fighting and political upheaval continued in the intervening years.

In 1984 the government began its ambitious but deeply flawed ‘resettlement’ program (somewhat in the vein of the USSR’s ‘collectivzation’ program), the aim of which was to move people from areas in which farming was not working due to denuded land and resources to areas that could cope with it and would provide better opportunities not just in terms of agriculture but in terms of society at large- the new sites were to be model cities of a sort.

Unfortunately moving vast amounts of people used to living in dry and cool highlands to wet and hot lowlands did not work out- the research behind every aspect of the resettlement program was severely lacking. Starvation, disease and tension with those already living in the areas led to massive disappointment in the results of the program. Everyone felt hard done-by and cheated by the government. Re-engineering Ethiopian society was not working.

In the midst of the fighting around 1984 a serious famine began to take hold in some areas. The effects were made worse by the way groups in control of territory reacted. The Derg didn’t want aid to go to the rebels and the rebels didn’t want aid to go to rival factions or be taken by the government. Obviously, this exacerbated the problem.

In 1987 the Mengistu regime adopted a new constitution and Ethiopia became a People’s Republic but as you might imagine this did little to stop the violence. In the same year the fighting centred on the largest and best equipped command in Eritrean territory which was headquartered at Af Abet. This garrison held the balance of power for much of the area and it was from here that, with extensive Soviet help and guidance, the Ethiopians planned to launch their bid to re-take territory from the EPLF.

Unfortunately despite a decent advantage in materiel the actual soldiers and officers at Af Abet were racked with low morale, insubordination, corruption and ineptitude. The EPLF took advantage of the situation in December of 1987 striking quickly and advancing to hold much of the high ground north of Af Abet. For the government the loss was devastating and there was much recriminations- resulting in the commanding officer being executed and his subordinates being demoted. The EPLF commented via radio at the time that the regime had ‘cut off its right hand with its left hand’.

Apart from the harsh reactions of the regime and promises to do more to shore up the troops in the area little was actually done to solve the various problems in the Af Abet command so morale continued to plummet and the various units stationed there were not reinforced. By March 1988 the EPLF had prepared detailed plans to strike and strike it did on March 17th.

The wide offensive pushed the Ethiopians back toward its main command garrison in Af Abet- dogged resistance was put up by some forces but a series of tactical blunders led to retreats and an entire column of vehicles and supplies being destroyed after being caught in a mountainous pass. Air Force jets were even summoned from Asmara to destroy the equipment so it would not fall into the hands of the rebels.

On March 19th the garrison at Af Abet was stormed and taken. With the capture came a bonanza of weaponry and supplies including tanks, artillery, small arms and ammunition.

Among the EPLF the victory was hard won but it was a significant step forward in their campaign. One historian notably described the victory as ‘Ethiopia’s Dien Bien Phu’. This epithet is quite an interesting one as on the one hand it shows just how important a victory it was seen as. But it is sagely pointed out by Gebru Tareke that while the victory was important it was not a ‘Dien Bien Phu’ because the Mengistu regime did not give up- instead three more long and bloody years of war were still to come.

As I said earlier- the next update will concentrate on items to create the diorama.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous and model filled New Year!


Thanks for reading.