A Little Air Cover

As I work on the ships for my Enfilade games, I decided to add a little (potential) air cover for each game.

For the Operation Morvarid game, I thought I would give the Iranians the chance to add some UH-1 gunships to their group. There isn't any mention of UH-1s in the real operation, but it seems plausible they could have been used and I thought they would add an interesting aspect to the game. Historically there were some Iranian F-4s taking on Iraqi MiG-23s and shooting up the Iraqi missile boats, but I don't want to turn this into an air-to-air game, so I'm going with helicopters. I will probably give the Iraqis some portable SAMs to offset the helicopters.

A pair of Iranian UH-1s

Iranian UH-1s over an LST

The helicopters are the 1/600 scale Bell Iroquois from Tumbling Dice. They are a good, although a little chunky, representation of the Bell 212 series. You can see the not-quite completed Iranian LST in the background. I still need to touch up the paint job and mount it on a base before it is finished, but it looks pretty good when slightly out of focus.

For the Pacific coastal action, I'm planning on adding a F1M2 'Pete' as an option for the Japanese. This type of floatplane operated all over the Solomons area in both day and night, so it is certainly feasible that one could be acting as cover for a barge convoy. I'm not too sure how useful it will really be in the game, but it should be interesting finding out.

A F1M2 'Pete' floatplane over a subchaser

An F2M2 'Pete' providing cover to a barge convoy

The Pete is a plastic kit from one of my 1/700 scale IJN accessories boxes. Tumbling Dice makes some of these too, but I already had the plastic one on-hand and it didn't seem worth making another order for those right now. The plastic Pete seems a little fragile (mainly because it is so lightweight), but it should hold up fine since the players can move it by the base. Plus, since it was just something I had laying around in a box, it won't be a great loss if it gets broken.