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The “First of the First”
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The “First of the First” with Blair Mackey
The first time I saw the army lists in Fighting First I knew early on that I wanted to put together a small but plentiful force representing the 1st Armored Regiment’s 1st Battalion. Checking the local museums I discovered that The Museum of American Armor had a number of M3 Stuarts on display. I thought it would be worth it to see them up close.
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Size matters I was astounded at how small these little guys were. Just under 16 feet in length my wife’s SUV that I borrowed to drive up to the museum is actually longer than the Stuart. The crew of 4 (commander, gunner, driver, & assistant driver) made for a tight squeeze inside the tank. Out of sympathy for my models and their crew I’m thinking of putting a tank commander in the top hatch of all of my M3 Stuarts to give the crew inside more room.
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Lots Of Stuarts... As far as my army I initially was thinking of taking three platoons of five Stuarts with a command group of two for a total of 17 models. These would be supported by some T30 75mm Assault guns.
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Staying with the M3 Stuart theme I’m going to still have my 17 Stuarts but will back them up with some better support in the form of 3 M3 Lee tanks. The Lee’s Anti-tank rating of 9 will definitely give my force some punch that the M3 Stuart is lacking.
~Blair
Above and Left: M5 Stuarts Below: The Museum of American Armor
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