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Fighting First 

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.

 Fighting First Stuart  Fighting First Stuart

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.

 Fighting First Stuart

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

 Fighting First Stuart


Last Updated On Thursday, August 31, 2017