Jesús Dapenas paints a second Spanish FT-17 for service in the Rif

FT-17 Tank Number 4 - Elephant Mascot - 04 - Banner

Jesús Dapena is a long time collaborator of mine due to a shared interest in the Rif Wars. I previously posted his photos of Renault FT-17 Tanks in the Rif War (from his “Uncle Cipri”) and subsequently his 1/16th model of Uncle Cipri’s FT-17 with a Turtle mascot. Here is the second tank in the series: “INFANTERIA No. 4”, the one with the Elephant mascot. All words are by Jesús. You can see more images in his video: The Renault FT Tank in Spanish Army Service (Northern Morocco, ca. 1924) [YouTube].

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Making boulder and rock fields for Crossfire

Rocks - Banner

The Crossfire supplement Hit-the-Dirt introduces Boulder Fields and Rock Fields as Crossfire Terrain for scenarios in the Italian Campaign. My post Types of Terrain Features in Crossfire explains how they are used in the game. In this post I explain how I made mine. Simple but excessive is the summary. Simple because I start with actual rocks. Excessive because I base, paint, and flock.

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Top 20 Pages on Balagan

Balagan Site Stats

I started this blog on 21 Feb 2001 and then Migrated Balagan to WordPress on 15 Sep 2013. So, roughly 4.5 years ago. One of the great things about WordPress, compared to the hand crafted HTML site I had before, is that I get statistics on page views. Apparently I’ve had 1,176,779 views since I migrated and 1,125 comments. My biggest day (23 Feb 2018) brought 2,420 views – this was because Reddit got hold of my Academy of Street Fighting: Tactics during the Battle of Stalingrad post. Today is a typical day with 750 views.

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Renault FT-17 Tanks in the Rif War

FT-17 in the Rif War - Banner

Back in 2002 Jesus Dapena published some photos of Renault FT-17 Tanks in the Rif War; photos taken by Lieutenant Cipriano Briz (“Uncle Cipri”). I thought they were cool, got in contact with Jesus, and linked to his material from my Rif War pages (Timeline; Painting Guide; Sources; Orbat). Recently Jesus got in touch with me to explain that his site has now disappeared. Jesus kindly shared the content with me so I could republish them. All words and photos by Jesus.

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Steven’s 2nd Tabor of Regulares of Tetuán

Regulares P1030361 Company Commander side

I’m building up the 2nd Tabor of Regulares of Tetuán from Column Asensio of 1936. Battalion Code = “T” for Tabor or Turban or Tetuán within the Unit ID for Crossfire.

As long as you led from the front
where they [the Moroccans] could clearly see you upright,
they would follow.

Alferez Juan Crespo.

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