Tuesday, January 14, 2014

M-47 Patton In Jordanian Army/ 1967 Six Day War

Of the Three Arab armies facing Israel in the Six Day War of 1967 only Jordan fielded the Patton Tank. Egypt and Syria both having been supplied with Russian T-34 & T54 MBTs. This created an unusual combat scenario wherein American manufactured armored vehicles squared off against each-other in combat. The Israeli army using M-48s against the Jordanian M-47s (and M-60s). Battles were fought around Jerusalem and in towns of the West Bank. The following photos show the Jordanian M-47s as they appeared in 1967. I have modeled the Italeari kit in 1/35th scale to replicate this armored vehicle.


The Model: Here is the Italeari M-47 Patton in 1/35th scale. A really fun model to build and if you have not built this model before, I highly recommend it. This is my version of a Jordanian Army Patton as it would have appeared in the 1967 Six Day War.  I finished it in a few days. The weathering is still to come, but I finally got it to this point and will let it sit for a while after a marathon of time spent on it. I like to work that way. The markings were pieced together from decal bits in my spare decal collection and replicates the insignia of the Jordanian 40th armored brigade.  The very small Arabic numbers are dry transfers from "Archer". The Arabic writing on the turret reads: Al-Hussein" and I made that with my computer and printed onto a clear decal sheet.  The mantlet cover is a resin part made by a company called : DEF Model. It came from their Korean M-47 conversion set.  I used alot of the common photo-etched M-47 parts to dress up my Jordanian Patton.  I love modeling wartime adversaries and this one looks great sitting next to my IDF M-51 Sherman.

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