¡Á Zaragoza! Photos of early CNT-FAI workers columns and their equipment

A commenter in my previous post asked for some close-up photos of my miniatures. I thought it would be a fun opportunity to show off my workers militia columns as they prepare to set off for the campaign my friends and I are playing through.

If you have been following this blog, you know that we've been battling out the first few days of the Spanish Civil War in the streets of Barcelona. We just wrapped up the second scenario of the campaign, wherein the workers crushed the mutinous soldiers, defeating the local arm of the nationalist coup and unleashing a social revolution.

Before breaking down the table for the next game, I set up my version of the antifascist columns' parade on their way out of Barcelona and into the Aragon. Check out this historic video of the parade:

And now, photos of my forces departing Barcelona:

The volunteers come down the Ramblas, circle the Ronda Colom, and head west, ¡Á Zaragoza!

At the front of the Column, José Buenaventura Durruti Dumange rides in the Hispano Suiza. 

This model is based on this historic photograph. Durruti also marches beside the car next to the flag bearer.

The column's commander and namesake drives on, followed by cars painted with the letters and slogans of the CNT-FAI. Armed workers fill the streets.

Close behind the cars are a few trucks carrying anarchist militia volunteers.

Behind the truck comes the first of the tiznaos: improvised armored vehicles, created by metal workers welding plates onto expropriated trucks in the collectivized factories. 

This first one is of my own designed, built from leftover truck parts, plastic scrap, and index card.

The remaining tiznaos are historic ones, built from "paper model" schemes with index card. The first and third are Vulcanos, and the one in between is an MTM-1.

  

You can learn more about the improvised armor used by the Durruti Column at this TMP thread.

I have other tiznaos, including a 3D printed version of King Kong which I created, but only a few tiznaos were built in time to accompany the Durruti Column out of the city that day, and I just used the ones I saw in the video above for this display.

Behind the tiznaos are another car and a few more trucks. The trucks are hauling cannons and machine guns captured from the army.

These particular cannons are from HaT's French WWI Artillery set, which is plastic and inexpensive. 75mm French cannons saw a lot of use in the Spanish Civil War, and I have a good deal of them.

Behind the truck hauling artillery comes another full of volunteers, and two more carrying heavy machine guns.

The first truck carries two guns from BUM sets, which I think are supposed to be Hotchkiss M1914s. The second has a Maxim gun.

At the base of the statue, two HMG crews handle their weapons. The crew on the left are from Minairons, and the one on the right are converted BUM plastic miniatures. 

On the other side of the statue, the new column displays piles of ammunition, weapons, food, and other supplies captured from the army.

Taking up the rear are units wearing mostly brown and black with "mountain" hats. These units served during the previous scenario as "delegates" of the workers defense committees. These miniatures are from a different set of Durruti Column forces I've made, representing later Durruti Column members when the organization became more uniformed and better equipped.

Another from the group of later forces shows off a grenade. This piece is from Bandera's "Durruti Column" set.

The figures are quite a mix. Most of them are probably from Barcelona Universal Models (BUM), with a good deal from Bandera, Minairons, and Irregular, all of whom have their own great Spanish Civil War ranges. There are plenty of conversions in there as well from HaT Industrie and Ceasars and others cheaper plastic figures.  I won't bother to separate them out by company, I'm not making any free commercials here, but if you own a line of Spanish Civil War miniatures and would like to send me some I would be happy to paint them up and take some photos for your publicity.

That said, I'll try to do posts like these every so often, showing off different factions and forces.