Assault Guards and Civil Guards

This week, I took some photos of two of my Spanish Civil War security forces: Guardia de Asalto (Assault Guards) and Guardia Civil (Civil Guards). During the Spanish Civil War, Assault Guards and Civil Guards fought on both sides of the conflict. As the war went on, each side reorganized their security forces, sometimes updating the uniforms. I've painted my security forces in the pre-war uniforms which would have been worn in the first months of the war.

The first set of photos is of the Assault Guards. Before the war, this unit operated in urban areas, often repressing workers movements. It must have been strange for both the officers and the radical syndicalists to find themselves on the same side of the barricades in the summer of 1936.

These assault guards are from a variety of plastic sets. Some are from Barcelona Universal Models, but most are converted from WWI sets.

This MG teams was originally from the HAT Industrie Russian WWI heavy weapons set. Most of the riflemen around the MG crew are from BUM...

Such as this second MG, which were originally SCW soldiers before I gave them new heads.

I have a few Assault Guards on horseback, from BUM.

 I also made a group of seated Assault Guards out of WWI Russian artillery riders. They are seated on a removable platform, so they can be swapped out of the truck for various other factions, as the scenarios require.

The Assault Guard's command piece is from a plastic WWI set.

As are the most of artillery crew and the mortar team.

While most of the Assault Guards are converted pieces from WWI sets, it is not so easy to convert plastic sets into Civil Guards, due to their unique hats.

Civil Guards were the rural police of the Spanish government. Like the Asaltos, they found themselves on both sides of the war.

Almost all of my Civil Guards are from BUM sets, such as these riflemen by the pig pen. A lot of these are flimsy resin pieces, which often suffer broken gun barrels. 

These grenaders are of the same flimsy BUM resin. The SMG-carrying officers they are standing with, however, are nice metal pieces from Irregular Miniatures.

This group is of the same mix.

It was a happy coincidence that I arranged my security forces on either side of this farmers' pig pen.

Right-wing Militias

During the Spanish Civil War, both sides of the conflict fielded ideological militia units. Today, I am sharing my Right-Wing militias, in preparation for Scenario 3: The Battle of Caspe. Below, you will find photos of the Requete militias, followed by those of the Falange.

In the images below, we have the Requete militia, preparing to defend the Caspe church (based loosely off the real church in Caspe).

The Requetes began as a Catholic monarchist boy-scouts-type operation, which became militarized before the war. Politically, they were a bizarre "Carlist" faction. The movement began a century before the Spanish Civil War, by supporters of Ferdinand VII's son, Carlos V, who made a claim to the Spanish throne in 1833.

By the 1930s, they were a large and well-organized outfit, based largely in the Basque region, who wanted Spain to be even more conservative and Catholic than it already was, if you can believe that.

At the top of the church, various Requete militiamen stand around an armed priest (from Irregular miniatures). There are many reports of clergy members firing out at the crowds of workers in the opening days of the Spanish Civil War, which led in some cases to mobs attacking the churches. 1, 2, 3*.

With the priest are a Requete LMG team, from Miniarions, as well as various grenaders and a spotter/officer, which I believe was from one of Caesar Miniatures' partisans sets (Underground Resisters, or Partisans in Europe). 

The Carlists in the church plaza are also a mix of Minairons and Ceasars. 

In the church itself, I have another priest from Irregular, as well as nuns from the Partisans in Europe set.

For the next set of the photos, we have the real fascists of the Spanish Civil War - The Falange militia. I won't say too much more about them politically, but I did put them here in the graveyard, where fascists belong.

These miniatures are all plastic, mostly from the same sets of Caesars' but also some Barcelona Universal Models (BUM).

*3. Paz, Abel. Durruti in the Spanish Revolution. AK, 2007. Page 435.

-Thanks to Lee for research assistance on this blog post.

¡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.