Team Yankee: Syrian Painting Guide

By Matt Varnish

Hey everyone, as I mentioned in the podcast and on my Syrians article, Battlefront neglected to show off the cool Syrian paint schemes and left newer players high and dry in terms of cool pictures. I am here to fix that. We will look at building a killer HQ tank with ERA armour blocks, then general painting of vehicles and the 3 main schemes, then infantry at the end. All paints are Vallejo unless otherwise noted. Yalla, let’s go!

Starting with the standard plastic T-55, I added side skirts, the modern HMG and some old Mine plows I had left over from the T-72s. Used the flat front hull, not the up-armoured one.

ERA blocks are explosives that shoot out to lessen the incoming rounds. The easiest way is this sheet styrene tile found at the local Train Store. If they had it, I would have gone smaller than 2.1mm but this is what they had. This one strip 2 blocks wide did this whole tank, for when Late War Team Yankee comes out and I have to do 10 more vehicles, I am set!

Looked at some pictures online, and here is where they were placed in the 80s, not the whole length of the hull, just the front half. Resin stowage from some 1/48 scale WW2 Sherman upgrades, again a pickup at the hobby store.

In hindsight, I would not put the section on the canvas mantlet cover. The finished product is the Article Header picture.

Normal Vehicle Build: Majority of Syrian vehicles came from Eastern Europe, painted green. Started with an undercoat of Team Yankee Primer: Yankee Green. There are 3 main Syrian camo schemes, for this ZSU-57 it will be 3-colour / Dark Green 3rd. So large dots of Luftwaffe Cam. Green 823 on top of the base coat. Dark Green can also be Green Grey 886 (T-55 and T-72)

Taking up roughly a third of the camo, the large shapes of Desert Yellow 977 can be added leaving the Luftwaffe Came Green splotches showing. The roadwheels are done in Desert yellow also, I typically leave 1 roadwheel green per side.

Gunship Green 895 over the undercoat (colour matched to pictures taken of vehicles) in this case tough to tell the difference over the Yankee Green undercoat, but no matter what primer you use, this is the right faded green. I’ve set up the black for the Tracks and Crew and exhaust on left side of hull.

Crew uniform is Buff 976 and Black 950 normally, but they are wearing helmets so went with Afrika Korps Tank Crew green 336, Oily Steel 865 on the metal tracks and ammo racks and exhaust, and Army Painter Soft Tone over the whole model to give depth to the turret handles, recesses, etc.

Once the Soft Tone is thoroughly dry, heavy drybrush of USA Tan Earth 874 all over the model, then a lighter Drybrush of Pale Sand 837.

When the model looks dusty enough to cause allergies to kick in (my wife hates them, she thinks they are old models) then you know you’re ready for the Golan. Other vehicles with this same 3-tone scheme are BRDMs, and BTR-60s, of which tonnes are wrecks in the Valley of Tears.

For tanks, instead of the Luftwaffe Dark Green, you substitute in Green Grey 886 in the 3-tone pattern either with large splotches or camo line pattern such as these tanks.

Other vehicles with the 3-tone Green Grey are Spandrels

Some vehicles only get a 2-tone scheme, so Gunship Green and Desert Yellow only, such as this BM-21. Some transports are this scheme also.

Lastly, BMPs. I have chosen two different 2-tone schemes to readily distinguish my Motor Rifles.. so lined 2-tone on the left for the BMP-1Ps and 2-tone dots for the plain BMP-1s. I have 12 of each finally painted, just need to finish off the OP vehicle and the Battalion vehicle and then I’ll be done. Mabruk!

The next few Osprey plates show different camo schemes plus Tank Crew. Since I was repainting on top of my Soviet Infantry with green helmets and brown uniforms, I went with one of the cooler schemes. Not sure if anyone wants to try painting the Adidas shoes on that AT-4 Spigot team!! Also, they ALL have moustaches..

As you can see, this infantry guy looks cool, and I was able to use my existing Soviet infantry as a base. I realize I used some hard-to-find Panzer Aces colours throughout the guide, such as the light green helmet colour, but just use what you have or have readily available to you from your local stores.

I will supplement later with a Mi-24 and MiG-23 colour schemes, though for once, the existing Soviet Hind colours in Red Thunder work nicely right now, though I’ll probably change mine a tad after I repaint over the Soviet markings and so on. You could use Soviet SU-25s for air support, but I found at the hobby stores some MiG-23s which Syria has plenty. Hopefully, Battlefront will get us this airplane model for Desert Storm since a tonne of nations used it.

Matt Varnish, AKA Dennis Campbell, plays Team Yankee, Flames of War, and Black Powder in the frozen wastes of Canadia. Check out my youtube channel for hundreds of :