I finally got around to painting the Nationalist HQ & Weapons set from Minairons Miniatures. The set consists of 13 20mm miniatures. They paint up nice and if you aren’t lazy (like a certain floozy I know who lets things sit in the paint queue for eons), they paint up quickly. 
What you get in the set are 2 officers with pistols, 1 standard bearer, 1 bugler, 1 heavy machine gun, 2 light machine guns, 1 light mortar, 5 riflemen carrying ammo & a set of 3 Nationalist flags. There is some minor assembly – you need to glue the HMG together & you need to glue the rifle arm to the bugler.
Officers
The set comes with two officers which could be used as “rifle seccion” commanders. I’m modeling the early part of the war – the period when there were several women in the front lines. The TO&E of the Nationalist army in 1936-1937 lists the command of a rifle seccion as a lieutenant and two runners. In game play, you would attach the command to a rifle squad.
The Rifle Seccion
The typical infantry company of this time consisted of 3 Rifle Seccions – each Rifle Seccion consisted of 1-2 Rifle Pelotons, 0-1 LMG team per Peloton, 0-1 50mm mortan team per Peloton. In addition, a Rifle Seccion usually had 0-2 Company support assets attached, either HMG teams or heavy mortar teams.
The Rifle Peloton consisted of 3 Escuadras – the 1st Escuadra consisted of a sergeant, a corporal & 4 riflemen, the other two Escuadras consisted of a corporal & 5 riflemen.
Light Machine Gun Teams
The light machine gun used by the Nationalists was the Hotchkiss M22/M25. It could be strip fed or fed with a magazine. The Minairon’s models depict the magazine. The team itself consisted of a Corporal, the gunner & 4 riflemen.
Light Mortar Team
It’s interesting that the rifle squad consisted of 6 men & the LMG team consisted of 6 men, but the light mortar team consisted of only 3 men – a Corporal, the gunner & a rifleman to hump ammo.
HMG Team
Each Infantry Company had a platoon of 4 heavy machine guns which it could attach to Rifle Seccions where needed. The gun itself was the Hotchkiss 1914 heavy machine gun. The team consisted of a Corporal, the gunner and a rifleman.
The miniatures were all painted with Vallejo Model Acrylic paints and mounted on Litko clear bases. I chose clear bases because of the varied terrain found in the Spanish Civil War. I don’t have enough models yet for an entire Rifle Seccion, but I do have enough Nationalists to begin playing NUTS! from Two Hour Wargames.
The photos were taken using my iPad and no floozies were harmed in the making of this post. And always, your comments are most welcome.
Though it has been close to 50 years since I’ve been to Spain, I remember there were stone walls everywhere!
Atomic Floozy Adventures 