Easy enough in 25mm scale if you use the Raventhorpe range of figures and vehicles with B&B Arabs from their ‘Lawrence’ range. Elderly civilian vehicles for the ‘minesweepers’ are less easy to find in 25mm scale, but in 15mm scale of course there’s always the delightful but frequently forgotten ‘Peter Laing’ series, which has a superb old WWI staff car ideal for a Jerusalem taxi, and also provides a nicely sturdy Rolls Royce armoured car-and Arab/civilian figures. The rest in 15mm comes from ‘Peter Pig’s’ Range 8 including trucks. For the Palestine Police use ERM’s WWT ‘Middle East’ Range figures with peaked caps. A village or Police Post should be easy enough to make and for RAF presence should you need it, “Eastern Express” now produce most of the old FROG 1/72 range.
Really speaking all you need is the road and the terrain close to it, bridges, culverts etc etc. It’s also easier to play the Arab rather than the convoy commander in my view. With a set ‘mined area’ - British and Police patrols were notoriously reluctant to ‘sweep’ routes on the daily basis they required, nor apparently was an efficient anti-mine vehicle developed (I suppose an old Arab in an ancient taxi was cheaper?).
The road can be covered by a stated number of snipers of specifically allocated ability and the intention of the attacker should be either:
- To delay the convoy until nightfall-and reinforcements from the nearest friendly village.
- To turn back the convoy, or force the British to bring up substantial reinforcements; probably the RAF too! While …….
- The speed of any convoy preceded by a 1920 or earlier Ford Model or similar aged car would be slow. Very Slow.
- In the British Army pre-war, driver was a recognised trade and few men knew how to drive a car or lorry in military or civilian life-apart from officers of course! Kill the drivers and you can stop the convoy.
The first scenario may bring a bunch of Wingate’s night-time partygoers to mix it with the Arabs, of course. While military reinforcements would take a lot of time and effort to deploy off road. The armoured cars were always the key. Their guns so powerful in sweeping the terrain, and impervious to fire returned, the Lewis gun trucks would ‘debus’ as soon as an attack stopped the column as would the escort; but don’t assume better marksmanship in these British soldiers than the Arabs in the initial attack. British convoys frequently included a couple of light mortars too, more for smoke than anything else.
The armoured cars would not risk leaving the road in most situations; the terrain on Palestine’s hills could be appalling to wheels. The loss of an armoured car would be a nightmare for the convoy commander. Victory for the British would be to reach any stated objective in daylight and substantially intact; for the army the loss of a taxi or two or even of a single truck would mean little compared to the risk of being shot apart at night. Of course if an Arab mine manages to detonate a Sapper truck carrying 9,300lbs of British army gelignite…!
Minesweeping Taxis in Palestine 1938
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