I have a soft spot for Battlefront’s Vietnam line of 15mm miniatures. They were amongst my first painted man dollies. Then there was a unfortunate incident involving a dumpster and a nerd who needed to find himself. Fast forward a few years and Flames of War Nam received a reboot. When this happened the air cavalry and Black Horse armored cavalry boxes immediately caught my gaze. And I was ready.

Unfortunately, after the line was rebooted a lot of the old hobby articles hosted on Battlefront’s site were lost. This meant information on the contents of these wonderful boxes and their product line cousins became rare as hen’s teeth.

My goal is to change that! More on that mission later. This article will be about the contents of the Black Horse Armored Cavalry box that recently jumped into my arms.



After getting my sweaty mitts on it the first thing to pop out of the box is a combined instruction sheet for all the included vehicles. The instructions seem pretty straight forward though the Sheridan and Patton don’t have an exploded view of the parts. This is kind of a bummer but most of the assembly is straight forward. Sharing the same plastic bag were three sheets of decals. The decals seem nice and flavorful for Vietnam. Vehicle numbers, US stars, vehicle markings, and graffiti are included.

Next out of the box were the M113 tracked APC sprue pairs. One half contains the main body of the vehicle and the other has the accessories to add to complete the variants of the vehicle. There are seven pairs of sprues that allow you to create the following:

• M113 Troop Carrier
• M113 Armored Cavalry Vehicle (coined the ACAV by the troops)
• M125 81mm Mortar Carrier
• M106 4.2” Mortar Carrier
• M132 “Zippo” Flame Carrier

There are also options for a minigun and a recoilless rifle.

The last component out of the box is the plastic package containing the big guns of the troop.

There are three M551 Sheridan Light Tanks and one M48A3 Patton Main Battle Tank contained in a plastic box. The resin and metal kits come secured by foam. Awesomely the M551s are three different sculpts and they feature distinct stowage on their turrets. The hulls and turrets come ready for magnet installation.

The Patton is a big hunk of resin. Mine appeared to have no issues with the cast. It comes with lots of metal bits to build up the turret cupolas. It is also ready for magnets.

Vehicle commanders are included for all of the vehicles.

Above is the full spread of parts for tanks. It’s a good thing there are only four as these will test my modeling skills. We I have been spoiled with the plastics for a while now but these shouldn’t surprise anyone who used Battlefront kits before 2013ish (and many now are still resin). That said, I look forward to piecing these together.

So there you have it! The Black Horse Cavalry Troop Box. It contains enough kit to represent a full Cavalry platoon minus the dismounted infantry squad. You also get the Patton as a heavy armor asset. With the addition of a squad of infantry you have a fully playable and historical force.

Well, surprise surprise. Ben is jumping into another project. I think the nostalgia will give me the motivation to see it through! I hope this look at the box contents is useful. Until next time remember “The bird is the word.”