Description

by Nick Sklias

This module depicts the Indiantown Gap Military Reservation at Manata Gap.  I served at Indiantown gap from 1955 - 1965 in the Military Police.

I built this module as an adjoining addition to Cotton Bowen's Indiantown Gap module.  At the time I served at the Gap there were no armor units there, so I built my module to coincide, time-wise, with Cotton's, hence the armor...  

I built Manata Gap as a 3.5 by 4 foot module using one by fours for the frame and half-inch plywood for the top.  I used a lot of pink foam board for the scenery and Woodland Scenics™ foam for the foliage.  I made the module's legs from conduit pipe.

The munitions building is ready-made from Model Power™.  The barracks and company commander's office were both scratch-built entirely from Evergreen Styrene.  The M1A1 Abrams tanks are Micro-Machine™ models, as are the M2 Bradleys.  Their detail is excellent, compared to some N scale models I've seen (and you can get them at any Toys-R-Us! - ed.).  

The airfield is a depiction of Muir Field at Indiantown Gap that runs parallel to Fisher Avenue, the main highway that runs through the base.  The taxi-way on the field is lighted with Miniatronics™ 1.5 volt, 30mah blue lamps.  There are various aircrafdt lining the runway, including helicopters, one jet aircraft, and several Confederate Air Force aircraft, including a P-40 Warhawk, a P-51D Mustang, and an F4U-4 Corsair.

Other vehicles around the base include HumVees, busses, a tanker truck, various civilian vehicles, and an MLRS (multiple launche rocket system).  An Army train on a siding has a consiste of flatcars with loads of M1A1s and M2s, a boxcar and a caboose.

I enjoyed building this module because it brought back some good memories of the Gap...