March
to
Doom

For nearly a week, I had been trying to make a third in the series of drawings depicting US forces in Northwest Africa, however progress was sluggish and I had been distracted by other ideas. Such as doing a list of weapons and vehicles used in the APW version of the Falklands War and its equivalent of the Iran-Iraq War. Rationalizing the latter out and listening to the soundtrack to Tiberian Dawn sparked a new idea, that of a desolate battlefield in the northern Congo strewn with the wreckage of destroyed vehicles and grave markings. I rushed to draw this and I was surprised how quick the process was, offset by having already researched weapons and vehicles for the prior list and thus, only had to glance at it to understand what vehicles I felt could be added to the scene.

This scene is simply the aftermath of an attack over a ridge by a Zairian regiment against Imperial Centrafricans; while the battle is won, there has been tremendous loss as seen by all the Battlefield Crosses. These mark the locations of fallen soldiers, buried by their comrades, which await later removal for reburial elsewhere, in a more ceremonial occasion. A Chinese-made Type 57 MBT and an Egyptian Model 64 al-Walid APC stand idle, also casualties of the Zairian victory while a Central African MT-LB to their right indicates the enemy defense of their position. Behind these vehicles, there lies a crashed Central African Mi-8 and a Japanese Ki-330 bomber, the latter of which an indicator of the former Empire's support of Jean-Bedel Bokassa and the ECA. Finally, in the far left, one can see the 90mm barrel of an AMX-10, also used by the Central Africans, having been knocked out by the Zairians in their relentless advance through the bombed-out jungle floor.