1970s Winter USAEUR- Sitrep

Unfortunately my headlong charge towards completing some vehicles for the 70’s US force hit a snag round about Christmas and has since ground to a halt….

Everything was going quite well initially, I fired through one of the super S-Models M551 Sheridans in jig time; it’s a lovely little model, although comments re: thin gun barrels and fiddly PE parts from the BRDM still apply.

I replaced the plastic .50 cal with a metal Elhiem one, which should be slightly sturdier, and finished the beast off with some stowage…

Then it was onto the painting of winter MERDC, the bit I’d been looking forward to. And damn did it look good

However, following this, the next stage was the application of gloss varnish ahead of the oil wash. And that’s when the wheels came off. Due to the cold temperatures, I’d decided to set up a spray booth in the loft, because I was too impatient to wait until the warmer weather to spray up the vehicles (after all the whole idea was to do this through the winter and keep up the inspiration for the theme. Seems to have been justified since I’m still waiting for warmer weather…!), and up until now it seemed to have worked. But this time, having allowed the varnish to dry, I found that the cold temperature had caused it to wrinkle and bubble the paint beneath it

The pictures don’t really show the full extent of how bad this looks. This left me with a coupe of options; 1) leave it as is and cover up the imperfections with weathering/stowage/ foliage/ cam net or 2) strip it all back and start again. I decided against the former, however I’d got so pissed off with what had happened that I couldn’t bring myself to start stripping it all back, so the tank has just sat on my work bench, silently judging me ever since. Looking at it now, I reckon I can probably try a local fix by just scraping/stripping the affected areas and just doing a touch up job, but that may well be very much trial and error…

In better news though, I did obtain a couple of Elhiem’s new dismounted US Cold War Tank crew. Although designed with the late 80s in mind, with a bit of judicious hacking and filing, they should suit my purpose admirably, and at least let me continue with this project until I pluck up the courage to restart that Sheridan!

Cheers

Iain

Cold War Update…

…the last of the year? Well hopefully not.  However, of late I’ve been trying to batter through some of the last remnants of half done stuff on the workbench.

The Soviet BRDM-2 has progressed a bit, and the weathering doesn’t look too bad, now that the rest of the vehicle has caught up with it a bit. Hopefully should have this finished by the end of the month, and thus allow the Soviets to start 2015 with at least some mobility….

Back in the West, I’ve finished the remaining two US infantrymen

Here they are with the rest of the fireteam

And the whole lot together. I’m quite chuffed with how cohesive they look, despite the two dramatically different kit and uniforms between the infantry and the LRRPs

With that being the end of the available infantry for the time being, I guess it’s time to start on the vehicles…

Cheers,

Iain.

Latest Cold War Progress…

Since the last post I’ve made a start on the two remaining US infantrymen for the 70's project. They’re coming along nicely and hopefully should be finished by next week.

I’ve moved the BRDM-2 on a little bit, too. Unfortunately I may have gone a bit too heavy on the weathering; the paint job would be fine for some chanky old rustbucket from the Balkan conflict, but not quite as suitable for a well maintained machine in its prime, in the service of a Guards Motor Rifle Regiment…

I’ve also just procured something a bit special for the Soviets, but you’ll just need to wait to see what that is….

Cheers

Iain

Let It Snow...

Just a quick update for now; LRRPs all finished and fully based up.

Last pair of infantrymen started; in this case squad-level support in the shape of the M203 and M60…

Cheers

Iain

A Hazy Shade of Winter…

Well, there’s been quite enough Communism on this blog of late, time to redress the balance with some apple pie eatin’, football watchin’, moonshine sippin’ good ol’ boys…

Work has finally begun on my long-planned late 70s US Army project. I plumped for a winter scheme purely for aesthetic reasons; there’s just something about a snow themed army that hits the spot for me. As for the timeframe, I wanted something different from the more common M1 & M2 laden late 80’s US Army-of-Much-Shooty-Death, and liked the underdog factor of 1970s USAEUR. This also allowed me to indulge in MERDC-ing the shit out of various bizarre AFVs, which feature the seldom seen brown & white MERDC scheme (as previewed in my last post. Well done if you guessed correctly. If you did I may even provide some sort of pointless prize, like a picture of a fish or something…). This was intended for areas  of open plain without heavy vegetation, which suited me down to the ground (I envisage some ruined industrial terrain being created for these guys, and their inevitable winter-themed Soviet opponents, to fight through)…

At the moment, there is a bit of a dearth of suitable infantry figures kicking around. However, Matt at Elhiem is sculpting away like a some sort of thing possessed, creating a load of late 80’s US Army PASGT wearing troops, and when he’s done with these, I’m reliably informed that earlier M1 helmeted types will follow. So that gives me a head start to paint up the whole two packs that are currently available.

I say two, but this is really only because going for a winter army has allowed me to use the Elhiem Fictional Arctic Fireteam as a LRRP unit. This set of four features some of the nicest sculpting in the range, with 4 troopers armed variously with M16A1s, an UZI and an M79 Grenade launcher. I’ve added ALICE packs to underline the fact that they’re SF (nothing says that like a stonking great rucksack). At the moment, these guys are just awaiting basing;

I deliberately went for quite a blue tint for the parkas, working from a photograph; however it did come out slightly bluer than I had intended, but still looks pretty decent, I reckon. The white boots are Arctic issue “Mickey Mouse” boots, and the mittens are similarly painted as having the white covers on them.  It might look slightly incongruous given that the basing won’t be totally snowbound, and the rest of the army won’t be nearly as heavily equipped; however I’m going on the theory that the rest of the snow suits are in their bergens (it’s melted a bit since they were deployed, y’see…) and since they’d be spending weeks outside in exposed hides behind enemy lines, they’d need a few extra layers. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it (that and it looked good)…

As for the grunts themselves, I’ve got the first two finished and two waiting in the wings;

These guys have had the hip pockets of their BDUs filed off to back date them to OG-107s, and hoods sculpted onto their M-65 jackets, to make them look slightly more “wintery”. The helmets have been painted to show the Autumn/winter reverse side of the Mitchell cover, and the uniforms are a mix of shades of green, since any shots of US Army personnel seem to show no one’s uniforms quite matching…

As for vehicles, the tank park currently looks a bit like this-

And I picked this up from KingKit, to give the LRRPs a sweet ride (jokes about “heliborne insertions” to follow). MERDC was trialled but never adopted on helicopters, so of course this will be painted in MERDC. After all, it’s a SF bird, and who knows what would’ve happened if it had all boiled over. Needs must when the Devil drives and all that…

Next up will be making a start on some vehicles, but what to do first…

Cheers

Iain