Able Archer/ RFR rules - Vietnam in 20mm (part 3) - The Altaya models

This post was quick to follow the last one as these models are ready built die-cast and of excellent quality and price. I´m a big fan of Altaya as you can have a very good model ready for the table/shelves in just a few minutes. Of course you always need some extra details, figures, dusting after thin black applied somewhere or everywhere as these ones need to be close to other models and kits from other brands. 

Altaya has these two tanks for the US/ARVN side, the M-41 Bulldog and the M-48A3. They got some mud color spray but it looks I exaggerated, specially on the M-48.

The M-35 A1 was a gun truck heavily armored for Vietnam used mostly in the convoy protection role. I just added figures and some benches for them to sit. The right side truck was made first and has Skytrex figures added while the one to the left has Esci conversions. 

Two more helicopters, a Bell Huey UH-1 Iroquois and a Bell OH-58D Kiowa. 

And these three strike aircraft, very useful in the CAS mission, a F-100D Super Sabre, a Grumman A-6E Intruder and a A-4C Skyhawk. 

All these aircraft got a "Vietnam" base with the usual green flocking but with added plastic GW vegetation. 

Next: more Vietnam. 

Able Archer/ RFR rules - Vietnam in 20mm (part 2) - Revamping the old plastic aircraft

These four old kits were built and on the shelves for decades by now. The work this time was to paint the canopies from the inside after popping them out (not possible on the helicopters due to the large number of parts which forced me to paint them from the outside) and to place crews on the helicopters.  

The firing M-60 crews of the helicopters were made from the Esci running figure. Its right leg was heated with a lighter until the figure could be placed in a seated position. Then the M1 helmets were replaced by modern aircraft helmets. 

The kits are Esci Bell 212 which are possible as they were also used in Vietnam and an alongated version of the more famous Bell Huey UH-1. For an easy distinction of both variants you have two windows in the sliding rear door in this version and only one in the UH-1. Besides, the 212 is slightly longer. 

This is the Skyraider A-1E by  Monogram, a CAS slow aircraft that could deliver a heavy payload on the target.

The F-105 Thunderchief was the main strike bomber so heavily used that almost half of the 800+ were lost at Vietnam. The model is Revell. 

Next: More Vietnam, namely the Altaya models 

Able Archer/ RFR rules - Vietnam in 20mm (part 1) - Terrain and first model

 

Recently Tim King started to make a revamped Able Archer Rules closer to the principles of the (even) faster Rapid Fire Reloaded called Able Archer Reloaded. This fact sparked again my interest on the Cold War period so I started to pile up once more figures, vehicles and aircraft for Iran-Iraq war, Angola, Lebanon and particularly the period I had less stuff, the Vietnam War. 

After some piling up and stash organisation for Vietnam I saw a number of nice videos by Little Wars TV and other wargamers and modellers for the sake of inspiration and took my old books on the subject from the shelves. I had to clean the dust after that as some 20 years already passed since my last raid into Vietnam.

 I had no terrain for South East Asia and my first task was to make some patches of forest that looked exotic enough for Vietnam. The material was already in my stash for years as I used Games Workshop jungle terrain and some nice plastic vegetation I found in  Chinese shops. Another good thing about these patches of forest is its usage in the WW2 TOE of the Pacific.

This one is made only of GW plastic vegetation. Some stones were used for extra weight in all stands. 

The Chinese plastic vegetation was cut into pieces of around 10 cm to 20cm and mixed with the GW pieces. 

This is the "20cm" variant. What I wanted was some vegetation stands with an exotic look that can also be mixed with the European/North American vegetation as Vietnam has a prolific mix of evergreen and deciduous forests to bamboo and mangrove forests, for a total of 1500 types of woody plants (!). 

These are the different types of vegetation that GW offered at least some 10 years ago. Looking on the pet shops is also a good solution as they also have this type of plastic vegetation specially in the aquarium part. 

A view from the lot. What will have to be done, after mixing with the European/North American types, is to make the mandatory paddy fields and bamboo forests. 

This was my first Vietnam build maybe 40 years old but still in good shape, a Matchbox Bell Huey AH-1G Cobra that can be used from 1966 on many actions as a support for the other great achievement of Bell, the UH-1 "Iroquois". Recently I took out the figures and painted the canopy from the inside, which gives a good shine to the canopy and doesn´t erase any detail from the frame. 

Next: More Vietnam. 

The Slovak Fast Brigade at Lipovec 1941 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! - Part 7: The small cars, new unexpected airplanes and some artillery

 

Making the Slovak Fast Brigade is a funny project as you can´t find many types of vehicles or guns in one place something that forces to look everywhere from plastic, resin, scratch or 3d. In this post you can find a bit of all of them. 

These ones came from Poland (Martola Model Shop) from a 3d resin brand called EMP  which, among dozens of others, has (L to R) these Tatra T82 (instead of Tatra T27 as pointed in the RF! Blue book) with the  20mm oerlikon AA, the Tatra T-72  and the Tatra 57k. The models are true beauties with very easy to clean resin debris from the 3d printing process. The interior of the Tatra 82 is very complete but I prefer to close all windows with pieces of plastic card. I did the same on the other two vehicle´s windshields as they were very detailed but also fragile. The barrel of the 20mm Oerlikon broke  and had to be replaced by a drilled piece of plastic. 

These two, a Letov S-328 and an Avia-534 from KP were very kindly sent to me by the RF! expert Alan McCoubrey. These two are very handy, an extra Avia-534 is always good as the Fast brigade had around 36 of them (three squadrons). The Letov S-328 was also missing in my collection as the one I had was sent to Poland 1939 disguised and converted as a Polish  reconnaissance aircraft. The only change I made in these two was the markings that were hand painted and the two figures on the Letov which came from the Hasegawa Kawanishi H8K. 

The Tatra T82 was used as an AA mobile platform. Not sure it was used in this way in mid 1941 but there is visual confirmation of it around 1943 at least. The figures are Hat WW1 Ottomans with Esci British paratroopers heads which is (I realised that pretty late) the best  plastic heads for the Slovaks. 

This photo is from 1943 and it shows a 20mm AA gun on top of the Tatra T82 (caption says it)  and that is why our masters mention the 20mm AA being towed/carried on top of Tatra T27 and not T82...

The Tatra T-72 will go for the Mixed Reconnaissance Force HQ and the Tatra 57k will be carrying the observation team of the 11th Artillery Regiment.

One more FtF Praga RV was used to pull the 75mm mountain gun of the infantry battalion. This time I camouflaged the truck with the same colors used in the Slovak tanks as shown in Tank Power magazine No 471. 

The 75mm mountain gun was scratchbuilt from an Irregular Miniatures barrel and some Revell XVII century wheels.  The carriage came from an old Airfix 25pdr heated and twisted until in place. The shield and other small details were made in plastic card. 

The crew is again Hat Ottomans with Esci paratroopers heads. The netting on the helmets is no problem as its barely invisible after two coats of paint.  

Next: wether Vietnam or more Slovaks

The British 1st/6th Airborne Division in 20mm size for Rapid Fire! rules

Another big unit made along many years. The figures are mostly Esci, Revell and Airfix, the last ones particularly useful for support weapons. The gliders are scratchbuilt or Italeri. The many jeeps are Airfix, Matchbox, Fujimi or Hasegawa. Artillery is Matchbox for the 17pdr guns and SHQ for the M1 75mm howitzers. The 6pdr are all scratchbuilt. The cute little Tetrarchs are Assymetrical Wargaming in 3d printed resin. As usual there are plenty of conversions specially in the mortar and MMG crews.

Next: More Slovaks.

Rapid Fire! 20mm - The 6th and last paratrooper battalion of the British Airborne Division

 

This post concludes the two Paratrooper brigades of a British Airborne Division. Now I still have to make the larger Airlanding Brigade as each has three battalions of four companies instead of three. Most probably I´ll only make one one of its battalions as the biggest British paratrooper gathering was the action of the 1st Division at Oosterbeek/Arnhem were the division was already depleted of maybe some 10% to 15% of its strenght. So you can discard two of its battalions from the original 6 paratrooper´s battalions, 3 airlanding battalions, 1 engineer and 1 of glider pilots and R.A.S.C.

As usual I used the Airfix, Esci and Revell figures with a few leftovers from SHQ. The Airfix figures were useful for conversions for the support weapons (Vickers MMG and 3" mortar) and some Esci were also used (2" mortar and 6pdr AT guns). 

The 6 pdr guns were scratchbuilt and only the barrels and wheels are original PSC. All other pieces were made from several types of plastic all superglued at the end. The figures are SHQ, and Esci and Airfix conversions. 

This is an example of a scratchbuilt stand. None of the three mentioned British paratroopers plastic brands (nor any of the newer in the market) has the Vickers MMG and this one was made by heating the arms of those strange Airfix figure with open arms looking like Jesus Christ at the cross and the Airfix 8th Army Vickers with added water cooling system and ammo box made from Evergreen plastic card. 

Next: a British Glider battalion 

Rapid Fire! 20mm - The British Airborne Division Hamilcar and Tetrarchs

Both an Hamilcar glider and a company of Tetrarchs were still missing in my British Airborne division. I looked for an Hamilcar and found three producers: a 3d printed version; the one from Planet Models in resin and a Vacuum formed kit from Contrail with metal parts also. The problem was the price as they range from 90 to 140 euros not counting P&P and the usual excruciating time of wait and customs procedures and pay if coming from the UK. There is also the Britannia model now by Grubby tanks and that one is much cheaper at around 20/25 euros. The problem with Britannia (besides nowadays time and customs) is  that this one would have to go along with my Horsas from Italeri making the Hamilcar much smaller as Britannia gliders are reduced versions of the real things. So I decided making my own as I only intend to have one. The Tetrarchs were easier as they are resin 3d prints coming from Italy but this same file can be printed in other places. 

The Tetrarchs came from Assymetrical Wargaming (Italy) a place were you can also get the excellent Simon Soldiers 20mm figures in continental Europe together with many other fine brands. They only needed a few stowage, antennas and a figure for the command tank. 

 The Command tank got a sliding hatch and an Airfix figure with headphones made from heated sprue. 

The tank colors and symbols were challenging as I knew nothing about it. After reading many internet articles it can be concluded that green+black was the most probable choice as it was used in mid 44 by most of British vehicles. For the symbols I opted in true recce style for the 41 in a blue over green square instead of the red 85.  

The Hamilcar was great fun to carve from a large block of BlueBoard but it  became too tall, maybe by 1cm which is noticeable in this scale. My problem is that I scratchbuild my stuff without much of a proper planning. This way generally works for houses and other structures but its not that good for machinery. I looked for the size of the Hamilcar (only around 1 meter longer than the Horsa, also a big glider) and went for it straight away trusting in pictures for the other measurements. 

The wings are one of the most difficult parts to make as they are going in an oblique way into the fuselage and stick to the cockpit support. So some extra sheets of card with resin were placed to try to give that effect. 

The way the Hamilcar landed  allowed for the wheels to be at belly level. 

The big front door became open as these big planes would be stranded in the battlefield in this form for a long period of time before being retrieved. 

Again too tall...

The overall appearance is reasonable but a German buff can say its a Me 321... 

The extra pieces of card with resin on the wings got sanded in order to break those strange structures. 

The painting was straight forward with large parts of black which helps hiding the flaws and with a style as close as possible to my Horsas. 

All markings were hand painted and go along with a rustic build :) 

There you go: a cheap and entertaining way for you to have an Hamilcar glider to carry Tetrarchs for D-Day, Bren carriers and 17 pdrs for Arnhem and M22 Locusts for Operation Varsity. 

Next: More British Airborne bits as June is approaching. 

Rapid Fire! Blitzkrieg in 20mm - Additional German bycicle fusiliers, artillery and staff cars for the 18th ID and 7th PD

The bycicles convinced me to add all other things: The bycicle Fusiliers are necessary for the OB of the 18th ID together with Staff cars and artillery limbers mentioned in the RF! Blitzkrieg battlegroups for May 1940; the 20mm Flak gun is the last piece missing for the Flak battalion of the 7th PD that wreaked havoc in the ranks of the Matildas in the Arras action.

The Cadillac 1941 from Matchbox is the closest I could find to the Opel Admiral and this photo made me buy the two toys in a local supermarket. 

The wheels were replaced by some better ones from Airfix and Matchbox as the original ones are generally what spoils these kind of models. Some 3d resin extra jerrycans were placed copying the original photo as they also help to disguise the different front of the Cadillac in relation to the Opel. 

So together with some ACE staff cars already made I´m more or less done with these kind of vehicles for the Panzer Grey period. 

The Hat box of german cyclists was once again (after the Slovaks) used to make these German fusiliers using BlueStuff as the matrix and two component resin as the filler and lost details with Milliput. The original resin heads, turned into blobs and were replaced by Esci DAK heads. 

Together with the resin contraptions a few more dismounted cyclists were made using old Atlantic, Airfix and Esci figures. 

"- Hey Hans, is it us overthere on those bikes?

- Of course not Helmut! You are on too much Pervitin!"

After another moment of fine poetry lets have a look at limbers. There were still three Revell limbers around without horses, wheels or figures that must have been used somewhere else. I coupled the limbers with Napoleonic horses, wheels of unknown origin (some are 3d printed) and figures from FtF. The horses had to have some Milliput extras as they were demoted from the fancy line cavalry to the hardships of horse artillery. 

Limbers on the wargames table or even on a shelf, like mostly my case, are always a nice sight. The card bases were strenghtened with super glue. 

In the end you have some reasonable looking limbers to pull guns from the 75mm caliber to 150mm. The harness was heavily transformed and reduced in lenght as I didn´t want the huge final model that Revell offers even if its the correct one. 

One more Zvezda 20mm Flak 38 was added and this one will be closer to the 7th PD assets as it concludes its Flak battalion. The standing figure to the right is FtF. 

Next: More Slovaks or reinforcements for the 1944 British airborne division.