Able Archer/ RFR rules - Vietnam in 20mm (part 13) - Reinforcements for the 11th ACR and some more aircraft

 

Some 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR) elements advance in the middle of My Blue province when they are surprised by a low flight of some friendly aircraft, that could well have been some Migs... Well, this event was not registred in the unit´s history and its presented here first hand. 

Each squadron of the 11th ACR had three rifle squads (one per troop) transported in M-113 A1. I read that even these ones could also have the ACAV version but the regiment will end up with nine of these so three of the more plain A1 version looks OK. I´m not sure about placing a simple shield in front of the 12,5mm gun but I still couldn´t find a photo of them like this, the ACAV version being the more common. All models are quick build S-Model.

The figures are left-to-right, Skytrex and Airfix modern fighter pilots which suit the US cavalry tank helmet pretty well. 

Each troop also had a M-106 mortar carrier. I used again the S-Model for this conversion using a M-106 from Esci as a template. Bits of different types of plastic were used and even the mortar base came from a Revell 7YW Austrian artillery wheel. 

The crew is Esci and the M-16 rifles were cut until looking like a 107mm mortar shell. Later, the rifle part/shells were smoothed with a bit of  thick acrylic paint. 

As the mortar base was very brittle (old Revell style) I placed a jerrycan covering the damaged part. 

The floor of the M-106 (light sand part) was also raised so the figures and mortar could sit correctly. 

The Cadillac V-100, mostly used by the Military Police, are very old Corgi Juniors toys. The size is around 20mm as I have a number of Saudi V-150 in 1/87th scale that are smaller. 

The resin figures are surplus from the 3d printed PBR boat and the metal figure is Skytrex. 

The Huey Gunship is Revell. 

The Mohawk is the old Hasegawa model. One of these slow moving aircraft managed to put down a Mig-17 with its rockets, something that was kept as a secret up to 2007, as the army didn´t want USAF to know about this feat and force the Army to disarm its Mohawk as putting down Migs was a USAF exclusive. 

This A-4 Skyhawk F is the old Frog in Israeli colors. All these three aircraft got new star and stripes decals from the decals left-over box and all other symbols were hand painted. This one looks particularly bad as the symbold are painted on top of the grey primer as its (just by chance) the same color and painting style of another Skyhawk C from Altaya that I showed you before. 

Next: Guadalcanal models or a video on Bodrum, Gettysburg or Tarawa. 

Able Archer / RFR rules - Last haul from a 2nd hand fair

 

One of my biggest pleasures, exceptuating the ones were small people are made (or not), is to find old kits that remind me of my childhood. And I think this craze is increasing with the end of the  old style  model shops. So last month I had  news from one of my down town informers (can´t say his name), the one that sells my mother Corin Tellado books, that in Tomar, a city some 70 km from Coimbra (as a side note, Coimbra is still the capital of Portugal, as there is no document of any transfer of capital to Lisbon) a guy nicknamed Zé Manco (Joseph Lame, in english) was selling a large quantity of old plastic models at the 2nd hand fair of Tomar, on the first sunday of each month. So there I was looking for the guy on that day. Not easy as the fair is huge, but I saw a lame guy moving with some difficulty and I was sure to have found my target. 

Among plenty of others, I found these 5 old treasures in perfect conditions:

- The Lancaster will go along with the Revell one I showed a month or so ago just because two is much better than one

- The Sheridan will go to my 11th Black Horse Regiment in Vietnam

- The T-34/85 (had no idea that Polistil made 1/72nd models) with go to the NVA

- The Skyhawk will go also to the Vietnam

- The Seagull will go Guadalcanal as this campaign is starting to bite my brain.

Next month I´ll be there again at Tomar as Zé Manco still has a big box at home that he didn´t bring last time. 

Next: More Vietnam, mostly vehicles

The Luftwaffe for Rapid Fire! rules and in 20mm size

This collection tried to get the basics of the German Luftwaffe for all WW2 periods. There are all major brands like Airfix (some from the 1957 originals) , Revell, Matchbox and several of the newer Altaya and Luppa die-casts. The darker Me262 is a Frog model from 1972 that I forgot to mention.