Able Archer/ RFR rules - Vietnam in 20mm (part 10) - First battalions of Vietcong Local Force

 

The Vietcong was organized in two main forces for the wargames table, the Main force, generally the best equipped and that you can see in a previous post, and the Local Force, not as well equipped as it was made of local inhabitants that had to conceal their weapons all the time and dressed mostly in civilian clothes. I made the battalions of VC Local force with six figures per company and only with one mortar per battalion. The figures Orion and Esci (the guys in shorts and the ones with a soft hat with a peak and AK47). 

The left stand had a moon shaped piece of wood glued to the main round base in order to make the prone figure sit more comfortably. The figure with the AK47 and soft "Khmer Rouge" hat was transformed into the woven straw conical hat with the help of Milliput.

The mortars were scratchbuilt as I have very few left. The figures holding cargo in the Local Force Orion box were converted into mortar crews. 

Next: More Vietnam, probably Tango boats or M-113s. 

Able Archer/ RFR rules - Vietnam in 20mm (part 8) - The NVA infantry

The North Vietnamese infantry is one of the essentials together with the Vietcong for the war with the USA between 1963-75. Half of the figures are the new Orion NVA while the rest are old ESCI. A total of  three battalions of NVA, a full regiment, was added. 

These two B-11 107mm recoiless rifle were added to the Vietcong. The models started with very old barrels from the Ontos Anti Tank vehicle that Atlantic produced in the 70s. Then all other parts were made from scratch. The figures are ESCI and Orion.

Here you have the models before painting. The guns became bigger than they should as they departed from the old Atlantic parts which were made as toys and always big, particularly the vehicles. 

Each battalion has one more base than the VC and the 81mm mortars were scratchbuilt from EverGreen plastics. 

For the bases of the mortars I used small wheels. The figure in the middle lost its AK47 and received a mortar round. 

Next: a WW2 Japanese Aircraft carrier (finally, after many threats). 

Able Archer/ RFR rules - Vietnam in 20mm (part 5) - The Vietcong and some new terrain

 

After a first flood of US material and men, that would have conducted to an inevitable US victory in the Vietnam war (immediatly around 1961..), some Vietcong Orion and Esci figures arrive on the battlefield for balance. In fact a recent trip to the north and to one of the last model shops in the country, Bigcat, made me restart the Vietnam period as I found the three boxes of North Vietnamese that Orion produces, the Vietcong Main Force, the Comunist Force (in fact the Local Force) and the North Vietnamese army. The figures are beautifully sculpted and extremely varied. Coupled with the old Esci they make very interesting units. PSR review of these figures was not a good one as Orion sent them some 1st test figures filled with problems which conducted to a bad review. I was lucky as I must have found later produced figures that have all these problems solved with clean and detailed castings. 

My old Esci figures provided more or less some 50 figures while the other 50 are Orion. I made each battalion of the VC Main Force with three companies of six figures each with a command stand and an engineer stand. 

The mix of Esci and Orion gives plenty of variety. Two of the companies have LMG while another has the RPG. The old issue of some of the VC wearing the woven straw conical hat continues with the sources saying it was not used. But please, how can a VC force not use them if we could all see them clearly in Apocalipse Now? :)

The stereotyped black uniform was the most painted but a few blue grey and khaki jackets were also added as typical colors of the VC. 

The two 60mm mortars were scratchbuilt with one Orion figure and a converted Esci LMG firer each. The Regimental command stand has figures from all four boxes, three from Orion and one from Esci. 

The pieces of terrain were made from two different types of ground vegetation and plastic palm trees given to me by my friend Carlos Briz.

Next: more Vietnam or a video on more WW2 aircraft. 

Able Archer/ RFR rules (?) - Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022 in 20mm (part 14) - The Russian BREM-K recovery vehicles

The BREM-K is the standard Russian recovery vehicle for towing the wheeled series of the BTR-80 and similar or lighter vehicles. It's a relatively numerous vehicle in the nowadays war in Ukraine and you can find plenty of  images in the web and full articles about it. 

I had a number of BTR-80 leftovers after building a number of regular BTR-80 and converting others to the BTR-82A variant. This BREM-K didn't look too difficult to convert besides being a normal company of the basic version. 

Due to a number of added details and absence of its heavier guns this version of the BTR-80 becomes quite different from the basic one. 

The figure is another Orion soft plastic figure. 

The basic materials for these conversions were:

- 3d printed replacement wheels

- plastic card tubing and plate

- metal parts from HO trains

- WW2 Tiger front wheels from Hasegawa.

Many parts are over simplified but after painting the result is OK. 

The winch became a bit too thick but at least is unbreakable :). 

 

The front needs a coulter-stop for fixing the machine on the ground when working. 

For extra strength some of the supports of the winch in the turret are metal parts.  

Next: a video on the nowadays Ukrainian army. 

Able Archer/ RFR rules (?) - Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022 in 20mm (part 11) - A new Ukrainian motorized battalion and its IMV´s

 One more Ukrainian battalion on the shelves slowly trying to get equal to the numbers of the Russians. The infantry figures are more of the usual plastic figures and its usual conversions (Esci, Revell and Orion) but the most interesting are the MSL Shield 4X4 armored vehicles that you can find in Chinese shops and supermarkets. The idea here is to place each infantry company in the MSL Shield vehicles and the command and support companies in the Humvees. 

In this picture I was still trying to picture the MSL Shield vehicles as the more usual IMV Kozak 2 vehicles with the double antenna at the front, but somehow its possible that a true accessible model of the Kozak 2 comes to the market (there are 3d prints but expensive) and that was left aside and the MSL vehicles idea stayed firm. Ukraine managed to buy (at least open information, with probable licence to build more) 11 of them from Italian TEKNE company with ex president Poroshenko´s money (he says...) and some crowd funding. The vehicles are on the service of the 79th Air Assault Brigade. You can find plenty of photos of them as Poroshenko flooded the web with its pictures, like this one:

"Yes, I wish I was wearing that green uniform the small guy is using..."

The MSL Shields and Humvees are the kind of Die-Cast toys supposedly 1/64th  scale but, I think and according to pictures, much closer to the  20mm size miniature and thus reasonable 1/72nd scale. Here you can see them with new wheels, surplus Hasegawa and Atlantic, and the top transparent plastic parts on the MSL Shields that need to be erased. They still don´t have the MG posts on top of the roof you can see in other pictures but important here is really to replace the Hot Wheels type of wheels by something bigger and more convincing.

The roof MG posts on the Humvees are different from the MSL Shields ones and all are made from plastic card and a Revell lying down figure cut appropriately by the waist. 

The delivered MSL Shields were all plain green but I camouflaged them in the usual Ukrainian digital camouflage for the sake of uniformity. An extra spare wheel was also attached to the right side.

This is how they look nowadays. Eventually I believe they will be painted in the digital camo in the future. 

The camo netting hides the ugly cuts made to erase those transparent plastic parts in the original toy model. 

The Humvees got white crosses for the Kharkov offensive but this is no limitation as this symbol has already been seen in the Kherson area maybe due to the transferring of units from one area to the other. As extras from the original you can see the weapon station, the engine exhaust pipe, the surplus wheel and the antenna. 

The command and heavy weapon's figures of the 2nd battalion are the usual plastic brands this time with yellow tape in the uniform and helmet. 

An example of an Ukrainian infantry company with converted Esci (US infantry and NATO boxes) and Revell (German Paratroopers and PzGrenadiers) figures. The rifle armed figures got their weapons converted to the AK-74 with some cuts and the famous curved ammunition clip and an anti-tank RPG. The Ukrainians received thousands of them from their partners and nowadays you see many times each infantryman carrying at least one of those. As many of the bullet proof vest are also camouflaged I didn't bother painting them differently from the uniform.

Next: a return to WWI most probably

Able Archer/ RFR rules (?) - Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022 in 20mm (part 6) - Ukrainian T-64 BVs and the first battalion of infantry

The rest of the T-64BV tank battalion is done together with a few more BMP and the first infantry battalion.

Together with another T-64BV made before this battalion is 10 tanks with one command tank and three companies of three tanks each. This is a problem as the Ukrainian tank battalions are larger than its Russian counterpart (40 vs 30, with Ukrainian tank companies with 13 tanks instead of the Russian 10 tank companies) but not this big, so 8 models would be better to represent the Ukrainian tank battalion. As usual with the 1/5 ration dividing 40 per 3 companies is impossible. Well, for now it stays like this...

All T-64BVs are Minigeneral 3d prints with metal tank commanders from Spanish Xan Miniatures. 

Two Diecast Fabbri BMP-1 were added with Ukrainian 2022 camouflage, ideal for Picasso admirers like me. Only the log and antenna were added. 

The Ukrainian infantry was fun to do. The base are Esci and Revell modern US but with the M-16 turned into a AK-74 by replacing the charger with a curved piece of styrene and cutting in 1mm the tip of the rifle and cutting completely the handler. Also some helmets got Goggles made from GreenStuff. 

The full battalion with some Orion figures in the command and support companies. 

A company of Ukrainian infantry with a Javelin ATGM (L) and a CETME Ameli, very similiar to the original M-60 the LMG firer has (R). Several figures had extra RPG on their back as you can see on the third stand. The Javelin was converted from the original Dragon M-47 by simply leaving aside the bipod. The future units will have the more numerous NLAW and those will have a different head which will be also converted from Esci and Revell figures. 

The support company (minus AGS-17 grenade launcher) with a Manpad (Orion Chechen figure as firer and an Esci figure); 120mm mortar (Orion Russians) and sniper (Orion Russian also). 

Command company with mostly Esci conversions and an Orion officer. The main Ukrainian camouflaged uniform are very tricky to paint due to the geometrical shapes. Like this I made something close consisting of  base of Vallejo Khaki (with a bit of white) followed by diluted Olive Green and finally Olive Green mixed with white. The last two were applied with a very old brush for extra "splash" effect. Still didn`t decide which colour - blue or yellow - should I use as arm band. 

Next:  A return to WW2, probably the Western desert or Ukrainian Mig-29 and Sukhoi Su-27 or even the Russian VDV.

Able Archer/ RFR rules (?) - Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022 in 20mm (part 4) - First group of Ukrainian vehicles and a few more Russians

 

Nowadays we can find much more information on the organization and weapons of the Russian army than on the Ukranian side. There are several reasons for that: there are exhaustive studies on the Russian army and its organization and equipment much before this invasion and its army advanced much more in the open being photographed and filmed intensively. The Ukrainian army is the opposite: the star of its army has been the ATGW groups and infantry and its heavier defensive and counter attacking forces are generally well hidden and not easily reached by journalists, with its location kept secret. Of course the numerous casualties on both sides gives a good idea of models, camouflages and markings. 

I took this T-64 BV from a lot of 10 I got from MiniGeneral 3d prints in order to have my first attempt at the recently introduced digital camouflage of the Ukrainian army.  The T-64BV is the most common tank in the Ukrainian arsenal. In recent peaceful games and challenges between them and other Russian and Western MBT´s this model showed its age and deficiencies getting bad marks and maybe because of that is not seen challenging the more powerful Russian tanks that much.  

These two BTR-80 are Altaya and were painted without camouflage as some examples found in the National Guard. 

Also two BM-27 Uragan and its 9T452 transloader got the digital camouflage. All models are Altaya diecast but the transloader is a conversion using plastic card and barbecue sticks. 

One more 400+part  model of the Pantsir S-1 arrived. This is good news as Armory managed to get into business again after having its production disrupted due to the invasion. The mention of the 400+ part is due to the fact that this model is one of those time consuming models for wargamers with the usual nice end but nerve wrecking building process. 

In order to speed building I used the other one already built as a matrix and all useless parts not to be seen were left aside. Like this I may have gained an extra modelling day (10 to 12 hours... joking!) on this one.

Before painting the Pantsir looks like this. Its a very good multi media model and not a very easy build. 

A third Russian infantry battalion was added. Again Orion conversions and Alex Miniatures. 

The 120mm mortar is again Atlantic with  a number of cuts to make it simpler. The round base is the wheel of a Panther tank. Another peeing soldier is carrying a 120mm shell most probably dwarfing the original!

The Strela AA group is Zvezda with the usual goggles added for a more post-2008 look.

A loaded and tired Metis ATGM shooter from Alex Miniatures is ordered into position by its superior. 

A mix of Orion and Alex Miniatures for the command group. 

The AGS-17 grenade launcher is being assembled. In fact as the AGS-17 is transported in three different parts (gun-support-ammo) I built the support structure in plastic for a bit of variety. 

Another mix of the two brands. The left figure (Alex Mini) carries a RPG-26 but it can also be one of the several RPG's in service in the Russian army like the RPG-27/28/30, the RPO-A or the MRO-A. 

This time the RPG man is Orion withe a new helmet and goggles made in GreenStuff. 

All Orion figures also got new haversacks for the look of the Russian infantry in Ukraine. 

Next: More Russian invasion of Ukraine or a short incursion by the Germans to France in 1940.