A Hazy Shade of Winter- 1970s US Army in Europe

Somewhat belatedly, I suppose I’d better post up the pics of what I was working on at the time of the last post, i.e. Christmas….!

My BAOR and GSFG armies are set in the mid 80’s and in a standard, temperate, theme; this being the sort of “archetypal” appearance of both these forces. However, I’m usually on the lookout for doing something a bit different, and I always quite fancied doing an earlier US force, pre- Abrams and Bradley era.

So with this in mind I decided to start putting together a 1970s US army, since this would allow me to field the ever characterful M60, as well as all sorts of crazy shit like Sheridans, Kaiser Jeeps, Gama Goats and so on.  As an added bonus, I would get to paint them in MERDC schemes, which I’ve always found really attractive and striking. There are 6 MERDC schemes, and I decided to go for a winter theme, since I’m a sucker for snowy armies, and of the two “snow” MERDC schemes, picked the less common, brown based, scheme for open terrain (It ain’t called the Fulda Gap for nothin’!)

At the moment, there is something of a dearth of suitable figures; I despise the “burly midget” look of many of the “classic” wargames figure producers, so prefer to stick with Elhiem if at all possible, and at the time of starting there were only two suitable packs available- a fireteam set of four GIs, and a slightly “Hollywood” set of Special Forces in parkas- though this latter set would suit my purpose admirably! As far as vehicles go, the situation is much better, and as always, a trawl through Kingkit always turns up some a) bargains and b)  weird, esoteric shit that’s gonna look awesome in snowy MERDC!  So without further ado I set to raising the troops

First to be tackled were the LRRPS, the Elhiem SF pack with some ALICE packs added to confirm their SF status. I deliberately went for  quite a “blue” tinge for the parkas, based on photos I’d seen, although didn’t quite mean them to go this far, but I figure they look alright when all’s said and done…

Then it was onto the infantry. I made a few modifications to the basic sculpts- I filed off the pockets on the trousers to backdate them to the old OG-1-7s instead of BDUs, and added hoods to the jackets to “winterise” them slightly. Then it was onto the fun part, painting! I decided to do the helmets in the reversed autumn/winter side of the Mitchell cover; I have no idea how accurate this is for the time period, but I have seen it in photos of roughly this era, and thought it would match nicely the MERDC scheme on the vehicles and the groundwork on the bases. Pretty successful if I do say so myself…

Then it was onto the vehicles, and this is where it all started to go horribly wrong. I started off with an S-Models Sheridan. I can’t recommend this company’s products highly enough; crisp, clean mouldings, good instructions, excellent fit of parts, PE and decals included, and best of all you get two kits on each box! Winner! Anyway, this went together in jig time, with some stowage added from the bits box, and the fragile, kit-supplied .50 replaced with a metal one from Elhiem, and the commander’s hatch left open to take a crew figure (yes, I realise for the time frame this should have the cereal bowl armoured cupola; but in my fictional cold war the fighting’s been raging for a while now, and replacements are being sent out from old, depot stock in the US…)

Then it was onto painting. It all started well enough, the MERDC was looking shweeet, and then I hit it with gloss varnish and it all went to rat shit. Despite a successful trial run on an old kit, the acrylic spray varnish had an argument with the Humbrol enamels used to do the camouflage pattern, resulting in a crackled, rough texture on parts of the hull and turret (bizarrely, the running gear survived intact…). It looks way worse in the hand than what shows up in the pictures, so I ragequit the whole thing and fired it onto the “to do” shelf until I could decide how I was going to fix it.

And there it has lain ever since, sadly. However, since we’re now into Autumn, I reckon I’ll break out the fine grade sandpaper ad just smooth back the affected areas as best I can and re-touch them in situ, rather than starting again from scratch, ready to restart come the winter…

Cheers

Iain

Mobility!

In another addition to Team Trotsky, I’ve finally managed to get some mobility into the force, with the addition of an S-Model BRDM-2, supplied by The Hobby Den. This is a delightful little model, of the “Quick build” variety, and even better, each box contains two, for about twelve quid! The level of detail on these kits is excellent, and the box even includes a fret of photo-etched brass parts in addition to a decent decal sheet, providing options for Russian (including Guards, Naval Infantry and a somewhat generic red star with a hammer and sickle within- which I’ll probably use on a KGB BTR-70, since I have no idea what they’re actually intended for…) Czech, Polish and Romanian vehicles.

I ended up leaving off the bulk of the etched brass parts, using only the towing hooks; the rear view mirror and headlight brush guards I wrote off as two fragile for gaming purposes, I tried to attach the small guard above the commanders hatch, but this too proved to be too fragile, and so was replaced with a piece of bent sprue, likewise I substituted the grab handles on the engine deck and hull sides with strips of stretched sprue, to give an impression of the detail, rather than leave these quite obvious details off completely.

Given the fact that this is a “Quick build” (and thus much vaunted by wargamers) kit, I would’ve liked to see the inclusion of alternative plastic parts for these footery brass bits; for although they would have undoubtedly been clunkier, they would have been more robust and easier to attach, and in a gamin piece this would’ve been a good trade off. Likewise, I would happily have seen the PE parts deleted in preference for some better consideration of some of the moulding gates in some of the plastic parts- things like the machine guns and entrenching tool have really quite thick gates feeding into their very slender and delicate barrels and hafts. I ended up mangling the spade and replacing the co-ax MG with more stretched sprue.

The kit was finished off with some minimal stowage from Kingfisher and BW, and sat on an MDF base from Warbases.

 Painting and decals followed, and while in reality, the Guards insignia would’ve been painted out if action was imminent, the S-Model decal omits the white infill, and looks quite “low-vis”, so I decided to keep it on, to break up what would otherwise have been an ugly green blob. A nylon brush bristle provided the radio aerial, and it was topped off with my signature Disney-fied groundwork….

This will soon be joined by the AT version, as well as some assorted APCs, and the whole horde will be, more or less, mobile come the new year!

On that note, it only remains for me wish you all a Merry Christmas, and thanks you for your interest in the blog over the last year, hoping this finds you well, and all the very best for 2015!

Cheers,

Iain