Battlefront Vietnam 15mm US Infantry and OH-6 Cayuse

All,

This is a platoon pack of Battlefront Vietnam-era US regular old 'leg' infantry, and a pack of two OH-6 light observation helicopters, or 'LOACHES.'  I'd picked the infantry up quite awhile ago and had them lying on the lead mountain; I'd also purchased the helos some time ago. I assembled them, finished up their flight stands, and primed them, but had them sitting around too.  Well, I finally finished both, and I'm glad I did.  Battlefront is a bit pricey, and my experience with their infantry has been a bit hit and miss, but these sculpts are really fantastic.

The helos are really good, but the infantry is truly great.  There are some flaws; some miscastings (missing rifle barrels and broken carrying handles), the grenadiers are missing pistols (I guess that's universal), and there was quite a bit of flash on some of the poses (some of which I missed in my clean up, unfortunately), but the poses are really fantastic.  I can't wait to get these on the table; I'm sure most of you have seen the movie 'Platoon,' and that's exactly what I'm thinking with these guys.  I've even been picking out poses for certain characters, and tired to paint the 'Electric Strawberry' patch of the 25th Infantry Division on them.

The whole mess, 44 troops and two helicopters.

First two poses are the Lt and his RTO.  Unfortunately the lieutenant's barrel is missing off his M-16.

From the 'Platoon' standpoint, there are no CAR-15s, as carried by Lt Wolf, SSgt Barnes, and Sgt Elias, only M-16s.

But I figure this is Lt Wolf and his RTO, Ace.

Here's the only problem I have; wait, now I have two problems.  The medic in the platoon is the guy at left, and he comes with a patient, a wounded GI.  I don't like using the kneeling guy as 'the' Doc; if he's by himself it looks kind of goofy in 'normal' play.  So I based him up with the casualty figure, which is still kind of goofy in 'normal' play.  The pack came with an officer who had only a .45 pistol (not sure why, I figured only company commanders and higher only carried pistols, while platoon commanders carried rifles); I don't need an officer with only a pistol, so I decided to bend one of his arms to make him look a little less officer-like and a little more 'Doc' like.  It's not great but it kinda works.

Well, it kinda worked.  Now you can see my second problem: as I picked the guy up to put him up here to take the pics his arm fell off...

Reverse.

Another shot of the Doc and WIA.

There's also a cool pose of a wounded GI being helped to the rear.  I hope I didn't go overboard with the blood...

Again.

Again.  You can see the 25th ID patch.

Again.

One more.

A couple NCO-looking guys.  To me the guy on the left is SSgt Barnes.

Opposite.  Great looking pose.

"When the machine breaks down, we break down, and I ain't gonna let that happen."

Next NCO pose.  At left is Sgt "Red" O'Neill, at right is Sgt Warren.

"C'mon Bob, I ain't never asked ya for a @#$%'in thing.  I'm tellin' ya, I got a bad feelin' about this one."
"Barnes got us this far, he'll get us the rest of the way."

Two GIs with M-16s slung and busting out the LAW.

Opposite.

Now we get to the grenadiers, six figures in three poses, and their fantastic.  This guy is kneeling down to reload, with the M-79 broken down.

Funny fact about Platoon: you see a guy named Tubbs carrying an M-79 in the movie, but we never actually see a Thumper in action.

Next grenadier pose, hunched down and moving forward.

Again.

Last grenadier pose, up and ready to fire.

Again.

The pack came with a 90mm recoiless rifle. team.  I will admit I'm not familiar enough with official US Army Tables of Organization for an infantry platoon, but I've never really seen any photos of a rifle platoon humping a heavy-ass recoiless rifle up and down the hills and ridges of the Central Highlands.

Another look.

Again.

Once more.

And then I started breaking them up into machine gun teams; here's the first one.

That's Eberbach on the gun, Big Harold as the A-gunner, and maybe Rah as the team leader.

Reverse.

Next gun team.

How about King on the gun, Crawford as the A-gunner, and Francis as the team leader?  Nah, Francis was a new guy, he can't be the team leader.  Maybe Manny?

Opposite.

Last gun team.  Great poses, love the gun belts.

That's Tex on the gun and Junior as the A-gunner.

Come to think of it, there's no shotgun for Bunny in the pack...

A couple prone gun teams.

Again.

Couple kneeling riflemen.

Again.

Two riflemen with LAWs.

Again.

Two more riflemen; to me, Lerner is on the right.

Again.

Two guys prone, signalling.  Could be an NCO, or a pointman.

Again.

Two guys with LAWs, prone.  Now prone is always a good idea when being shot at, I'll grant you that.  And firing a LAW prone sounds good, but seems kinda hard to pull off, and I say that as someone who had occasion to fire a few AT-4s.  Crawling forward to your firing position - yes, but usually you've got to come up, at least to a kneeling position, and most guys come all the way to their feet, sight in, fire, and get out of dodge, cause everybody sees where that rocket just came from!

Another look.

Two more rifles.  The left guy is creeping forward, while the right is preparing to toss a frag.

So, to me the left-hand guy is Elias, and the right-hand guy is Taylor.

The two Loaches.  Great models, easy to slap together and paint, with magnets in the helo and on the flight stand.  I sanded and threw some grass on the base of the flight stands, like how they turned out.

Closer look.

"If they run, they're VC.  If they stand still, they're well disciplined VC!!!"

Other side.  Here you can see each bird has a mini-gun.

Close up of one of the door gunners.

One last shot of the two birds, showing the magnets actually work and the helos can 'land.'

Well, that's the 'Platoon,' I can't wait to get them on the table.  But there's a lot of stuff I can't wait to get on the table.  Bear with me, I'm doing my best!  More to come.

V/R,
Jack