Cold War-Era US Infantry

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Modern (Cold War) US Infantry

As usual, I didn't really need these (given all the modern US troops I already have), but when I spotted two platoons, painted and based, for $30, I just couldn't pass them up.  These are two of the Battlefront Tam Yankee US Marine platoons, so they've got not just the rifle and Dragon stands, they've also got M-60 machine guns (my first love ;) ), SMAWs, and 60mm mortars.

Once again I found the paintjobs to be decent, but not quite what I was looking for, and the basing was pretty nasty: the poor dude had gotten basing sand all over the guys, and then made some pretty strange decisions with regards to what weapons went on the different bases.  For example, the pack is actually set up so that you put a standard four-man fireteam consisting of a grenadier, automatic rifleman, and two riflemen, on each base, but this guy didn't understand that, so you'd pick up a base and it would have three SAWs and a rifleman on it, and the next one would have three grenadiers and a rifleman on it, etc...  Well, that wasn't going to do for me, so I pried them all off their bases, scraped the basing sand off them, glued them on new bases, and completely repainted them, opting to do half in desert tricolors and half in woodland camo.  It all worked out ;)

The desert force, consisting of a CO, XO, two M-60 MG teams, two SMAW teams, two M-47 Dragon teams, a 60mm mortar team, and nine rifle stands (fireteams).

Same goes for the temperate troops.

A closeup of the desert command stand.  I probably got too much brown on the cammies, making them look more like "Chocolate Chips" than "Tricolors," and after much deliberation I decided to give them the yellow 'desert jungle' boots, rather than black boots (that a lot of Marines deployed to Desert Storm and Somalia with).

Backside of the command stand, showing the RTO's PRC-77.

Let's look at some rifle stands!  As you see here, each stand has a Corporal (Fireteam Leader) has an M-203, a Lance Corporal (Automatic Rifleman) with an M-249 SAW, a PFC (Assistant Gunner) with an M-16A2, and a Private (Scout) with an M-16A2.  One of the two riflemen in each team is carrying or firing an M-72 LAW.

Actually, one rifle stand in each force has one stand that is missing a SAW as each pack apparently only came with 8 SAWs for some reason...

More rifle stands.

The two SMAW stands.

The 60mm mortar stand.  I saw it done in combat, but I absolutely hate the fact the tube is being 'free-handed' (rather then properly set upon its bipod and baseplate) nonetheless... 

The two Dragon teams, one seated firing and one strapped across his back and on the move.

The two 'Pig' teams.  Heavy metal, baby, Guns Up!

Having said that, I started on the M-60E3, and clearly these are M-60A1s ;)

A look at the temperate force's Skipper.

Again.  Pretty happy with how my woodland camo turned out.

A look at the rifle teams.

Another.  

The sharp of eye and sharper of mind will recall that I actually bought a pack of the Team Yankee US Mech Platoon troops, painted them up, and sold them, several years ago.  Yup, that's me, that's how I roll.  As I said, Wargaming in an Exceedingly Poor Manner...

The SMAWs, getting to see a different angle on them.

Opposite angle on the 60mm mortar team.

And the Dragon teams.

We actually still had Dragons when I joined the Corps, but I never got to fire one as they were quickly phased out not long after I got to the Fleet.  They weren't replaced until the Javelins came out years later, so we didn't have any real AT capability at company level, it was all at battalion level (where the TOWs were part of Weapons Company).  Sure, we had AT-4s, which had replaced the LAWs, but...

The machine gun teams.

So badly would I love to see castings of the three-man MG teams set up the way we were taught: all three men are prone, loader on the left, right arm over the gunner, gunner in the middle (with the gun on a tripod), and team leader on the right, with left arm over the gunner, all armed with pistols (I forget what year they started issuing service rifles to machine gunners).