Army of the Republic of Vietnam, Early War, in 15mm

 All

But on to the stars of the show, and the real point of this exercise (for this section of this post, I mean)...

ARVN, fousands of 'em, Sir!  Spurred (once again) by the indomitable, imperturbable, yet somehow still indescribable Joe Legan, I have once again jumped into an era/force that I previously had no real interest in.  But you're confused; "Jack," you remind us, "you've already shown us ARVN above."

Indeed, I have.  But those are later war ARVN, with M-16s and M-60s.  See, Joe's been doing early war ARVN, say around 1961, before the US became directly involved, and now I want to do it, too (though I've no idea when I'll actually find the time to jump in).  But the M-16 wasn't a thing back then, and the ARVN didn't have M-60s, they had M-1 Carbines, M-1 Garands, BARs, and M-1919 MGs, so I needed some like that.  But no one (at least so far as I'm aware) makes ARVN like that, so what to do?

Well, these are Peter Pig WWII-era US Marines, and they seem to work just fine.  M-1 helmets, Garands, Carbines, Tommy Guns, BARs, mostly trousers unbloused, close enough for me.  About thirty of these guys actually started out as WWII US Marines, but I pulled them off their pennies, grabbed a bunch more, and set to making a fairly sizeable ARVN force.  I've got a CO, an XO, an FO, twelve rifle stands, three combat engineer stands, six platoon command stand, a water-cooled .30-cal MG stand, three air-cooled .30-cal MG stands, a dual-based (two tubes) 81mm mortar stand, three single-based (one tube) 81mm mortar stands, four bazooka stands, two separate flamethrower stands, and a stand of Docs (Corpsmen!).

I painted these guys up plain-Jane green so I suppose I could use them for generic US Army in WWII or Korea, as well.  

The commanding officer.

Again.

A look at the rifle stands.  Lots of Garands and BARs, pretty cool, eh?

More.

More.  Now you can see a couple Tommy Guns.

The engineers, with a flamethrower on each base.

A look at some heavy weapons.

81mm mortars and air-cooled M1919s (which are actually from Battlefront, not Peter Pig).  Hell, I think those mortar tubes are from Battlefront, too, though the crews are Peter Pig.

Then I put a couple M-1917s on a stand and a couple 81mm mortar tubes on a single stand (those tubes are from Peter Pig).  Not sure why, exactly, but okay...

A bazooka team and a couple flamethrower teams.

A look at the backside of the flamethrowers; nicely modelled.

The FO peering through his field glasses, RTO nearby.

The Docs.

And now onto the heavy metal!  These are old Battlefront resin and metal models, a real pain in the ass to find!  I painted them up and gave them a wash which, as usual, turned out way too dark, so of course I set out to rectify the situation by giving them a light drybrushing.

But anyone familiar with the blog knows that I am utterly incapable of conducting a 'light' drybrushing, so I drybrushed the hell out of them and made them look goofy...  But too late now, I'm not stripping them and repainting, I swear...

Then I got a boatload of M-113s, all the newer Battlefront plastics.  I bought about half of them built and painted but, once again, went ahead and repainted them anyway as I was going to be able to make the other half (which I'd just purchased new) match them.

Another issue with the 'used' tracks was that a lot of them weren't built correctly (see the top model, which has the top for an M-163 but has a normal cupola, rather than the Vulcan turret), so I did a lot of prying apart and trying to fix them with extra pieces from the boxes of new models I had.

Apparently I only took a picture of three of them, but I actually have six of the ACAVs.

Then I built an M-163.

And a track with a recoiless rifle.

Please note, if you're thinking the skin tones on these guys is a bit dark, and you're wondering why some of the TCs are wearing berets, it's because these models are intended to be used primarily as ARVN.

And an M-106 mortar carrier.

Storm's a Brewin'...

All,

Hey, an update: we've got Vietnam-era stuff, World War One-era stuff, and progress on my WWII Caen project.  Last weekend was incredibly productive for me from a wargaming standpoint, just haven't had much time for the blog this week.  So I apologize, but sit back and drink in my latest batch of productivity, and I've got eight battle reports to write up and post (over on my Cuba Libre blog), coming as quick as I can.

So the production standpoint of last weekend was focused on finishing up old stuff, and rebasing some more old stuff to get it prepped for new projects and my new way of doing business, so to speak.

First up is 10mm Vietnam-era stuff.  A US Army force from Pendraken, a US Marine force from Minifigs UK, and a North Vietnamese Army force from Pendraken.  The two US forces were on my old thick bases; seen plenty of fights, but now I'm going to thin bases so I re-did them.  The NVA have laid on the shelf for at least five years, unfinished, primed but otherwise untouched, and unloved, so I finally got around to remedying that.

Here is the Pendraken US Army force: three rifle platoons of three rifle stands and an officer, each, the company command stand, and then a Weapons Platoon with an officer, an 81mm mortar team, and then it get a little weird.  I've got an M1917 .30 cal MG from Pendraken's WWII US Marine line, a .50 cal from Pendraken's Argentinians, and then I've got a TOW ATGM from Minifigs.  The TOW is because I used these troops in an alt-history campaign, not for Vietnam gaming.

The Company commander.

And a look at a couple Lieutenants, and their men.

Again, with some Wpns Plt guys in the foreground.

The .30 cal MG.

TOW and 81mm mortar.

And the .50 cal HMG.

More riflemen.

Then we get to the Minifigs, Vietnam-era US Marines.  Only six rifle stands, a command stand, and a lone figure (officer, platoon sergeant, or hero, I suppose).

A look at the command stand.

What drew me to the Minifigs' Marines is the fact they've got M-14s sprinkled in (I'm looking at you, Phil!), which is not only historically correct, but just plain cool.

Again.

And then we get to the Pendraken North Vietnamese Army regulars, finally completed after all these years.  They've got a company commander, four platoon leaders, three rifle platoons of three squads (stands), and a large Weapons platoon of a recoiless rifle (from their Vietminh range), two 12.7mm Dshk HMGs, and two 82mm mortars.

The Company Commander, with radioman from the Vietminh range.

Rifle stands, each with an RPG, or perhaps a B40.

Rifle stands.

Weapons Platoon leader and recoiless rifle.

The Dshk HMGs, on anti-aircraft mounts, but won't stop me from using them in the ground support role.

And the two mortars.  These have some Vietminh crewmen in there.

And speaking of projects that have lain about, doing nothing for years...

How about some more Pendraken 10mm goodness.  What is it, you ask?  Why, it's US Marines and Germans for the First World War!

The US Marine force, with command stand at right, three three-stand rifle platoons, and a three-stand machine gun platoon.  Not sure if I like it or not, but I tried to do the bases up with mud-puddles.  Not bad, but probably not great, either...

The machine gun platoon, with French Hotchkiss MGs.  The officer figure, with helmet and .45 service pistol in hand, is one of my all-time favorite figures.  Rifle stands are below; at bottom right you can see a Marine with a  'Show-show' (Chauchat, an apparently piece of garbage light machine gun).

The three rifle platoons.  I say platoons, but I'm probably going to use Ivan's "Squad Hammer" rules and call each stand a platoon.  Hell, possibly even a company, I need to do some reading on Chateau Thierry, Belleau Woods, etc..., and see what makes the most sense.

A closeup of the command stand, an officer in greatcoat, and a Marine rifleman who's bayonet I accidentally snapped off...

Look at those MGs and Marine officer with .45, love it!

Close up of rifle stands, you can see the Chauchats, and another officer pose, again in greatcoat with peaked cap.

More Teufelhunden…

And one more.

And the Germans, set up exactly the same as the Marines.

German command stand, officer with Pickelhaube.  A little anachronistic at this stage of the war, probably, but I can live with it.  Another officer pose at top left, on a rifle stand.

The German machine gun platoon/company/battalion.  Maxims for miles!

The rifle platoons/companies/battalions.  You can see at top left, that I threw in some German light machine guns (MG08/15, I believe it was called).

More German rifle stands.

German Maxim MG08.

And MG08/15.

I really like the German officer with helmet and Luger (bottom left, little blurry).

And one last look at ze Germans.

I bet some of you thought I'd forgotten about my Caen project... WRONG!!!  Slowly building up to it.  I'm still waiting on an order from HR, but I've got a bunch of work to do on stuff I already own, so I got to it.  Didn't finish it, but started on it.

Here's all the WWII 6mm Heroics and Ros stuff I own so far, with more on the way.  In the center is the infantry, command, arty, and ATGs.  I pulled everything off those giant, thick 60mm x 30mm bases, and put them on pennies.  As you see, I also pulled all the vehicles off those big bases, and in the Caen project the vehicles will not be based, so they're ready to roll.  Just need to flock all those damn pennies!

Here are some more looks at what I've got.

Not bad, eh?  Plenty of toys, again, with more on the way.  At first I was looking at using Blitzkrieg Commander to play out the Caen project, but now I'm looking at a variant of Ivan's "Squad Hammer" rules (a lot of that going around, apparently), still waiting on him to get back to me on some unit stats I suggested, actually ;)

Anyway, progress continues, and I can't wait to get to this project.  The games are going to be big, and the scope is truly massive, and my son and I are going to duke it out, mano a mano.  Our battles will be legendary!!!  Now I have to get over to Cuba Libre and work on those batreps…

V/R,
Jack