OTB's Stuff

OTB wrote:

Mishima wrote:Cool, really nice. missed the first images when you started these, somehow.
Do you have any more info on the Police Field Force, not a unit I'm familiar with .
Thanks
Tim

Thanks Tim - the Wikipedia article has a lot of useful info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Vietnam_National_Police_Field_Force

Interesting info: The unit, founded in 1966, was inspired by the Malaysian Police Field Force. The Police Field Force not only used Uzi SMGs, it also had its own Montagnard recon teams, and an M8 armoured car unit.

Thanks, I really should have thought to check wiki.  
Looks a really interesting unit. Definitely something a bit different.

[Edit] If i'd read the book I have from the library I might have heard of them "Hell in An Loc : the 1972 Easter Invasion and the battle that saved South Viet Nam"

From wiki Engagements: Tet Offensive, Battle of An Loc, Phú Quốc Island, Fall of Saigon.    

Cheers  

The field force camo certainly makes them stand out, great work. I love the fact that some armour from WW2 was still around and in active use in the 1970s.

Thanks I like having units with WWII gear too. I have an ARVN recoilless rifle unit planned using WWII figures.

Here are the two MACV-SOG teams painted up:



Various of them are carrying heavy loads:



They are mainly SHQ figures.









I did a bit of shading on these figures with MIG Ammo green shaders, but I'm not sure the difference is noticeable.

I also used some of MIG Ammo's Vietnam Mud, which comes in a big paint pot, but ultimately it doesn't look any different from the cheap house paint I have been using for years.

Great looking SOG team. The shading looks great. Another stellar job!
As always, hope you are well and thanks for sharing your work.
Sam

Thanks Sam! They've already been on their first mission.

Loads of good output there Wayne! Saw the blurb about their first outing. Nice!!

Thanks Todd

Some real bad guys - I have assembled my company of Khmer Rouge figures:



I have used a mix of ESCI and Orion VC, Caesar WWII partisans and IMEX Chinese and North Koreans.





Various figures have had head swaps:







The goal is to use these guys to do some Cambodian War battles, along with the Kampuchea-Vietnam War (1979-1989).

Now THAT is an interesting unit! Would be weird to play a game where they fight the Vietnamese in the mid to late 70's as who do you consider the bad guys?

Can also be used to trouble CCS recon teams and the occasional IV Crops RF/PF or ARVN outpost in '72-'75. Can't wait to see what you do with them!

Darby wrote:Now THAT is an interesting unit!  Would be weird to play a game where they fight the Vietnamese in the mid to late 70's as who do you consider the bad guys?

It's all relative, but I'd have to go with PAVN as being the good guys in this case: they invaded to deal with Pol Pot's atrocities and border incursions by the Khmer Rouge at a time when the members of the UN Security Council were sitting on their hands and looking the other way. Lots of interesting hardware possibilities for that war, as PAVN was using captured Hueys, Freedom Fighters, M-41s etc. to fight the Khmer Rouge: a real reversal of roles and one of history's most paradoxical military conflicts.

As usual OTB, I am sitting here shaking my head in disbelief! I think you
will have the entire period covered, unless you later add some Chinese when
the PAVN kicked their butt. I like your idea of the PAVN against the Khmer
Rouge. Still am stunned by your conversions and use of figures from widely different periods of history.. Looking forward to seeing these figures progress.

Been a while since I posted. Hope all is well with you and the rest of our
group.

best always,

Sam

Hello Sam - thanks for your thoughtful comments; it's always good to hear from you. Chinese vs PAVN - now there's an interesting scenario! I found a book on that war when I was in Hanoi, but I'll have to sit down and read it first. I could probably make up a Chinese force using converted IMEX figures. Hmm

OTB certainly finds the untapped nooks and crannies of the period doesn't he? LOVE IT!

yankee sam wrote:Been a while since I posted. Hope all is well with you and the rest of our
group.

Good to see ya back Sam. Pull up a stool at the bar in the SGC and say hello to the lads.

Newly arrived at my local on-line model shop....



This has possibilities - air wargaming over North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail, special forces missions, but mainly it will just scare the hell out of my wargaming buddy.  

Ooooo. You can also use it to playout that raid portion from the Helms book "Guidelines"! Could make for a heck of a campaign with the whole insertion, sneaking about, etc.

OTB wrote:...but mainly it will just scare the hell out of my wargaming buddy.

That, right there, is the BEST reason!

Some tracks for my late-war ARVN:





I still need to apply a bit more mud over the decals. These are S-Model kits. Nicely-designed kits that are very easy to assemble, apart from the little etched metal guards for the radio aerials, which I left off as they are bound to get damaged on the wargames table. Oh, and they provide a separate exhaust for the top grille which is too fiddly to mount even with tweezers and looked very breakable, so I left it off.

The S-Model M113s fit right in alongside the Airfix and Trumpeter M113s I have, and work out cheaper, as you get two per box. They do not have ACAV shields - I had some Airfix ones left over, so I used those, along with Orion ARVN figures for crew.

I was missing a side gun shield and then remembered I had a 105 mm recoilless rifle, so this is the result:





The 105 mm recoilless rifle is a Liberation Miniatures model and mounting it was very easy. I dug up an old Airfix US Marine to man it and he looks sufficiently gung-ho.

The SAM arrived today:





Nicely detailed, and not many parts - it should be a quick build. I just have to work out what colours to paint it. A nice camo job should make it look more menacing.

That lightbulb moment when you're researching Cambodian Army vehicles and remember what you have in the stash....

Cambodian M3 truck converted from an M3 half-track:



Airfix M3 halftracks (each one comes with a wheeled trailer)



And the Cambodian Army had AMX-13s:



It turns out my local on-line model store has them: Solido 1/72nd scale:



It looks like my Khmer Rouge are going to have a FANK force to fight after all.

Never seen that before! How in the world does one convert a tracked rear to a wheeled rear?!?! I would think the whole drive mechanism would just be totally different. Or were these vehicles made by putting a half track hull on a truck chassis?

I Had no idea there were AMX-13s in SEA, they'll make for some interesting battles. Hmmm, vs T-54A and T34/85s... that could be a lot of fun!

It looks like they replaced the tracks with a rear axle - the front wheels look the same as they did on the half-track. Apparently the Cambodian Army converted their M3s around 1970 as they did not have the spare parts any more to keep the track units running.

As if I don't have enough to do, the rides for my late-war NVA arrived from Ukraine today:



It looks like these transport projects are going to rival the great helicopter build of 2020. I'm going to have to production line the shit out of these.

Hobby Boss SAM-2 and ICM BTR-152S:







Both are very nice kits. The SAM-2 is so well-designed I didn't even have to glue some bits. I went for a grey finish so the decals would be more visible, although they were small and fiddly.

The BTR has quite a complicated chassis, but it fits together well and is sturdy enough for wargaming purposes. This is the first of my wheels for my late-war NVA. More to come.

Really nice additions. I love the fact that the Cambodian army was using WW2 era armour well into the 70s.