ADATS to the Rescue - 4 CMBG Support

Hey All,

As part of my ongoing 4CMBG project, I have recently completed the latest addition, a gun section of two M113 mounted ADATS (air defence anti-tank system).  These beauties came to fruition for the CF and the Canadian Army in the late 1980's...if memory serves me correct, they came into service approx in 1988-89 with 4th Air Defence Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, yup...Air Gunners.

Comprised of 3 batteries dispersed between Baden and Lahr, the regiment was responsible for higher headquarters and airfield defense.  Combined with the Bofors-Orelikon twin 35mm gun and Skyguard radar, the regiment could throw an impressive amount of ordinance in the air and downrange if need be.  Now, if I recall correctly, doctrine at the time kept these folks fairly close to the airfields, I'm not certain they would have been available to the average troop or company for AD support.  I think this would have stayed the responsibility of the MANPAD sections.

Having transported them in the past, they were certainly an undertaking to move from A to B...the thing that impressed me the most about the ADATS were the gunners themselves.  Yes yes, I know...they're air gunners...BUT, the amount of dexterity, control, and coordination that was required of the gunners was amazing.  I say this because, these gunners used a joystick to control the trajectory of the missiles, these missiles were guided by a laser designator (ala beam-rider), and these missiles were smokeless and traveled at Mach-3.  The dexterity to get them on target was simply impressive - especially given that there was a point where the laser bloomed too much to allow controllability...so you had to be on!

We had one of the young gunners (hook privates) in the pilot seat one time...no word of a lie, that fellow flew the aircraft for about 40 mins (we kept altitude locked), but the hands on the controls were smooth.

Anyway...war-ish story over...I very much enjoyed painting these models up...they painted up quite quickly.  The part that took the longest was painting up the camo netting and making the license plates for the vehicles.  I found a link that gave the number range of all the M113 ADATS and then I spliced about 3-4 separate license plate decals to reflect the appropriate number.

Here are the pics folks...take care.

 

Have a good one...hope you enjoyed the pics.

Lead Mountain Progress - Expedition 2018

Painted:

28mm: figures: 28

            vehicles: 3

15mm: figures: 12

             vehicles: 17 (+2)
             terrain: 1

Purchased - 11 (+2)

Progress - +50

How I painted...I mean, spent my summer...

Hello folks,

It's good to see you all...yes, previous reports of my being alive were not over exaggerated.  I am still here and to show you how I painted my summer, I thought I would share a bunch of pics of some of the figures that I finally cleared off of my workbench.

I was given these Reaper figs a little while back (thanks Mike) and really liked the look of them...they were different from what I currently had on the paintbench, different from what I was collecting, and all in all were a fun diversion to try out a different paint idea and practice shading and inks.

The Shadow came up very quickly...I think it only took a few hours over a couple of nights...and that was more to let the inks dry...the scheme itself was fairly simple, which certainly lets projects progress quickly.  I must say I am very happy with how the figure turned out in the end.

These sci-fi grunts were an interesting challenge...more so in what scheme to use.  Afterall, I had been painting a lot of Stormtroopers, so there was no motivation for me to paint them white...ugh.  Instead, I got a BSG collectable from my wife that she had found in the local comic book shoppe...it was one of those buy the item, open the bag, see what you get.  In this case, I got Chief Tyrol

-picture from Go Figures Collectables-

...and looking at the collectable and the figures, I decided to paint these troops up as if they were deck hands who had been given some random armour and told to be part of the security force (ala BSF for those that know the acronym).

I think the concept worked well, I'm happy with the colours...it took some mixing on my part to get the right look and shade that I was aiming for...so yeah, another happy venture.

 Thanks as always for the looking...I hope you enjoy! 

Lead Mountain Progress - Expedition 2018

Painted:

28mm: figures: 28 (+5)

            vehicles: 3

15mm: figures: 12

             vehicles: 15
             terrain: 1

Purchased - 9

Progress - +50

Bring on the Wars...Assault and Legion

Howdy Everyone,

As part of how I spent my summer, I dipped my toe into the Star Wars Legion camp and tried my hand at painting up another couple expansions...and at the same time I took a piece from the Imperial Assault Corebox to keep myself pushing through those figures.

The figure that took the longest to tackle was Darth himself...I really wanted to nail this one and to have a good colour scheme that went a little beyond just black or drybrush of grey.  I also took the time to try my hand at painting the colour pattern that would have been thrown off by D.V.'s lightsaber...I have never tried this type of effect before and found it to be interesting...a nice finish to the figure.

I think I prefer the pics without the flash...it certainly threw some shadow behind the figure, but brightened it up to much for my taste.

 

The speeder bikes were a fairly quick paint...they don't really require all that much...I took a little extra time to give them a beat up look...the idea being that they're fielded by an imperial unit that is on the fringe of the verse and has been in garrison too long...I like how the weathering turned out...and I also made sure to 'dust' up the riders as well...there's no way that armour is staying nice and white for long.

 

 Thanks as always for the looking...I hope you enjoy! 

Lead Mountain Progress - Expedition 2018

 

Painted:

28mm: figures: 23 (+3)

            vehicles: 3 (+2)

 

15mm: figures: 12 (+7)
            vehicles: 15 (+5)
            terrain: 1

Purchased - 9

Progress - +45