Team Yankee - more 4CMBG grunts

Hello folks,

I hope all is well on your respective sides of the internets. We are slowly and yet quickly making our way towards Spring and all that brings, one snowfall at a time…which certainly keeps us busy clearing snow and whatnot. So, with the release of Red Dawn in the Team Yankee world, I made it one of my objectives this year to get back to the 15mm side of my workbench and also get back to one of my favourite projects: 4CMBG.

Adding to the battlegroup, I recently finished a second infantry platoon for my grunts. I followed the same paint scheme and approach as my first platoon. Again, as I was leaning towards representing the PPCLI, I have a good number of the platoon cam’ed up with green faces.

Not much else to say here, I’ll have to get a battlegroup or company pic in the future.

Take care.

Painted 

15mm            39, +29 (TY Canuck infantry) 

28mm+          16

Bought         120

Progress      -65

Team Yankee a Go-Go - more Combat Support

Hey folks,

I hope all is well on your end. Another week, another dump of snow…we got about another half foot or so thanks to some warmer temps compared to a few days ago. The year so far has been pretty productive and given the excitement around Red Dawn, I wanted to get a few more Team Yankee units completed and on the orbat.

For my Canadians and my 4CMBG force, I completed another 3 x M150 Tow carriers. Depending on the list you take, there are a few options for those launchers…I think you can have up to 2 x TOW sections (up to 3 x M150s per section) depending on whether your Battlegroup is Infantry or Armour based. Keeping with the overall theme of my 4CMBG build, these launchers are camm’ed up with netting and painted in NATO tri-colour. The main difference is that I haven’t included any national flags or emblems…there are some great pics online from back in the day of M113 carriers based in Canada that don’t have emblems or flags while their Euro-based counterparts sported the fancy decals. These carriers will fit in nicely with the Battlegroup, and they can also work for an at home defense Red/Arctic Dawn force for with whichever Canadian Brigade Group or formation would’ve remained.

For my Soviets, I was able to complete a flight of Su-25 Frogfoot...full disclosure, I have had these on my workbench since the time that Battlefront first released them as resin and metal cast…lol. But now is their time to shine, lol...anywho, I did some consulting of Google, found a really great modeling instruction that had a paint diagram and I also went to my stock of Osprey Publishing books and got inspired by their Air Vanguard book on the Su-25. Selecting two, I really like the variance of the schemes and for some extra fanciness, I di d NMM on the rocket pods and tried to give some impression of movement with the aircraft and added some extra highlights and contrast to give that sense...looks kinda neat, I'm quite happy with the result, and depending on the angle it makes me think that the aircraft are in a nose down attitude.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

Canuck TOW toting M113's ready for action. These ones actually have the metal figs/gunners that were intended for the model. I had robbed a couple of tubes from the BF Humvee model for my first section.

Bring on the frogs!

See...speed highlights...works in my brain, not much else to say about that.

Painted

15mm            10, +9 (Frogfoot and M150 TOWs + crew)

28mm+          4

Bought         24

Progress      -10

Team Yankee - 4CMBG Infantry Platoon

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well on your end of the various isolations and measures. At the beginning of the year I was able to finish up the grunts for my mech platoon. It took me this long to figure how exactly I wanted to base them and get them painted up.

Within the history of 4 CMBG the infantry component comprised rotations of several different battalions of a variety of regiments from the army, including the main Regular Force regiments of today: Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI), sometimes referred to as the army of the west; Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR), based in the East; and the Royal Vingt-deuxieme Regiment (R22eR, or the VanDoos), the French Canadian based regiment.

Each of these regiments have a long-standing history in the Canadian army and have numerous battle honours highlighting their experience. At the time of Team Yankee, each regiment had time overseas in Germany...the Royals were in Lahr from the 70’s to 1984 and then 1988 to 1993 (Lahr’s closure), the VanDoos were present throughout Lahr’s existence, and the Patricias served before Canadians moved to Lahr and served a tour in Lahr from 1984 to 1988.

For the most part there were very few differences between the Regiments...they used the same vehicles, weapons, and uniforms...the obvious difference of course being the English and French language. However, as the RCR had a heavy presence in the Maritimes, you had a lot of bilingual troops as well.

For my grunts, the 113’s are pretty much interchangeable, I modeled them after images from all 3 regiments...but after some feedback from a few buddies, I made sure to have my grunts with predominantly green faces. While I can’t speak for the others, the Patricias were always cam’ed up in face paint...you can certainly see this on google when they were mounted and dismounted. So, technically my grunts are the army of the west, but they’ll work for any timing from early 1970’s up to 1987...for those wondering, 1987 was when Canada adopted a new series of weapons transitioning to the c6, c7, c8, and c9...

Anyway, enjoy the pics...one more platoon to go and the rifle company will be complete...take care.

The platoon with formation commander, or OC of the company out front

The platoon commander along with radio operator on a standard FoW medium base...

The rest of the platoon...

Hike up Lead Mountain 2020
Painted:

28mm               54
15mm               75 (+32, Canadian Mech Infantry Platoon)

Bought:            0 (this pack was bought over a year ago)

Progress:          +129

Thank God the guns...1 RCHA - Ubique

Howdy folks,

"Everywhere whither right and glory lead" 

I hope all is well on your side of the isolation. I'm happy to be able to show you my latest addition for my 4 CMBG Canucks, A battery, 1 Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. Now as the picture below shows from deployment in Afghanistan, the RCHA of today are now equipped with the M777 howitzer.

However, during the Cold War, and certainly in the setting of Team Yankee, the weapon of 'choice' for the RCHA was the M109 self propelled howitzer. The Canadian Forces adopted the M109A1 in the early 1970s, this model is the one that Battlefront lists as the Canadian version in their 109 box. By the late 70s plans were afoot to field the 'upgunned' and upgraded to the M109A2 in the early 80s and by 1985, all regiments in the RCHA ou en francais, le RALC. If I recall correctly, the Canadians would continue upgrading their guns and by the time they were retired in the early 2000's, the RCHA was using the M109A4+.

I have certainly enjoyed my 4CMBG project, however my biggest pet-peeve is that Battlefront got their research wrong and gave the Canucks the wrong gun. When I was scaling this project, I jumped at the chance to buy a couple of US 109 boxes on sale...assuming the only difference would be the cards. When BF was able to get to the Free nations, I was somewhat horrified to see their Canadian version.

Horror aside, to I committed to the 'accurate' depiction and kept with the long guns. In addition, because i was exercising some OCD on this project, I also scratch built the panoramic telescope which I had never seen stowed before...all the pics I had seen from my brother and google shows the ballistic cover atop the turret. And like most of my 4CMBG vehicles to date...lots and lots of camo netting.

In my research, in numerous photos you can see that the gunners laid down tarps before laying the camouflage netting overtop; I tried to capture this with a few of the models. In addition, it was not uncommon to deploy the .50 caliber with the OPs for point defence when the battery was in position. With the finickyness of the metal guns on these models I constantly kept breaking the .50's off so it was fairly easy to model this habit. If you don't see a .50, that's ok...the OP has it.

I hope you enjoy the pics...take care.

Hike up Lead Mountain 2020

Painted:

28mm          46
15mm          43 (+8, 2 crew, 6 vehicles)

Bought:       0 (these were bought a few years ago)

Progress:    +89

4 CMBG - Dragoons Up!

Howdy folks,

For anyone that has been with me since the beginning, you certainly have some idea of where my gaming interests lie.  One of my 'pet projects' dating back to before all the figures were available was to model a Cold War force from the 4th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Force.  Growing up, I think outside of UN commitments and maybe the Special Service Force (SSF), 4 CMBG was a key formation to keep the Bear at bay.  As such they certainly had TO&E priority in the CAF.

Having had fam and friend serve with this formation, it seemed only natural to want to model this force and to take the time to model it to the point that it lived up to my expectations.  I know that outside of some support elements, my 4CMBG updates have been relatively light...afterall, my last post regarding my RCD's was about 2 years ago...sigh, lol.

Bold and Swift - RCD's
Paint Schemes and Vehicle Markings

So, I am happy to say I have finished up my last two combat platoons for my RCD Squadron...that will give me 3 Troops of Leopard C1's to bring to the fight.  Along with my current ADATS support and M150 TOW carrier support, I think my battlegroup will be good to go with sufficient heavy metal and missiles.

And now, the pics...a lot of them, lol...

The Dragoons, A Squadron, 4 CMBG

Initially I only modelled the O/C and Battle Captain...for gameplay, Team Yankee has up to 2 additional head-shed Leopards...so I added 1 more to the command team.  I intentionally left the vehicle markings off in case I model another troop in the future, I can just chop the Leo over there.

A Squadron, 2 Troop, Callsigns 12, 12A, 12B, 12C.  

Since my last Dragoon post, Battlefront released their plastic Leopard 1 platoon boxes...this platoon is the plastic variant. 

The plastic version paints up quite nice...take paint well, quick to cover, and has some nice details...there is a lot of assembly required, but they do make nice models.

A Squadron, 3 Troop, Callsigns 13, 13A, 13B, 13C.

Another set of plastic models...hard to put together, nice to paint up.

 

A Squadron, 3 x combat platoons/troops - 15 x Leopard C1

RCD gun line...1A to 13C

Hike up Lead Mountain, 2020

Painted:

28mm            11
15mm            35 (+13; 9 vehs, 4 crew)

Bought:         0 (these were bought mid last year)

Progress:     +46