The Vietnamese Peoples Heavy Metal...PAVN 76's

Howdy folks,

A couple weeks back I was able to finish off a 5 tank company of PT-76 amphibious tanks that I plan on using for Flames of War and Force on Force.  They will work very well with some Main Force or North Vietnamese Regulars.

They painted up very nicely...didn't take too long.  If I recall correctly, I sprayed them in flat black and then took Vallejo 924 Russian Uniform as their base coat.  I didn't bother shading the 924 down, but instead, after looking at the Battlefront painting guide in the Tour of Duty book, I took a 50/50 mix of Vallejo Russian Uniform and Desert Yellow (917...?).  I really liked how it came out...I did the standard gunmetal with the tracks and then hit them with Flat Earth, a wash of Strong Tone, and then US Tan Earth.

I think that covered it nicely.

Take care...enjoy the pics.

A little Vietnam...and a bit of an experiment

Howdy folks,

If you've been following, you'll probably notice a lot of attention lately on the Cold War...not only has Battlefront gotten into this era, but Ambush Alley Games put out their Cold War Gone Hot book a little while back.  The best part about this is the TY (Team Yankee: Cold War ala Battlefront) plays fast and quick at the Combat Team level...and FoF (Force on Force: Cold War Gone Hot ala Ambush Alley) plays a more defined scenario and force structure at the platoon-ish level...

The best part is that I know have two great rulesets that can play the same figs...outstanding!!

With this line of thought and the reality that Battlefront is having some supply chain issues, I was looking forward to fielding some Anti-Aircraft units but they are not yet available...I'm not pissing and moaning, I actually don't mind the limited release, saves the pocket a little, lets me paint what I have...and possibly allows for a much stronger Canuck dollar (aka might cost a little less).

Anyhow, I looked at the SA-13 and it's vehicle and my research indicated that the vehicle was heavily inspired by the PT-76 amphibious tank chassis.  Soooo, I thought, hey I could get 2 birds, 1 stone if I paint up some of my NVA 76's and then jury rig an air defence mast...so here are two 76's finished, followed up by an initial shot of 2 AA SAM masts built out of plasti-card and BF bits.

If nothing else, I'll be able to have the SAM platforms fit in real well as an improvised weapons platform for my Tomorrows War environment.

Cheers.

2 x PT-76 Amphib Tanks for the North Vietnamese Army...these actually painted up quite nicely only taking me a couple of hours from base to final inks and decals...pretty quick for me.

Only 3 more to paint for the platoon/company and I have enough for my VC/PAVN troops as well as enough to put towards a Long Vei scenario.

Improvised Air Defence...

Basically, 2 plasticard bases that sit on 2 Canadian pennies...the pennies fit the turret holes very well so the mast won't slip around.  I filed the edge so that I didn't scratch up the paint work, clipped the edges to give a BSG pseudo sci-fi look...and it fit better that way. 

I then took a couple of external T-34 tanks, a couple of plastic bits from one of BF's boxes for the front of the platform...plastic tubing for the mast, cast off searchlights from BF's Israeli Centurians, some Stuka Zu Fuss rocket boxes and mounting pieces...built them all up and...

voila...pseudo SA-13...can't wait to see how it paints up.

Happy New Year Vietnam...

Hello everyone,

The final pieces of 2014 and the first pieces of 2015 that I completed were towards the heap of metal from Battlefronts Vietnam range that I am slowly getting finished.  I decided to tackle the HMG nests from the PAVN HQ set as well as the crashed Huey objective marker.

All of the pieces have some great details on them...because of this I decided to try a different approach to completing the bases.  As I didn't want to loose any of the detail amidst the flock, I decided to instead just paint the various colours in lieu.

I'm happy with the finished product.  Perhaps the best reason why is the Huey objective...there is some very detailed woods and foliage details that would be entirely covered up if I chose to flock the base instead.  To complete this, I layered the bases with earth colours and then tried using Vallejo 890 Reflective Green and 833 German Camo Bright Green.  As I said I liked how the models turned out.

I will try a mix of this technique and coloured flock when I get to finishing the infantry.

Take care.

HMG Nests, 1 with log roof, 2 with corrugated sheet roof... 

Log roof...

Corrugated metal roof...

Crashed Huey objective, love the detail on this one.  The root system and fallen tree limbs really bring a great level of detail.  I wanted the weathering on this model to reflect the tropical wet climate of SE Asia...I intentionally went heavy on the streaking to make it stand out...

Couldn't bring myself to cover up these details...

All of them together...nice bit of symmetry...

Random objective I finished that should work for multiple theaters and time periods...