A while back I bought the Old Glory African Pick Up Crew with HMG pack, but hesitated to mount the MG and gunner in my pick-ups, as I also needed them as transports for my games. So I ended up mounting them on styrene plastic bases, cut to fit in the beds of the pick-ups. I had minor concern that they would tend to fall out of the trucks during movement, but they turned out to be pretty stable.
The bases were cut to allow the gun to face forwards or to the rear, and allow the machine guns to be used independent of the trucks in static positions such as bunkers and whatnot.
Eventually I will buy a few more pick-ups and light vehicles and make a some more dedicated technicals, but in the mean time, these give me a little greater flexibility when using the pick-ups.
Been a tough Couple of weeks. Two major car repairs have radically altered the holiday plans and now my US forces for Vietnam received a devastating setback.
I went down stairs a couple of days ago to work on some 15mm moderns, and found a box of 20mm Vietnam vehicles and helicopters sticking out edge-on from behind a set of shelves.
I guess that I should be happy that only the M113s and UH-1s took a beating, the others are okay, other than a few scratches. But the M60 MGs on the M113s are trash, I'm going to have to scratch-build a master and cast replacements. Never even got them onto the table.
Oh well, where's my glue...
While I still don't have a production model, I did manage to paint a single M60A2 casting from my first try reject mold. I plan to field a company of these in the same MERD-C pattern as my M113s. Here are a couple pics:
It looked really dusty prior to clear coating it. May have to go back and dirty up some more, once I get more castings painted.
As I've been going through my stuff and finishing some old projects, I've also been rekindling some of my old interests.
I am a long time micro armor player (some modern C-n-C miniatures being the first purpose manufactured historical miniatures that I bought), enjoying both WWII and Cold War games. Several years ago, I made a number of simple Middle East buildings based on those in photos from the '67 and '73 Mid-East wars.
The idea was to make simple masters that could be easily cast, and allow me to customize the buildings, hopefully yielding a diverse city in a relatively short period of time. Like all of my projects, this is still waiting to be completed. Here is the first batch of completed buildings:
As soon as I had some castings, I realized that I really should have made some ruined/battle damaged buildings. So I got to work on that as well, and quickly had a set of damaged buildings. I took some of the buildings and made minor variations as originally planned.
More of the damaged buildings below.
As soon as I had a set of damaged buildings, I started working on composite buildings made of two or more of the originals. The building in the lower left of the above photo was the first example.
The composite building was made from the two other buildings shown above with a partial base added to it and some detailing with styrene strips. Working backwards, I then completed the pre-battle damaged building.
Another example of a composite building below.
The second batch of buildings includes a couple more complex shops, a mosque, and three more houses. After digging out the unfinished models, I think I will finally get around to completing them in a coming months. Though I will probably finish them as solid models, as I would rather have a little greater detail and am not concerned with placing infantry stands in the buildings, as I was a few years ago.
It was my intent to add some of these models to my site this past January, but never got around to it. I will add the damaged buildings (or at least some of them) to my sale site in the next few days. Also, I'm going to re-visit the original building models and rework them into more detailed solid models to make them more interesting, ease casting, and add them as well. I think that I can get this done in December, as I am supposed to have some time off. Wonder how may day job will derail this one...
Among the kajillian (hah!, spell checker thinks that isn't a word, silly gizmo...) unfinished gaming projects that I have setting around is an unfinished chassis for an unfinished M1167 Humvee Tow model. As part of my now never-ending "clean up and finish unfinished projects that have been setting around my basement for way, way too long" effort, I started making a TOW missile launcher for the M1167. Along the way, I got distracted and ended up with a TOW turret for the M1115 armored Humvee. Don't worry, the M1167 is still going to happen, but I still need to make that goofy armored turret. It will turn up around here soon. Really. What? In the mean time, I figured that I'd post a few pics of my M1115 contraption. So here goes:
The unit comes with an open hatch and a tub to fit into my Humvee model, and it may get "tweaked" a little before it is available. But that is more or less what it will look like.
In addition to the M1115 TOW vehicle, I will have the M1167 in the near future, and the M150 (M113 TOW) soon after that. Now... where is that turret for the Leclerc?
Here are a few pics of my Panhard M3 APC. It is just about done here, only needing to have the axles added before making the molds.
As shown above, the M3 is a rather small vehicle, but can carry a ten man squad. The kit will include seven pieces; hull, turret, and five tires. A spare will mount on the right side door.
Here are the latest pics of my 15mm M60A2 master, more or less done. The bottom shot is with my M113A1 for size reference.
I'm pretty happy with the Starship, and it has felt good to be working on something again.
I'm continuing to work on old projects, and eventually my "space bubble" will get painted, but I want to get a couple more vehicles done first. The M60A1 turret is moving along and will be done soon, and the Panhard 3 VTT personnel carrier is shaping up nicely as well. I'll post pics of the new stuff as soon as I can.
As always, thanks for looking.
