‘Sup Killers, hows it? Happy Matariki! We had a great local event in Havana / Shannon that was well supported by whanau, so cool to be a part of a smaller community ☺️
Whilst I am not Blogging for numbers here, its interesting that the apparent number of pers who are rereading this has dropped from over 150 for part 1, to ZERO for part 6… Not sure what’s happening there as I know at least half a dozen people who have read it, as they comment to me about it!! 🤩
Anyhoo… Enough tears…! 😂 What’s been happening this week..? Well I thought I’d start to paint the Iceman’s PL of four Hummers, so that’s been a focus this week. Also I made more stowage from my mould, I seem to have hammered that somewhat and may need to make a mould from the mould…
If you remember from last week, I had a go at moulding some TOW launchers using Blue Stuff. Well… That was as expected, a bit average… I get the feeling that it works fine for 28mm shields and arms, but not so good for 15mm support weapons that are around 12mm long and 2mm in diameter..!
Pics below show what I mean…
This was my second attempt at a mould. This time I super-heated the BS in the Mikrowelle for 3 MIKES as instructed by a professional. This made it super goopy, which was great, but the ickle TOWs just wouldn’t push into the stuff enough. And that was with using a LEGO wall and base to stoop the stuff from pushing outwards as I pushed the TOWs into it…
One of them MIGHT be OK with about 15 MIKES of fettling… But that’s too much squeeze for not enough juice owww!! So I have ordered some GSW 2-part moulding putty as used by Mr Allen. That should arrive in a week or two, and then it will then be moulding REDUX… If that fails, I’ll be taking ZT-Boss up on his offer of attempting to print some…
So, back to SGT Colbert’s Hummers. I started with a black undercoat, then did a zenithal pass in white, both using Vallejo paints. Then I started with the base coat of my new AMMO ATOM colours as recommended by Mr Allen. 20009 US Tan and 20066 NATO Green. A few drops of 20510 Thinner and they went on just beautifully ☺️
Then I had to work out how to replicate the tiny camo pattern on Colbert’s trucks. In the show it looks like some type of mask has been applied to the base European MERDC camo, and then the US Tan sprayed over it. If I was forced to make an assessment, I would say they used a standard CAM net as the mask… Anyway, that was way to much for 15mm, so I went with US Tan overall and then stippled on NATO Green and Brown using a sponge chipping technique. It looks OK and will come out better once I start applying washes etc. Pics below show what I mean.
In the last pic you can see Nat Ficks HQ truck in green as in the show. That will be getting the full 3-Color MERDC Euro pattern the week after next.
I also did some work on my O Gauge Pannier. It was a MESS… The dude who had it before me did some odd painting on the buffers and side rods using real thick enamel paint. That all had to be removed with acetone. I then decided as the rest of the paint was in such bad shape that I would model it off an actual engine and renumber it to 3681 as seen on 25 October 1965 at Bath on the old S&D line.
Pics taken from the excellent work by Jeffry Grayer as above, one of the four books he has written on the S&D in its last days and death throes.
My attempts as below. I paid particular attention to the oil and dirt accumulation on the wheels, rods and underframe, and the mass of boiler wash-out waste on the smokebox and running plate as seen below.
Oil and Grease courtesy of MIG enamels such as ‘Fresh Engine Oil’ and ‘Fuel Spills’, such good mediums to use in this scale. I got the build up of oil and grease effect using weathering powders mixed with Nuln Oil to a thick paste and then layered on to get the effect I wanted. Pretty happy with that side!
OK, well that’s modelling for the week, now onto ‘back in the day’… If I’m honest I am not sure which milk brings the boys to the yard, the minis or the active duty stories… You tell me… 🤔😉
So one day I am up at my favourite USMC HQ hang-out having just arranged some more DECON training for my team and the Boots, when I saw this little event going down. At first glance it looked to be a literal ‘Tug O War’ between an AAVR-7A1 and an M88 as they were joined by the same towing cable…
After chatting to the crews, they explained what was happening. These AFVs had not long come into theatre and needed their towing cables and other systems recalibrated after the voyage. So this was the method they used.
I remember thinking at the time that I’d take loads of pics as they would be useful for modelling purposes in the future. Just hadn’t realised it would be like 22 years later…😂 I plan on making objective markers of each of these, which will be a cool side project. Just need some 3D printed minis… ‘Cough-Cough, T-Boss, Cough-Cough…’ 😜 I love the name on the AAVR ‘Psychosis’ so cool 😎
This event sticks in my mind as only a few hours before there had been the first of what were to become an unfortunate series of events, culminating I guess in Mattys death on 28 March 03. US troops seemed prone to so-called ‘Friendly Fire’ (NOTHING friendly about it), or ‘Blue on Blue’ events, so named after military war games where the S3 uses Blue for FF and the S2 uses Red for ENY.
Anyhoo, a few hours prior to these pics being taken, some Marines in the Supply PL were cleaning their personal weapons and someone had an Unintentional Discharge (UD) or as we called them at the time, a Negligent Discharge (ND). This resulted in another PL thinking they were taking effective enemy fire and reacting to it. Net result thankfully was no KIA but several wounded that needed hospitalisation.
Little did I know at the time that a similar lack of discipline would result in my mate being killed and my whole life being turned on its head.
No pics of this event unsurprisingly…
It was funny as the line-Marines I spoke to about it afterwards were full of contempt for ‘POGs’ (Person Other than Grunt) who they looked down on with disdain. In the British Army these were called ‘REMFs’ (Rear-Echelon Mother Fckuers), and the funny thing for me, was I WAS one of those POG / REMFs, although as I was to find out later, this would not prevent me from getting involved in things I would not normally be expected to be involved in.
I think it was about this time that we got our first ‘real’ NBC alarm and had to take cover, but we will save that tale for the next time…
Until then, thanks for reading, (if anyone did..!) and if they didn’t, it sure helps me to write things down 🙏
Stay Frosty…🫡
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