Nam '68 game

Will and I have been trialling Nam '68 for the last few months.  I finally managed to remember to take some photos.  The terrain is all Will's, as are the American forces, while the VC are mine.

We rolled up a hot scenario, pitting two squads of US infantry, supported by two M60 teams, against a 4 card from 8 drawn on the random VC table.  My first roll got me two booby traps and two options to draw two more cards each (2 aces).  Frustratingly, they yielded 2 tunnel entrances and three snipers with bolt action rifles.  The scenario was search and destroy and the terrain was a major river ( pale grey strip in photo above).  Lots of streams feeding into the river with marsh and a couple of fisherman's huts on stilts.

Note the star shaped search point in the picture below.

Note the round tunnel entrance in the picture below.

The point squad sprinted an M16 trooper up to the first search point, only to have a booby trap detonate with the force of an 81mm mortar shell.  Enough to blow him into the next world!  KIA!

A search by his team mates revealed nothing of significance, so attention turned to the second search point by the fisherman's hut.

A tunnel entrance on the far bank meant the US forces made a series of cautious approaches as their forces built up.

Two squads eventually move out of the dense trees.

VC snipers hope to take advantage of their lack of cover.

Sadly for the VC, the American suppressive fire prevented the snipers from doing other than retreat into denser cover, but an accurate M79 blooper round killed one of the snipers with Will playing a gory death chit.  This took my morale way above the 9 I started with so the 2 remaining snipers bugged out.  With the kill ratio equal, despite the VC breaking, the rules view this as a US defeat.  Very interesting game with less than 30 US troops and 3 VC on the table.  The Americans really did seem to feel oppressed by the unwillingness to move out of cover and once the tunnels were placed, the US player still didn't know what might appear.  We were disappointed with the layout of the rules, but the more games we play the slicker the games become.

Thanks for looking.

20mm M113 ACAV for Vietnam

For a bit of a change from darkest Africa, I finished off a Britannia M113 ACAV model that I bought from Paul at the old Defenders Club several years ago.

Not too many bubbles, all went together well.  Ready for the upcoming Nam 68 rules from Plastic Soldier Company.

Thanks for looking.

Update: following Will's suggestion, I picked up a set of Skytrex decals.  They are quite large, but sum up the period nicely.  The M113 ACAV got the Eve of Destruction decals and I dig out the M577 and added The Boss decals.  Sadly no decals to add Fortunate Son or Paint it Black!

20mm US infantry for Vietnam

Pre-pandemic, I made a trip to one of the Penkridge table sales, where I picked up a box of under coated US infantry for Vietnam, based on pennies.  I'm running a 15mm Vietnam game at the end of the month and this inspired me to take a look at these.  The deal was sealed when I bought a box of Warlord Waffen SS figures and came across the excellent Paint all the minis 28mm Vietnam tutorial, so thought I'd try out the method on these slightly smaller scale minis.

I did one test figure and then batches of five, completing one batch a day with around 90 minutes working time per batch, excluding drying time.

Test figure rear left and first batch of 5.

Some command types and an M60 gunner.

Scout in soft hat and more command plus an M79 Blooper grenadier.

Sniper, command and M16 troopers.

A pair of M60 gunners and M16 troopers.

Some figures I particularly liked.

M16 trooper holding helmet on, either under fire or in the down draft of a helo.

Leader figure.

M16 trooper advancing.

Leader/radioman.

Scout in bush hat advancing.

Radio man advancing.

M79 grenadier advancing.

Leader signalling by hand.

Leader advancing.

M16 trooper rushing.

Nice sculpts, I have about 80 in total, so more to come.  I'll paint up at least enough for a USMC platoon in this batch, which should also cover most Army units as well.  Basing is a mixture of tufts and green static grass, which gives a nice luxuriant base to the figures.

Thanks for looking.

20mm Command Post

I wanted a bunker position to provide a firebase to cover a roadside checkpoint for a Winter of 79 game.  Fortunately, Ironclad Miniatures attended the WMMS show in Wolverhampton a couple of weeks back and I saw this in their catalogue - perfect.  As it comes from their Vietnam Firebase range, I figured it can dual purpose for my US and ANZAC forces in that conflict too.

The sand bags are Russian Green dry brushed grey green, while wooden parts were English Uniform dry brushed light brown.  The model is stuck to a 10cm square mdf base built up with resin filler to level off the surrounding land surface, covered in PVA glue and sprinkled with sand.  Static grass and straw and dead grass clumps were added for variety.

Front view.

Rear view.  I added some wooden packing crates, metal ammo crates and an oil drum to give it a lived in look and some discarded magazines around the parapet - all bits from Sgts Mess.

The roof is detachable and this view shows that four figures based on 20mm squares comfortably fit into the bunker.  Figures are Winter of 79 militia/revolutionaries, and will form the subject of a later post.

The view from an attackers perspective.

This was a great little casting.  Almost no preparation needed - I did give it a wash in warm water and detergent.  Paint coverage on the resin was great and the whole thing took a hour or so, excluding drying times, to complete.

Thanks for looking.

20mm ANZAC Centurions

I picked up these three Britannia Centurions from Paul at the Defenders club a couple of months back.  I managed to get them assembled in the run up to Christmas, but with family visiting and then Christmas itself, I finally got round to getting the spray gun out on Monday and have been working on detailing them since.

They are primed light grey, then sprayed with Russian uniform and highlighted with the base colour mixed with a little German camo bright green and pastel green.  Tracks are gunmetal grey, canvas is khaki or US dark green.  Exhausts are tan earth and orange-brown.  Hatch interiors are ivory, weapons, berets and rubber wheels are NATO black dry brushed basalt grey.  Commanders uniforms are Russian uniform, highlighted grey green.  The model has been washed with Army Painter strong tone ink diluted 3:1 with flow enhancer and a matt polyurethane varnish applied.

On reviewing the photos, I notice that I've forgotten to detail the lenses of the searchlights and I need to add brass for the cartridges in the HMG belts.  Will get that one before I put them into their storage.  Hope to get these on the tabletop soon.

Thanks for looking and have a very Happy New Year!

20mm Vietnam-era ANZAC platoon

I finally got round to ordering a pack of ANZACS from East Riding \Miniatures Platoon 20 range to finish off my ANZAC infantry for Force on Force.  There are four 10 man sections, each with an M60 or GPMG team, scout, and LAW AT weapon plus each man is armed with either an FN, M16 or Owen SMG.  The first three sections will form a platoon, along with the three man command team in front, while the fourth section will represent either a section from another platoon if needed.  There are also some extra RTO figures who can form spotter teams for artillery or air assets.

The entire force.

The command section.

The LAW AT and scout figures plus a prone figure that can represent a sniper or just a prone rifleman.

FN and M16 armed figures.

M60 and GPMG teams.

Slightly lower perspective - the view from the tabletop of the command team.

Similar perspective of the M60 team.

View of the unit from the rear.

Waiting on the painting table for me to spray are three Britannia Centurions, which I bought off Paul at the club, and assembled this week.

Then there are two 15mm Battlefront ANZAC Centurions, from Steve at the club.

And finally an M577 command vehicle.

Now all I need to complete my ANZACs are three M113s with Cadillac Gauge turrets and an M113 fire support vehicle.

As ever, thanks for looking.