I have completed painting seven US Marines and am waiting on another 3-5 more to come in the mail to complete my Marine squad, in the meantime I painted up a Kit Carson Scout, Kit Carson What?? I hear you ask, well during the Vietnam War the US Marines came up with the clever idea of recruiting, communist defectors as intelligence scouts for American infantry units, it is believed that the Chieu Hoi (open arms) program was responsible for the removal of over 100,000 enemy combatants from the battlefield.
In the Early years Kit Carson Scouts were responsible for identifying Viet Cong guerrillas and cadre from among the civilian population, in addition to this the Kit Carson scout proved to be good at identifying booby traps, caves and tunnels and caches of enemy weapons, later on the Kit Carson Scouts were used directly as recruiters themselves.
Since there are no available Kit Carson Scouts in 28mm, I was forced to do a head swap and create one, I took the body of a Baker Company mini and the head of a West Wind mini and there you have it, bad guy turned good guy, dressed in faded green fatigues, boonie hat, Sunglasses, blue neck scarf and a M16 assault rifle.
Next up, its either going to be the rest of the marines (assuming they turn up sooner rather than later) or an ARVN fire team (half a squad), any preferences fellas?
Last Night I watched a fantastic Documentary about the Battle of Long Tan, not a well known battle, but one of Australia's toughest encounters with the VC (Vietcong) and NVA (North Vietnamese Regulars) in the Vietnam war, this documentary is told from the views of both commanders from both sides of the conflict, a sombre but well written and professionally made documentary, I could not help but get teary at some of the tragedies of this battle and the insane loss of human life, a powerful documentary ! if you have the time and are interested, you can watch it online at the following web page, Red Dune Films, as a bonus the documentary is narrated by a well known Australian actor Sam Worthington known for films such as Avatar, clash of the Titans and Terminator Salvation.
Battle Summary
Late afternoon August 18, 1966 South Vietnam – for three and a half hours, in the pouring rain, amid the mud and shattered trees of a rubber plantation called Long Tan, Major Harry Smith and his dispersed company of 108 young and mostly inexperienced Australian and New Zealand soldiers are fighting for their lives, holding off an overwhelming enemy force of 2,500 battle hardened VietCong and North Vietnamese soldiers. With their ammunition running out, their casualties mounting and the enemy massing for a final assault each man begins to search for his own answer – and the strength to triumph over an uncertain future with honor, decency and courage.
The ensuing Battle of Long Tan becomes one of the most savage and decisive engagements in ANZAC history, earning both the United States and South Vietnamese Presidential Unit Citations for gallantry along with many individual awards. But sadly not before 18 Australians and more than 500 Vietnamese are killed.
My Latest project is based on The Vietnam War, of all the modern wars this is the one I want to game the most, I find this war tragic and sad, but at the same time I find it has captured my imagination, I will be doing this one in 28mm and using miniatures from companies such as Baker Company, Westwind studios and maybe even TAG, either way this is going to be my most ambitious and expensive project yet.
I recently started to think of and sketch down ideas for my terrain board (pictured above), which should accommodate as many scenarios as possible, but must also look and capture the feel and look of Vietnam, So what do you think of the board so far? I am open to ideas and scenarios which would contribute to the overall look of the terrain board, please post your thoughts.
I have also been thinking about Rulesets, and for squad level skirmishes FNG by 2 Hour wargames keeps getting recommended to me, I have a copy and I'm reading it at the moment, any suggestions for rules would also be appreciated, troop types to be used? I have come up with the following list so far (this may change):
1x Squad of marines
1x Squad of air cavalry
1x Kit carson scout
1x Spec ops team
1x ARVN (maybe)
1x Squad of local force VC
1x Squad of main force VC
1x Squad NVA Regulars (PAVN)
1x M113 APC Acav
2x Transport Hueys
I am half way through painting my Marine Squad, I will post more on this project as I complete different parts of it.
So firstly, you can all blame Shelldrake for getting me all excited about my all time favorite modern war, with all his cool Nam trap ideas, he's effective terrain and well painted miniatures, If you haven't checked out his blog ... get over there, its full of great ideas that you can pretend are your own ! , all this has resulted in me starting up yet another! project, which I will call 'Welcome to the Nam' , now that I have finished blaming some one else for my own short comings Hahaha, I want you all to have a look at a couple of Marines I painted up.
So these are 28mm miniatures, they are from Baker company, and are some of my favorite and most characterful miniatures, the sculptor really managed to capture the feel of the Nam, and even some of the stereo typical racial features.... please don't take that the wrong way, all in all excellent miniatures, nice detail, correct period webbing and gear, no flash, minimal mould lines, and to boot Danny over at Baker Company is friendly and fast to deliver the goods, this is my second order with them, you cant go wrong with Baker Company.
With these two guys I wanted to test out the green colour schemes I had chosen and wanted to see if I could capture some kind of a faded jungle look with the uniforms, I 'm fairly happy with the outcome, the uniforms look well used and I hope this has translated into the photos I have taken, as always your comments are apreciated and welcomed, I will try and crank out about 10 Marines, more soon.
