EPGallagher
Private 1st Class
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2017
- Messages
- 230
For my last diorama for the Chicago show, and being an Army Special Forces VN vet myself, I wanted to show a US vignette that would honor US SPecial Forces; LLRPS, SEALs or MACSOG small missions that spent countless days and many lives deep in enemy territory, more often than not in places not named Vietnam.
As there are no figures for those units I turned to the great K&C Aussie patrol as my base conversion figures. We actually had several Aussie SAS with our teams, and we often carried the same kit.
We actually stopped doing 4 man patrols except on very rare occasions for one simple reason. If one guy got hit, then 2 had to carry him, leaving only one to fight and (hopefully) break contact. Most patrols were 2-3 americans, and 3-6 indigenous or vietnamese soldiers. As missions were usually for 5-7 days (or longer) I sculpted a rucksack out of AB Putty and cast several copies for my guys to wear.
I have illustrated the mixture of uniforms we often wore on these missions, and to show you how easy it is to convert to US versions (I will corral Andy at the show as I do every year to get K&C to do their own version....... :salute:
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On patrols, our point man often wore US jungle fatigues died black and carried an AK 47 to mimic the NVA Or VC uniforms, to get that extra second or two of reaction space to enable the team to break contact-I cut off the SLR barrel, reversed it and added a 30 round magazine to make a pretty close facsimile to an AK. The Points job was to also thrown either CS gas or WP grenades, then run back through the team which set up for an immediate action to break contact(a drill practiced dozens of times before each mission)
The second man always carried a M-79 or later an experimental grenade launcher that attached to an M-16. His job was to fire either CS Gas, WO or canister rounds, depending on the terrain, then follow the point in the drill. This version is wearing tiger fatigues, a locally produced set of camouflaged uniform (actually with the very wrinkled uniforms on the K&C patrols, this pattern is relatively easy to paint). Almost everyone wore gloves also, and some WWII leggings, as the jungle is full of things that cut, bite, impale or otherwise try and hurt you. We also always carried Duct tape for hasty repairs of everything from uniforms to open wounds....
The third man was usually the patrol leader. I always carried my own radio, which weighed about 22 pounds, and everyone carried at least one or more extra batteries. I usually wore an early version of Woodland camouflage fatigues, as they were much better made than the tiger versions and is illustrated here.
As there are no figures for those units I turned to the great K&C Aussie patrol as my base conversion figures. We actually had several Aussie SAS with our teams, and we often carried the same kit.
We actually stopped doing 4 man patrols except on very rare occasions for one simple reason. If one guy got hit, then 2 had to carry him, leaving only one to fight and (hopefully) break contact. Most patrols were 2-3 americans, and 3-6 indigenous or vietnamese soldiers. As missions were usually for 5-7 days (or longer) I sculpted a rucksack out of AB Putty and cast several copies for my guys to wear.
I have illustrated the mixture of uniforms we often wore on these missions, and to show you how easy it is to convert to US versions (I will corral Andy at the show as I do every year to get K&C to do their own version....... :salute:
.On patrols, our point man often wore US jungle fatigues died black and carried an AK 47 to mimic the NVA Or VC uniforms, to get that extra second or two of reaction space to enable the team to break contact-I cut off the SLR barrel, reversed it and added a 30 round magazine to make a pretty close facsimile to an AK. The Points job was to also thrown either CS gas or WP grenades, then run back through the team which set up for an immediate action to break contact(a drill practiced dozens of times before each mission)
The second man always carried a M-79 or later an experimental grenade launcher that attached to an M-16. His job was to fire either CS Gas, WO or canister rounds, depending on the terrain, then follow the point in the drill. This version is wearing tiger fatigues, a locally produced set of camouflaged uniform (actually with the very wrinkled uniforms on the K&C patrols, this pattern is relatively easy to paint). Almost everyone wore gloves also, and some WWII leggings, as the jungle is full of things that cut, bite, impale or otherwise try and hurt you. We also always carried Duct tape for hasty repairs of everything from uniforms to open wounds....
The third man was usually the patrol leader. I always carried my own radio, which weighed about 22 pounds, and everyone carried at least one or more extra batteries. I usually wore an early version of Woodland camouflage fatigues, as they were much better made than the tiger versions and is illustrated here.
