Modern US Army: M240 machine gun team

With the M240 the US Army has one really heavy hitting 7,62mm machine gun to overwhelm its enemies with devastating fire power. The models shown above are both from RH Liberation's modern US Forces range of miniatures. I used a 30mm washer and small rocks to create the base. Now there is only some more special weapons to follow and my US Army infantry is almost completely done.

To the glory of Saddam (may it be toppled with an M88 tank!!)

This incredible huge statue is the 20mm version of what got toppled with a tank during the famous "Thunder Runs" into Baghdad in 2003. It's a massive resin kit that needed a lot of filling with green stuff and even more sanding afterwards. I kept the paintjob simple as the original wasn't very colouful either. The model shown is sold by Stonewall.

Modern US Army: third squad of infantry

Once again I used RH Liberation's Modern US Forces to create my Army squad. With this last of three squads I do now have a full strength platoon. Common load-out of two M249 and two grenadiers with underslung M203, the rest is carrying M4 carbines.

Bringing the battlefield to life: volume 3 (finished)

The fabulous Britannia donkey cart for Afghanistan. I only replaced the donkey with an 1/76 scale tractor. Turned out quite good I'd say. I already described what I did in the WIP article so keep the long talk short on this one. :-)

Bringing the battlefield to life: Civilians, volume 3 (work in progress)

For the next base of civilian life for Ambush Alley I used Britannia's Donkey cart with driver and an 1/76 scale Oxford tractor. Interestingly the driver fits exactly on top of the tractor and with a bit of converting, the trailer was easily adopted to fit upon an agricultural machine instead of a donkey. A quick and easy paintjob later and its almost done. More of this once I have finished Task3 of this and next month's batch of miniatures for the guildwargamers competition 2010.

Desert Storm era US Army: M163 VADS finished

The M163 Vulcan Air Defense System that I bought as a true bargain for just 2 € off ebay is finally finished. It was quite challenging to turn the already built (and how crappy assembled it was!!) model into a wargaming model, worth a gamer's look.

For such a cheap kit it turned out to look better than I first thought it will. My kudos go to Shaun who presented me with the nice vehicle commander in the pic above. His US tanker miniatures are perfect for the Desert Storm era. I gave the model my standard treatment for US desert camo and some subtle weathering. Nothing special but I quite like it.

Desert Storm era US Army: M163 VADS (work in progress)

Not too long ago I got this vehicle off ebay for a cheap price. It was already built and it had parts missing according to the articles' description. I bought it anyway, as this old ESCI kit is ultra-rare nowadays and Italeri never put it back into production, although they bought ESCI's moulds..
When I got the M163 I discovered that it not only had parts missing, but also was covered all around with a jelly-like all-purpose adhesive (know as UHU in Germany), which the former owner had used to assemble the kit. Now I had to break the vehicle apart carefully and try to remove as much evidence of the glue as possible. Once I was done, I had a look around the net and found pictures of the M163 Vulcan Anti-Air Defense System based upon the later M113A2 chassis. The old ESCI kit uses the standard M113 hull without the rear tanks attached to the left and right of the access ramp. I wanted to change that and purchased a conversion kit with resin bits (shown on the picture of the vehicles' rear).

The vehicle had the parts of the radar missing, so I had to re-build everything from scratch. I used a lot of bitz from other old kits that I had lying around and added a lot of detail to the otherwise rather simple and plain turret. Shaun (S&S models) had sent me some "freebies" (read: not having to pay for them) of his excellent modern US tankers and I wanted to use one of them as they perfectly fit into the era of Desert Storm. I cut away a little bit of the figure's legs and placed it within the turret.

Some stowage from Legend Productions to resemble the tarpaulins in use to cover the opening in the turret when the VADS is not in use, some tools and spare track-links and the detailing was done. Now I need to prime it in black and start painting it in desert camo!

Bringing the battlefield to life: Civilians, volume 2

Another base of civilians for the use in Ambush Alley/Force-On-Force. Again I used Dave's brilliant range of Afghani civilians and added a packhorse, taken from his WW2 range of German Gebirgsjäger (all by Britannia Miniatures).

The idea of the base was a family of traders, moving from village to village, selling their goods. They can also be used as a bunch of people, raising suspicion of the regulars, as all of them look in different directions as if they're scanning for somebody, one talks into his cellphone and if you look close you can even see that the guy leading the horse has an Ak-47 hidden underneath his cloak. Who knows what they carry in those baskets attached to their horse........

Modern US Army: second squad of infantry

As usual I used Liberation miniatures for my modern US Army soldiers. Not much to say about these latest figs I painted. It's a standard infantry squad with two fire teams of four riflemen each and one Sergeant to lead them. They have a mix of M4 with ACOG (x4) sights, AN/PEQ-2 laser illuminators, M203 grenade launcher and M249 SAW to give them a lot of fire power.

Modern US Army: FGM-148 Javelin team

My latest US Army weapons team consists of a FGM-148 Javelin gunner and his assistant.

The FGM-148 is a state-of-the-art "fire and forget" guided anti-tank missile. It is able to penetrate almost all modern armour and has the ability to strike the target from the top (most AFV have weak armour on the top).

It's also in wide use for asymetric warfare as the launcher unit has strong thermal night vision, being a good tool for recon at night in overwatch positions. Allied forces are also able to pound enemy strongpoints with high accuracy from a safe distance.

The figures are both from RH Liberation and based simply on a 40mm diameter washer.

Ultra-modern Russians: BTR-T and GRU special operations detachment

This BTR-T equipped (S&S models) GRU special operations detachment (RH Liberation figures) I bought a little while ago, second hand from Piers B. He is famous around many forums for a crisp and speedy brush-work on tons of miniatures. These he wanted off his shelves and I gave them a new, loving home XD. They have a variety of weapons, from Ak-74, SVD, RGP-7 to AKs and PKMs.

I will expand them with new models and vehicles one day. I have plans for Tunguska AA, T-90 MBT and some Vodniks.

Once I have a table for woodland/European settings, I might even game with them against my late 1990's German Bundeswehr.

AWESOME NEWS!!! AAG and Osprey Publishing releasing new version of Ambush Alley Force On Force

AWESOME NEWS!! read above!! Click to zoom into picture!!

Bundeswehr ISAF: Waffenträger Wiesel 1 tanks with 20mm MK and TOW

After a whole afternoon of work my two Waffenträger Wiesel 1 light tanks are ready for gaming. They were painted in standard Nato 3-tone camo with Tamiya's Acrylic paint. Once I was done, I washed the whole vehicles with some thinned Devlin Mud (GW) and let it dry.

The ISAF decals are from Peddinghouse Decals and I carefully applied a few here and there. The Wiesels I have seen on pictures are all really dirty and dust covers every inch of them, hence I drybrushed the hull and tracks with a lot of Vallejo Iraqi Sand for a worn look.

The crew was painted the same way as the rest of my modern Revell Germans. For the small flags attached to the antennas I simply used MS paint and then printed them, cut them out and glued them into place.

Team Razor in detail:

MSgt Matt Cooper, nicknamed "Coops"
SSgt Randy Sykes, nicknamed "Ice Cold"
SSgt Brian O'Hara, nicknamed "Scarlet"
Sgt Chad Rodriguez, nicknamed "Robo"

1stSgt Patrick Miles, nicknamed "Eightball"

Team "Razor" (pc game ARMA 2 characters in 20mm)

Above you see the characters of the Bohemia Interactive pc game ARMA 2.

They are forming Team "Razor" which the player assumes command over when playing the campaign. They are a small but elite recon unit of the USMC's Force Recon Battalion.

All miniatures above are RH Liberation 20mm figs, who were heavily converted with green stuff to add pouches, rucksacks and detail were necessary. Some headswaps were done as well but yet all parts are Liberation only.

This awesome work was done for me by Rob, again commissioned to create something out of the ordinary and as you can all see he has done a fine job!