1/35th Willies Jeep Crew that is NOT idle?

Still.  I'm making a concession to myself by choosing to use a light vehicle anyhow, I wanted it all infantry but anything else would be to hard to differentiate as far as I can tell.

That dependsupon the gun. Guns like the US 75mm Pack howitzer, British 25pdr, and German 7.5cm LiG and 15 cm SiG did not have the split trails and instead have a single trail.

Yea, but then if you use HO scale the figures are tiny and that just doesn't work.  And while the vehichles aren't BIg height wise, there big width and length wise.  Arty always have the trailer hookup/bracer things that come out in the wedge from the back that take up alot of room.

If I do this project it will be to CONSERVE on space while not polluting my original idea.

Sure, it's big..I build dioramas, remember? However-

The M5 Stuart/Pz II don't have a much bigger foot-print than a Jeep or Kublewagen.  Artillery pieces can be as small as 37mm.  US 75mm Pack-Howitzer and German 37mm PaK comes to mind.

But that's only if you keep everything in scale...  Roco makes some really good HO Scale military vehicles...

I get that, but could you imagine how BIG a chess set would be that included 1/35th scale artillery and armor?  not just in the size of the pieces but the size of the board to fit them in.

As per Gino's info, and In the "For What It's Worth" Department, the chessmen generally fall into these catagories in the US Army...

Field Artillery- King of Battle (We put the balls where the Queen wants 'em)

Infantry- Queen of Battle

Armor- Knight of Battle (Branch insignia is crossed sabres with a super-imposed M-26)

Engineers- Rook of Battle (A Three-turreted castle is the branch insignia)

Bishops are a toss-up... I tend to think Aviation or MPs when the "Bishop of Battle" is mentioned...

Pawns, well.. They're pawns...

Hans you are a wealth of information, seriously. 

Heh.. Well, thanks, but only because being a graduate of the USASMA  requires the retention of a lot of useless military trivia inforrmation... 

My thought process was this.

King is vulnerable, and weak, he is to be protected at all costs and even though he can take other pieces, should never be used in combat.  I figured the best representation of this (and of the origional idea, of it being the figure head) to be a FOP.  A FOP would be to big for this idea, so I went with an officer.  I am planning on using a German officer reading a map and an American officer on a radio (since I couldn't find one with a map that wasn't a tanker)

I went with Mortar as a knight because the knight has the oddest movement pattern of all the pieces.  I always assumed it was because of it's speed and ability to easily traverse over obstacles (by jumping) and it can jump over it's own pieces which is unique.  Now a motorized vehicle cant go through it's own men, unless it runs them over, but a mortar can give indirect fire in all manner of odd directions from behind the lines.  That is the reason I chose a mortar.

Now I chose to use US vs Germany because of the availability of units.  I couldn't find Russian mortars nor could I find Japanese machine gunners or At crews.  Same deal with the British, a general lack of available options.

But this large amount of figure kits and work I have ahead of me when I start this project is the main reason I want ready made figures and dont want to have to scratch/hack/mod every figure.

My original idea, which I would like to do, would be to make a chess set (one side) for each major nation

smeagol the vile

I had a hard trouble deciding on the queen.

In chess, the queen was originally the fers (vizier). Russian keeps its Persian name of ferz to this day. A vizier statue doesn’t do a lot for me. To provide a traditional female figure, I suggest “Mademoiselle Marie”:

That sounds like a pretty cool idea.  A few pointers though.  I would us the jeep and motorcycle as the knights.  The scouts are basically the Cavalry (knights) of WWII.  For the queens, I would use infantry officers.  The infantry is known as the Queen of Battle.  For the kings, I would use artillery pieces.  Artillery is known as the King of Battle.  Just a thought.

Ahh, now I understand... Wish you'd said that from the beginning.. I thought you were planning some type of motorcycle ambush...

Hans you are a wealth of information, seriously. 

Let me say flat out what I have in mind.  For the longest time I had been pushing around the idea to build a 3d WWII chess set. 

Take a more or less regulation sized chess board (probably a bit bigger) and build a diorama base over top of it, something simple, but nice.  Then take the AB and mask off the chess squares and give it a LIGHT coating of tamiya smoke (clear black) over the black squares, to show the difference in squares. 

After that just build figures for each side and have myself a nice, custom chess set.

It took me a long time to decide what pieces should fit what roles, I finally decided to go with this set up.

Pawn - Infantry (common infantry for Us and Fallscrimjaeger for Germany)

Rook - mounted Mg/crew (the tripod type.  Mg42 for Germany, 30cal browning for US)

Knight - Mortar/crew

Bishop - AT Infantry

King - Infantry officer

I had a hard trouble deciding on the queen.  What would be the best role to decide... A sniper is a good choice but apart from the scope it looks just like any other infantry man and would be hard to notice on the board. 

I thought about using light armor but decided against it because it would be strange with an all infantry set to have a random tankette.

I finally decided, reluctantly, on using a scout vehicle.  A BMW motorcycle with a MG42 gunner in the side cart

and a Willy's Jeep with a 30cal mounted on the back for the Us.  I decided on these for the simple fact that a queen can move anywhere, in any direction, as far as it wants to, and what better way to show that then by using a motorized vehicle when the rest of the pieces are infantry.  Even though its motorized, though, its still infantry driven, I figure, if the crew can get shot out from a distance without them having to aim through vision slits, it counts as infantry.

"Then, would it be impossible for there to be a tanker in a jeep, were jeeps EXCLUSIVE to infantry"

Forgot to add, regarding this one, that Jeeps were actually pretty rare in an Infantry company... WW2 Infantrymen traveled via *LPCs most of the time... Only in armored divisions and mech-infantry divisions would you find a lot of wheeled vehicles... For moving a LONG way (over say, 10 miles in a day), the dogfaces (**"Grunt" wasn't a common term in the Army then. That didn't come about until Vietnam era.) in light infantry divisions were generally in the back of a Duece, if they were gonna ride, or hicthin' rides on tanks...  

Jeeps were much more numerous in Combat Support (Engineer, Transportation, Ordnance) and Combat Service Support (Medical, Stevedore) units than in line units (Infantry, Armor, Artillery)..  For the "Three", per capita, a WW2 Armored Battalion HQ Recon platoon had the most jeeps (Five)... The rest of the wheels were half-tracks and Dueces... 

*LPC:Before there was the APC, Armored Personel Carrier, it was "LPC"- Leather Personel Carriers"... ie. Combat Boots...

** GRUNT (during WW2)=  Ground Replacement-UNTrained)

The TC on the Tamiya M5A1 kit is also a great starting point for a conversion. With a gunner in the back shooting and the passenger shielding his ears from muzzle blast... talk about realistic (have a .50 muzzle going off over your head and you'll know what I mean)

But lets face it, 99% of what soldiers do, even in combat, is NOT trigger time.

Smeagol, In regards to your statement,

"Then, would it be impossible for there to be a tanker in a jeep, were jeeps EXCLUSIVE to infantry"

I remember growing up hearing stories from my great-uncle who was a tank commander at the Battle of the Bulge.  After losing his tank (not to combat, fortunately-  They parked it in a quagmire of what he called "quick sand" as they went for some grub & supplies during a lull in the battle) his crew was relegated to the Jeeps for some time until they could get a replacement Sherman for the crew.  (they never got the original Sherman out of that quagmire). He always said the those little Jeeps were WAY easier to get unstuck from the nasty mud holes they encountered. 

So I know first-hand that at least a few of the tankers were in Jeeps, for a bit, anyways...

Good luck & hope to see some photos of the project!

--JIM--

The coveralls weren't issued to tank company and battalion HQ personel (exceptions would the tank company and battalion commanders, who commanded their own tanks, and THEIR crewmen), only to tank crewmen...  Basically, if you didn't live and fight in a tank, you didn't get issued coveralls,  just  the regular wool combat uniform...

There are two jeeps assigned to a WW2 Tank Company HQs. One for the commander and his radioman, and one for Maintence... 

The HQs recon platoon has five jeeps, but again, unless they were tankers, they didn't get the tanker coveralls...  Just the standard wool combat uniforms. 

Also, the weapons (except pistols) used by tankers weren't actually assigned to them, but were part of the tank's equipment and ammo load-out, usually two or three M-3s or Thompsons per tank.... 

Same thing pretty much applies today... If you aren't an AFV crewman, you don't get issued the CVC uniform, just is it is in aviation companies.. No flight-status, no flight-suits...

So unless you're modeling "bailed-out" tankers, or tankers that have stolen a jeep, you'd need your figures to be in the regular uniforms if you want accuracy...

Personally, I don't care.. I don't use 1/35th figures straight outta the box anyway (with the exception of some drivers and/or pilots), so whether it be Dragon, Tamiya, ICM, or whatever else is out there doesn't matter, since I "Frankenstein" about 99% of my figures using whatever fist, hand, head, torso, leg, or boot I need to make the pose, and add or remove collars, belts, waistbands, cuffs as needed... 

I buy figure sets like folks would buy strip or sheet styrene... They're all just parts, regardless of box-pose...  I open the box, cut all the stuff loose, and organize them by body-part and uniform in the parts-bin.. It's not uncommon for me to have a single figure made up of six or seven different manufacturer's parts...

That way nobody recognizes them, the poses are mine, and generally more dynamic...  I don't have to make the story fit the figures, either...

Yea, that is what I was thinking as well.  Plus (I know this is no way accurate)  I play WWII strategy games all the time and if my gunner is shot out of my jeep I grab the closest guy that has a gun that is not a machine gun to re-man it.  If that is a tanker from a downed tank, so be it.

Then, would it be impossible for there to be a tanker in a jeep, were jeeps EXCLUSIVE to infantry

Not at all.  Jeeps were used in the Armored Company and Battalion Headquarters by the staff and by Scouts as well.  Jeeps were used by pretty much all units.  I would definitely go with the Mini Art figures over any old Tamiya blobs.

You know hans, you are right...  Well, Ill save this piece for LAST in this project I'm working on, and it is still in the planning stages so it has a while to go.

I just find it peculiar that there are so many... idle poses for figures.  If you buy green army men there almost all firing or attacking in one way or another but most figure kits I find there doing things like sneaking, or marching, or talking, or sitting idly.  I get it that combat isn't always the best dio subject but... it is a war subject we are modeling how can you NOT make a figure for someone firing the Mg on the back of a jeep.  I remember having this issue when I wanted to do a vignette of Audie Murphie on the back of the tank destroyer's MG (the one that got him the one medal of honor)  I couldn't find a figure firing a Mg

Then, would it be impossible for there to be a tanker in a jeep, were jeeps EXCLUSIVE to infantry

smeagol the vile

That set of figures would be perfect for what I need, absolutely perfect.   And for germany I decided on just using a motorcycle, easy to find figures in the sidecar using the MG

They're wearing tanker coveralls... You're still gonna have to do some work on 'em to get 'em to look like they got the OD wool combat uniforms if you want Infantry... I'd look at the US Assault Infantry Set (the set Manny used in his "Death in the Courtyard" dio) and the AA-mounted .50-gunner from the US Gun & Mortar Team set(Needs different legs though)... There's also the Tamiya US Infantry West Europe Set for combat poses as well..

Then I'd kitbash the legs of the Tamiya BMW's side-car rider with one of the machine-gunners' torsos  and arms from the the German Machinegun Troops set (the standing MG42 gunner, specifically. He's bent at the waist the best)...

That set of figures would be perfect for what I need, absolutely perfect.   And for germany I decided on just using a motorcycle, easy to find figures in the sidecar using the MG

Thanks for the heads up.

The forthcoming MiniArt Close Combat US Tank Crew figures would work perfectly.  A couple of them and a driver looking frantic would work perfectly.  The ,50 gunner is awesome.

Keep looking in the meantime.  You will probably have to look at other figures besides jeep and truck crews though.

The older Tamiya Willey's has a guy manning the 50 cal in the back actually.

The driver and side passenger are admittedly just riding though.

[Cuban accent on] Then, smeagol, you got some sculptin' to do!

Even this half track squad is markedly un-combat-y:

I suspect that you could try hybrid-ise infantry & passenger figures to create soldiers who look belligerent as they sit.

Yea, that is what I am NOT looking for. I'm looking for combat poses, not someone fixing his hair in the passenger seat or someone in the back idly holding onto his rifle.

Well, a quick search of Google Images finds two candidates, but unfortunately they are invisible.
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Verlinden’s “Willys Jeep Crew and Accessories 3”

Description: 1:35 scale resin figures. This Resin figure set by Verlinden comes in several Resin pieces that have to be assembled and painted. Highly detailed. Experience with resin recommended. Skill level 2-3. Requires CyanoAcrylate CA Super Glue. Comes with 3 figures and accessories. Jeep is NOT included.

California Jeep Authority’s “1:35 Israeli M38A1 Jeep Crew”

Description: 3 finely cast Israeli soldiers in sitting poses (driver and 2 passengers). Uniform and equipment represents the IDF during the 1967 Six Day War. (Jeep not included) Made in the USA.