'Nam US Infantry

Special ops guys did it frequently. If a grunt was to do it, and I'm sure someone did, the bloop gun would probably be slung like any rifle. Though two separate weapons like that would be a lot to carry, on top of ammo for both (though the M203 made that neccessary before long anyway), but a lot of the vets I know had secondary weapons at some point in thier time there. The strap loops were in the same locations as on a rifle.

http://www.diddybop.demon.co.uk/blooper.htm
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m79.htm

As to the wood issue. I paint the wood areas a tan color in enamal or acrylic and then paint a good red-brown mixture of oils over it. If you want a visible grain you can go with a redder base, going heavy on the burnt seinna or Mars orange, and then use straight burnt umber to paint in the grains. With the slow drying time of oils, you have time to manipulate the paint, plus you can get a really rich color that sort of "breathes" after it's dry. You can use a loose haired brush dipped in the paint and lightly streak it acorss the surface, or you can paint deliberate grains with a 5/0 or smaller brush If you want. You can go a little thicker with the paint and use the brush strokes to help create the grain as well, but if you want a smooth coat, the trick is to use a small ammount of paint and spread it around evenly. Either way, I have very nice results this way. If you use a peice of cardboard as a pallete, it will soak up a lot of the linseed oil that prolongs the drying time and gives it gloss. Also, using the paint sparingly, aside from rendering smooth, even matt coats, also cuts the drying time considerably. The paint should be dry enough to handle anywhere within 4-24 hours, depending on the weather.

Sure they would have carried both, they would have split up the ammo between the guys in the squad just like they did for the MG, the m-79 wasn't really heavy and it definetly was not a point target weapon so the grenader would need another weapon to defend himself with. plus the new guy or the private would get to carry it anyway, thats just the way it worked!

One more question before I finish him :) - would a grunt like this carry as much kit as I'm planning to put on him? At the moment, he's got the standard pouches and stuff, a spade/mini-rucksack, 2 water canteens, an M16, an M79 GL, and a sweat band (piece of material thing) around his neck. I( was considering making and adding a cool little roll-up mat thing behind his neck, strapped onto the rucksack/spade. Thing is, it might look stupid and cluttered alongside everything else he's carrying, and might get in the way of the M79. Looking at the books, games (watch out for Battlefield: Vietnam coming out this week, by the way, if you like that sort of thing :) ), and movies that I have access to, a lot of soldiers carried these mats, but alongside the stuff I've already put on him? I don't know about that...

Cheers for your help, guys.

PS - If you want I'll try to post a few odd pics of the guy when he's done, although he's only my second miniature soldier, so I'm not sure what you'll think of him. I would post a pic of the finished diorama, but the fact is, all I have at the moment is the one soldier and a Huey :)

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EDIT: Gah! Another damn question! What kind of badges did US soldiers in Vietnam wear on their shoulders? What colours where they? In the film Platoon, the badges are red and yellow, but judging by this site (http://www2.powercom.net/~rokats/vietcmds.html) they should be yellowy-brown/black. I'm especially interested in the 1st Cavalry Division (yes, I'm a stickler for all things Air Cav), and I need to know whether to paint the insignia with a bright yellow or a yellowy-brown colour...

And the Oscar for 'Longest Web Adress of 2004' goes to...

first-air-cavalry-division-airmobile-in-vietnam-1965-1972.com

Looks a damn useful site though, I might find some good stuff there...

Early in the war, when 1st CAV arrived, '64/'65, the patches were full color. For 1st CAV, yellow and black as such As time went on, it was realized how this stood out in the jungle and made easy targets. Around '68/'69, all field uniform patches were changed to the current subdued green and black patches that we wear today. For 1st CAV, the yellow becomes dark green and black remains black.

Also, the current assigned unit (usually Division) patch is worn on the left sleeve, the right is for a unit that the soldier served in combat with.

Nice info, thanks loads for that.

Thing is, although I make military models, I'm not really much good in the military terminology side of things. If someone would be kind enough to explain what a Division is and what a Unit is, I'd be much obliged :)

Cheers.

A Unit is a grouping that we use to organize men together in the military. At the lowest level would be a fire team, usually 4 guys. Next would be a squad, 9 soldiers, made up of two fire teams and lead by 1 Sergeant. A Platoon, about 30 guys, is made up of 3 squads. 3 platoons make a company, around 100 soldiers. 3 companies a make a Battalion, 300 - about 500 soldiesr depending on unit type. 3 Battalions plus support assets make a Brigade, usually about 3500-5000 soldiers. And 3 brigades plus support assets make a Division, 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers. A division is usually the lowest level that will have its own shoulder patch. The exception is Separate Brigades, they too have their own patch and some support units that do not belong to a division have their own patch. Examples would be the 173d Airborne Brigade or a Corps Support Command. Hope this helps.

So the only patch on a grenadier from the 1st Air Cav would be the Air Cav shield (to be in yellow & black on my guy) on his left arm?

Thanks for the info, especially HeavyArty - you've been a great help!

Unless he'd been in combat before. Then he'd wear the insignia of that organization on the right sleeve of his uniform.

However, since the patch is still going to be bright yellow (indicating pre 68'-69') and he's carrying both the M-16 and M-79 (indicating FNG, new guy), the soldier would probably not have been in combat before, so there is no need for a patch on the right shoulder. I'm sure the soldier going to look great once you're finished.

Thanks guys, just need to add the patch now then! Then I'll try to post pics if you want.

Also, any ideas on whether a guy like this might carry a roll-up mat like I mentioned in one of my earlier posts?

There we go - all done! Got some pics here - I hope they work. If they don't, or they're taking too long to load, you can get them here:
http://www.armorama.com/modules/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=4243

Oh, and sorry they're a bit blurry - taking pics that close is neccessary for such a small model, and the camera just won't focus that well at that close range. Anyway, I hope you can at least see something!

Please do tell me what you think, and please be honest - constructive criticism is a good thing, especially as this is only my second figurine, and only my first designed to really look good. Anyway...enjoy!











As I said, feel free to comment :)

Looks really good, shame that you couldn't get the camera to focus that close but still. Might want to ask some of our Vietnam vets about the helmet covers they had. From what I've seen, the steel pots had camoflage covers on them, but I'm not sure if everybody had them or not.

Bare (uncovered) helmets were pretty rare in my experience. You'll want to go with the lighter *leaf pattern* camo cover, as the *woodland* pattern would be wrong for the time period. Good job, BTW.

QUOTE: Originally posted by adrake2 Might want to ask some of our Vietnam vets about the helmet covers they had. From what I've seen, the steel pots had camoflage covers on them, but I'm not sure if everybody had them or not.

Yeah they did. My dad brought his helmet home from the service, so I have it as a reference right there in my hand. The cover was the standard too. It was unusual not to have them. The key to accuracy with the cover is to get the colors right. It wasn't the BDU woodland camo patern used today, though the Marines did issue jungle utilities with an early version of the current pattern at the time. The helmet cover had more genuinely leafy look and the greens were less drab and more on the blue-green side. There would be maybe one single strand of red-brown somewhere too, but everything else went from a light lime green to a rich dark blue-green. Of course they would be faded on top of that. There were also eyelets to stick foliage in them. A little trick I used to use was to wrinkle up some aluminum foil and glue it to the helmet and trim it to suit. The paint doesn't stick too well so you'll want to make sure you're done handling it when you paint the cover.

The figure looks very nice BTW. The only thing I noticed is that perhaps the 1st cav patch is a little on the small side. It is definitely bigger than a playing card in real life. Hopefully this pic will post.



You might find this link useful in the future also.
http://www.1stcavmedic.com/army_patches.htm

Alright cheers for the tips! I might try making the patch bigger, but maybe not...

You can't really see it in the photo, but the helmet is in fact camoflaged to some degree - it's olive green as a base, with dabs of olive drap and a lighter green agged on then smudged a little, so it looks nice and worn.

EDIT: I've now made the badge so that it's bigger than the playing card on his helmet. It now looks much better - tjhanks for the suggestion!

GT_500
He does look good the one thing I noticed is that the sling on the rifle is a little stiff. I don't know what you used but if you could bend it down with a few wrinkles would do wonders.

Very nice!
As far as the camo pattern on the helmet goes, it is known as the Mitchell Pattern and was developed by the Marines in 1952. The Army adopted the camo cover in the early 60s' but that's the only equipment they made from the stuff, while the Marines had shelter halves and even some camo suits made of it (although the suits were usually privately made out of shelter halves). Its a neat pattern with distinct leaves and branches on them in 2 shades of brown and 2 or 3 shades of green. They're almost a bluish in color. If I could get it to post, I'd scan in a section of my Nam helmet, but I'm kinda inept at that kind of thing.

One suggestion regarding the M-79. I've seen several pics of guys carrying M-79s slung over the top of their ruck while carrying an M-16. That way it was accessible but didn't interfere with the firing of the primary weapon. Also, if he was carrying an M-79 AND an M-16, chances are, he picked up the M-79 somewhere along the way and was not the assigned M-79 gunner in his squad. I say this because the grenadier's primary function would be to put grenades downrange and not worry about using his M-16. That's why grenadiers were primarily issued the M-79 with an M-1911A1as a backup weapon.

Recon teams, however, were different. They often had guys with both grenade launchers and rifles. I've seen a lot of photos of M-79's cut down and carried in custom holsters so they could be gotten to easily.

Oh, and one last suggestion. I can't see really, but does the figure have any grenade bandoleers? They were 6-cell pouches in 2 banks of 3 grenades that grenadiers used in Vietnam. The grenade vest didn't come out until 1970, and by then the M-203 was in theater.

There are a number of great Vietnam Uniform references out there, and the original stuff is still widely available in surplus stores. As a living historian, I've currently got 4 distinct Vietnam impressions that I do, but my primary is a 2/20 ARA Cobra pilot in 1970-71. I've got a late-war LRRP kit, Medevac pilot and an early war 1st Cav infantry kit as well.