**Finished!!! 07May09** Taking Cover Hue 1968

I figured I would be wrong thanks for the links very interesting. I guess the stuff I have collected is all early Vietnam. No water purifacation pouches on he canteen covers I have and my stuff is all canvas not nylon I thenk I have three complete sets of Alice gear its been awhile since I looked at my grear, I was also collectin WW 2 but that got too expensive.Now I just stick to  unit patches.Also good idea on the ammo belts never thought of that!

Thanks agian for the info,

John

Just FYI... The M-17 pro-mask carrier is worn on the left leg with a hip-carry or under the left arm when using the shoulder-carry... Sometimes troops will attach the carrier to the pistol belt on the left side...

Leg-carry, the wide strap goes around the waist, the narrow one around the leg and up throught the small D-ring to clip onto the large D-ring.  Shoulder-carry, the wide strap goes over the right shoulder with the narrow strap going around the waist..

Hans von Hammer,

U.S. Army Chemical Corps (ret)

Your Friendly Neighborhood NBC NCO

Gamewarden5 wrote:

Let me know what you think.

Looks good and... maybe a little large in scale, but I think it works for what you're trying to do. I think you could extend the rod out from the bottom of the masking tape so you get some brass to show through on both sides. Just my 2 cents.

Hammer,

You are absolutely correct. I guess twenty years of sucking CS is good for something.
For me I guess bad habits die a hard death. I always wore my mask on my right. Funny I never had an NCO or SNCO tell me I was all jacked up.

Come to think of it We never really had an SOP in any of my units for how we would standardize the wear of the field protective mask. 

Thanks for the info.

Brian

psstoff995 wrote:

Gamewarden5 wrote: Let me know what you think. Looks good and... maybe a little large in scale, but I think it works for what you're trying to do. I think you could extend the rod out from the bottom of the masking tape so you get some brass to show through on both sides. Just my 2 cents.

 For 1/48 50 cal (which would do a decent 7.62 in 1/35th), I use straight pins... I laid down a strip of tape to act as an anchor for the pins, then laid the pins (sans heads) side-by-side on the tape until I had about a 100-round belt... Then I glued 'em with CA.  Once the CA was set, I ran a narrow strip of tape down the row about where the links would be, then cut the back ends of the pins to length... 

Gamewarden5 wrote:

Hammer, You are absolutely correct. I guess twenty years of sucking CS is good for something. For me I guess bad habits die a hard death. I always wore my mask on my right. Funny I never had an NCO or SNCO tell me I was all jacked up. Come to think of it We never really had an SOP in any of my units for how we would standardize the wear of the field protective mask.  Thanks for the info. Brian

No sweat... Like I said, it was just FYI.. THere's always someone who's an individual, lol... As for the NBC Annex to the unit SOP, that's the NBC NCO's job to write it, so if your chem-dawg was ate-up, well...

NBC = No Body Cares, right?

Nobody cares until they start to smell fresh cut grass in the desert or the sweet smell of almonds and then its GAS! GAS! GAS! and we hope we remember how to donn and clear. Is it breathe in first, or blow out first? Aw shucks I can never remember? Gotta move the charms, and TP out of the way so that I can get my mask out.

Thanks

Brian

Hammer,

That is a great tip! I will give it a try and repost.

Brian

Started on painting the vignette base.

I made a pretty significant change. Based on some research and a previous poster's suggestion I plastered the wall sections and gave them a base coat of a custom color that is sort of blue/green. The wall sections are blackened with the base color showing through because I saw in some video's that there was alot of buildup on most walls.

The image below is a video capture from CBS news footage in Hue.

That looks amazing... well done. Great colors and with that CBS footage- looks dead on. Nice work Gamewarden

I finished the palm tree last night after hours of tedious cutting of palm fronds.

I am next working on the other vegetation that will be behind the wall.

AgengG, and psstoff, Thanks for the feedback. I especially wanted to know if I was on the right track for the walls.

 More Later

Brian

Sorry for the lag in posts. I am trying to push hard to finish the semester in college and I am way behind the power curve.

I finally received the DML Khe Sanh set and got right to work detailing the machine gunner. The web gear is medical tape.

After some deep thought I decided to add the figure that is trying to raise some help on the radio. This is a very small space to fit 3 figures. I have tried to accomodate for the brass that would be flying out of the M-60 so that the grenadier is not getting showered with brass and links.

I have also scratch built an M-72 LAW rocket launcher that will lay discarded by the grenadier.

If you notice that the wall paint is different that is because I had to repaint the outside of the wall after making a few tactical errors. I have also detailed the sidewalk with different colored bricks to break up the ocean of grey that a sidewalk is.

Here are some pics.

This next photo is of a scratchbuilt LAW rocket launcher.

Progress has been very slow this week due to pushing to finish the semester. I had a metric butt ton of makeup work to complete and I still have a project to finish by Monday.

Here is what I have done tonight.

I worked on the RTO. I scratch built his soft pack for the AN/PRC-77 on his back. I also scratched all of his web gear.

Tomorrow more homework, and hopefully some primer on these guys.

I also ran across an excellent reference book on HUE.

Marines in HUE CITY A portrait of Urban Combat, Tet 1968 by Eric Hammel

And a terrific website http://www.virtualarchive.vietnam.ttu.edu/starweb/virtual/vva/servlet.starweb?path=virtual/vva/virtual.web the Texas Tech Virtual Vietnam Archive

~Brian

I have been turnin' and burnin' tonight. I am pushing to get this finished for a contest on Saturday in Winston Salem.

Progress tonight. Got the figures primed yesterday morning before work. This morning sprayed the mid-tone color on the figs. Tonight got the low-lights, and highlights done on the figs, rebuilt the palm tree, and started on the rubble for the ground work. 

I found a fantastic source for really rough looking texture for the ground work. The cheapest potting soil I could find. This has a little bit of everything in it including small bits of wood to add the extra textures.

I will post more as the week presses on and I am frantically trying to finish this.

~Brian

All that extra detail really paid off, I’m sure you can finish this for Saturday, just take your time and don’t worry about us! You can fill us in after the fact. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast right? haha

Good luck!

At the top of the tree where all of the fronds attach I used expoxy putty to make a ball that I smoothed out to drill holes to attach them.(I don't know what you would call it in botanical terms) The original one I had made was ginormous (really big) and the tree in my opinion looked like a cheap babydoll's head with really bad Cy Spurling hair club for men hair plugs. Simply put I wasn't happy with its previous state of male pattern baldness, so I chopped off the head and remade the attachment point much smaller so now the tree has a nice lush head of hair that all the ladies want to run their fingers through.

Today is jamming on the figures, (After I take two final exams, After I work a full day)

Have a good one,

Brian

Gamewarden5 wrote:

Nobody cares until they start to smell fresh cut grass in the desert or the sweet smell of almonds and then its GAS! GAS! GAS! and we hope we remember how to donn and clear. Is it breathe in first, or blow out first? Aw shucks I can never remember? Gotta move the charms, and TP out of the way so that I can get my mask out. Thanks Brian

"Is it breathe in first, or blow out first? " Neither.. It's "STOP BREATHING", lol... Then don & clear....

I loved watching the cereal boxes and oranges fall outta the carriers, lol....

Done! I really pushed through tonight and got it together. Thanks for everyone's help, and thoughtful suggestions. Forum input like this really helps me improve.

This is only my second diorama/vignette. I would like to think some stellar examples of inspiration on this site. Hans Von Hammer, The Doog, AJ Lafleche, Mannstein's revenge to name a few. I read your posts and absorb alot of info that helps me improve.

PSSTOFF your encouragement is greatly appreciated. I still have one more day so if there are anymore helpful suggestions please chime in. If I can get them accomplished I will. 

Here are some pics.

Some details were just too ambitious. I did try HvH's suggestion on the ammo belts but I could not keep them togther when I tried to form them around the gunner's body. So instead I laid them up on the wall.

Elephant grass, and bamboo...after researching the battle of hue I saw very little elephant grass and no bamboo so I opted to go for a grittier urban setting. 

The brass casings are 26 ga. brass wire, I cut about 200 to simulate that these guys have been in the fight for a while.

The M72 LAAW is entirely scratchbuilt.

Overall I think that this project turned out pretty good. 

More to come later....

What next?

I really like your work very much!!!  Good luck at the show this weekend.  The only thing I saw that didn't look right to me was the ammo belts as they looked stiff over the wall.  It would be very loose and hanging over the corner of the wall if you know what I am talking about. 

 I have bookmarked this so I can use your instructions how to create that real good looking palm tree one day! 

I see what you mean by the stiffness of the belts. That is a result of my first attempt at making belts and the glue I used stiffened quite a lot and when I tried to mold the belts around the gunner they literally broke into pieces. Next time I will try a glue that is a little more pliable.

I am glad you liked it.

~Brian

agentg wrote:

Those usually failed to function in the humid enviornment!

I was watching some documentary where a firebase was worried of a NVA tank assault so they had a bunch of LAAWs airdropped in- tanks did end up attacking, the airdrop damaged most of the lot, even the one’s that did manage to fire- the rocket ricocheted off the tank. I think they ended up digging in and waiting for daylight so an air assault could be made with extreme discretion as the GIs were dug in all around the enemy... don't remember the battle- I had it written down somewhere because it was one of the few instances of NVA tanks I had heard of actually assulting a firebase.
Thanks for the tips on uniforms agentg, it’ll definitely help me out with my own future builds.

psstoff995 wrote:

agentg wrote: Those usually failed to function in the humid enviornment! I was watching some documentary where a firebase was worried of a NVA tank assault so they had a bunch of LAAWs airdropped in- tanks did end up attacking, the airdrop damaged most of the lot, even the one’s that did manage to fire- the rocket ricocheted off the tank. I think they ended up digging in and waiting for daylight so an air assault could be made with extreme discretion as the GIs were dug in all around the enemy... don't remember the battle- I had it written down somewhere because it was one of the few instances of NVA tanks I had heard of actually assulting a firebase. Thanks for the tips on uniforms agentg, it’ll definitely help me out with my own future builds.

I think the first admited instance of NVA armor in country was at Lang Vie (A101). They used PT76 amphibious tanks. There was an urgent call on the fire push for arty from just up the road, and the Officer in charge refused to shoot saying the "cannon fire" was their generators backfiring! I had the pleasure of listening to the skip as it evolved into a nightmare. It got down to being trapped in a collapsed basement whispering on the radio while you heard the other guys chattering ontop of them. While all that was happening you could hear the tanks moving around inside the perimeter. There was a call after the fact for a court martial of a certain Major, but his commander covered it up. Both were later relieved so I was told.

I never saw a Marine using a CAR 15 in RVN. At that time they were mostly used by SF folks. The M16's were all early ones without the forward assist and had the triangle shaped front stock. Bird cage flash supressors started to show up in March (late). Thirty round mags were maybe another three months away as well

gary