Buildings and AFVs

This is an SDV T72 tank based armored recovery vehicle in HO scale.

I showed the kit being built a while ago, but it's finished now.

 I think it turned out well, despite some rather vague instructions.

The figure is an Orion Modern Russian Federal soldier circa 2001.

A few more SDV models with two identical dollar store houses, painted differently, Marx toys trees.

Riflemen, Machine Gunners

M14 rifleman walking.  Note the smoke grenades on the back.

M14 rifleman running.

M14 rifleman shooting.  Good action poses in these sets.

Loader for the bazooka man.  Note the backpack rack for bazooka shells.

Machine gun ammo bearer.

M60 machine gun.  I like the nice variety of weapons that this set has, so you can field a well equipped platoon of troops without having to get metal figures to fill in spots.
 

Orion Vietnam War Marines

40mm Grenade Launcher M79 with a shotgun as a back up weapon.  Great figure.  Shotgun is great for in close work in the jungle, in cities, and in trenchworks.

M14 rifle, used by the Americans for about 20 years from the late 1950s.

The M14 was never fully replaced by the M16 series as a few were used for automatic rifles, snipers, and other long range weapons.

The Marines used a two part 3.5 inch Super Bazooka.  The advantage over the LAW rocket is the larger projectile, the ability to reload, and it could penetrate up to 11 inches of armor.

Radioman.  Antennas were made of a sort of wire tape, like a metal tape measure so were thin and wide.

Note the heavy gear on all these troops.  M14 rifle.
 

Marines

USMC in Vietnam Early War.

Orion 1/72nd scale plastic figures, 44 figures in 14 poses.

You get a command group and three troop groups.

Like the Army troops these are excellent, flash free, and highly detailed.

The two major differences between these and the Orion US Army figures is that these have body armo and M14 rifles rather than M16 rifles.

The body armor for Marines was a command interest item and so everyone in combat had to wear body armor, despite the heat and humidity of Southeast Asia.
 

Contact on Patrol

Vietnam, US Army, 1967.

First Platoon is down a few men, but they still conduct patrols.

They are 4 clicks out from Firbase Pattie.

They have just taken a few rounds and first and second squads are moving forward to suppress that fire.

Machine gun provides a base of fire as the other troops move along the right flank.

One solider tosses a grenade into a suspects NVA position.

The LT radios in the contact report to company.
 

US Army Vietnam War Orion Figures

Crouching and reloading.  Shoot, move to cover, reload, shoot, advance.

Running forward, always forward.  M16 armed soldier.

Loading the blooper.  A 40mm grenade launcher.  My favorite weapon to shoot of all time.  Only fired it a couple times on the range.  Load, close the breech, aim, fire, wooooop, boom!  It flies so slowly that you can see the grenade in the air before it hits.  Two direct hits center of mass.

Grenade thrower.  What I like about this set is the figures are well sculpted, highly accurate and give a great variety of weapons for an Army platoon.

LAW rocket, the grandson of the Panzerfaust.  Fire one time, throw it away.  Disposable anti-tank rocket.  Used in Vietnam against bunkers mostly.  Easy to use and pretty accurate.  I fired one in training on a range, the training version fired a tiny rocket at a full size M48 tank withe extra armor.  It was very cool.

Kneeling and firing.  Aim high into the trees, or maybe because the enemy is far away to compensate for bullet drop over distance.

M60 machine gun, can be carried and fired by one man but having a loader is helpful since the ammo is heavy and gets used up quickly.

Here is the loader.
 

Vietnam War US Army

These are great troops.  1/72nd scale soft plastic US Army troops for Vietnam.  Unlike the Esci / Italeri figures which are rather thin, and even sort of comic book looking these guys look like they are in the war.

You get a infantry group and a command group.  43 figures is a perfect size for a Vietnam era plastoon.

First figure has an M14 rifle and a Stetson hat.  A bit Hollywood but a great pose.  Probably do a head swap on a few of these and give them a regular M1 helmet.

Advancing at the ready with an M16 rifle.  Look at all the gear he is packing!

M16 at the hip, fire while advancing, walking fire.  Note the extra canteens.

Radioman with smoke grenades.  I am popping smoke.  I identify yellow smoke.  Roger, yellow smoke.

You discharge a smoke grenade and the helicopter pilot tells you what color smoke he sees.  You confirm he has picked the right color so that if the enemy has also thrown smoke your pilot will still know where to land.

I love the gear on these guys, clearly they did not just dismount from a helicopter unless they are planning to walk back to base.  Note the quality of the casting and depth of detail.  Great figures.
 

US Army Infantry Vietnam

Orion has been doing a range of Vietnam War soldiers.  This is the most recent one I have obtained.  It is US Army Infantry, middle war.  This would place them at about 1965 to about 1970.  The M16 entered service in 1964 and made it to Vietnam in 1965.  In a couple years the M16 had replaced the M14 series as the standard service rifle for the US Army.

The first few shipments of the M16 rifles were shipped without cleaning rods, someone seemed to think it was self-cleaning and did not need a cleaning rod.  As a result, the rifles would jam and it could be difficult to remove an expended casing.  The ammunition that was issued was different from that used in testing and was more prone to creating carbon build up, resulting in jammed rifles.  Once this was sorted out the weapons served well for the next 50 years, but it started with a poor reputation.  I used them many times in the Army, never in combat, I served mostly in peacetime, and found it accurate and reliable.

US Army Infantry walked most short to intermediate distances and carried lots of gear with them.

These figures have very little flash, and are well animated.  They have a nice selection of weapons for the average squad.  You get three of each pose shown on this sprue and one each of the command sprue, not shown in this posting.
 

Hungarian Tank Crews

The Hungarians were part of the Axis powers in World War Two and fought alongside the Germans until the end

Now Orion has made Hungarian Tank Crew figures for WWII in plastic 1/72nd scale.

An excellent selection of poses and no flash.

Troops in dismounted combat, maintaining the tank, carrying fuel, and resting.  A very good set.