Army Painting

Some Roco US Army trailer dollies that needed so Olive Drab goodness.

Some rocket carriers that needed some touch up.

The foil is a quick, easy, cheap way to mask parts and unlike making tape, it leaves no sticky residue.

Nicely Olive Drab.

More painting on these.  It was a nice day and so I did a lot of small paint projects that had been languishing.

Its hard to tell but these are buses.  They are resin models so old I don't even know how long I have had them or where they came from.

More buses, the paint color and shadow make weird optical illusions!

The Army uses buses to move troops around on bases very frequently.  It's a safe and reliable form of transportation for a whole platoon together.  But not so good for tactical use.
 

Van Body Truck

I am working on the WWII US Army truck collection and those from the immediate post war era too.

Mostly they are getting repaired, assembled, converted or restored as needed.

Then they get an overall spray paint of olive drab, from Testors.

After that painting engine grilles, tires, windshields, canvas get the paint brush.  Mostly Tamiya but Testors spray paint and jar paint for the olive drab.  The spray and jar are a perfect match and very little change over 40+ years of using it too.  Windshields get painted Tamiya gloss black.  If you look at a windshield on a vehicle on a sunny day they often look black because it is usually darker in the vehicle than outside.

A while back I took some damaged Roco Dodge trucks, both the ambulance and the cargo box version and used the cabs to make a pre-WWII American halftrack, four of them actually.

So what to do with the leftover Dodge parts?

After scrounging around my spares and junkyard I found a few different truck cabs from various sources.

So in this case the former ambulance body became a van truck on a sort of pick up truck cab.

The cab is resin and the van is Roco, held together with bits of plastic and epoxy.

The US Army used lots of little van body trucks for small arms repair, electronics repair, and many other supply and maintenance tasks.  Civilian automobile and truck manufacturing was stopped in early 1942 and all the different car and truck companies made vehicles for the military for most of the war.

If you review any of the standard catalogs of military vehicles they are filled with odd little trucks, not unlike this one.  And now I have one.  Airfix USAAF military policeman.
 

Filament Fighters & Various Stuff

Rust-Oleum Flat White Primer.  I get it at Wal-Mart and Lowes.

Filament Fighters German WWII truck in HO scale.  I get them from Fidelis Models.

https://fidelismodels.com/collections/3d-filament-fighters-models

Filament Fighters Italian primer mover.

 

Hungarian tank by Railroad Connections.  3D printed but not a great model.

German heavy halftrack, 3D printed.

Filament Fighters 3D printed Hungarian tank, note the better detail with the wheels.

Hungarian tank turret.  I make these boards with large and small holes in them to hold tank turrets and other parts so they can be painted without the parts moving around.

Tank turret.

Resin cast trucks.

More resin cast trucks I have had these for decades but they needs wheels and assembly.
 

Truck and French 75

In the 1930s the US Army decided that it took up less shipping space to ship mechanized units rather than horse drawn units.

So they started updated their artillery by replacing wooden wheels with rubber tires.

Various trucks were used as the Army had a very small budget and trucks were improving constantly so they did not want to buy a lot of any one kind.

I am putting little boxes of supplies in the bed of these trucks for use by the artillery as ammo dumps.

I have also been working on armored cars.
 

Small Trucks

Small 1918 truck in primer paint.

Painted in semi-gloss olive drab, and updated wheels.  Trailer hitch added and removable cargo.

Iron spoked wheel with a solid rubber band tire over the rim of the iron, in gray.  The tire in the back is an early style pneumatic tire.

Trailer hitch added, still needs painting.

I plan on using the spoked wheel version for World War One and painting them in camouflage.

After many years of peace, the Army started painting vehicles with gloss paint because it looks nicer and is easier to wash.  These open bed trucks I intend to use for towing medium artillery, French 75's.
 

Command Van

In my wargame rules artillery batteries need a fire direction center in order to fire indirect fire.

Vans like this one serve that purpose, or I use a tent, or even just a shell crater with a guy with a field phone and map.

My rules also give morale advantages to units with commanders that are in company of their units.

Vans like this also help to fulfill that role.

So I try and have tents, dugouts, and vans for each of those kinds of units.

Duke on the Bunker steps.
 

Command Truck

This is one of my 1918 US Army vehicle conversions.

I put a small flat bed on the back of this pick up truck style bed.

Then I cut a Roco Minitanks van and took out a little slice of it, and glued it back together.

My plan is to use it for an artillery fire direction center or perhaps a command bunker of a division HQ.

Shown with an Airfix USMC figure for size.