Fire base Buddha 8

Mr Buddha is finally finished, having been jungled up with green flock added and some hand made jungle added. Made with masking tape and paper clips. I still need to get some 2mm MDF for the base board. Things have been quite hectic over the past few weeks, unfortunately not leaving much time for hobby fun.

I have however bought Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe 1815-1878 which I can thoroughly recommend. I'm planning on using the rules from the book for my Franco Prussian set up. I have also been exploring my 2mm Battle in a Box project, which involves a gridded terrain board and I've been thinking about how I can create a gridded terrain board which is not gridded. I know that last sentence makes no seance at all but it will when I finally get round to making the thing.

A blast from the past, the original Mr Buddha from way back in January 2009.

All the best for know, TTFN

Airhead

Fire Base Buddha 7

Bunker action at Fire Base Buddha. Picture showing two of the corner bunkers nearly finished. The one on the left is one of the double height ones, with the firing platform built up. The base bunkers are intended to represent pre-cast sectional concrete bunkers. Not sure if these were ever used in Vietnam or if they even ever existed. But they work for me.

Next up, jungling up Mr Buddha some more, and painting the blast walls and sorting the base board out.

TTFN

Airhead

Fire Base Buddha 6

The Buddha with a lick of paint on. The jungle vines have been picked out in bright greens and have had some masking tape leaves PVA'd to them. in the top picture you can see two of the corner bunkers also painted. Still need to put some green flock onto the base of the Buddha and some bigger undergrowth. The metal cladding on the firing platforms on the top of the bunkers has had some rust painted on and some random battle damage (holes) added.

Next job is to sort out a base board for the fire base to sit on. I will probably keep the Buddha outcrop as free standing, so it can be used in other settings and scale, but will fix the bunkers and blast walls to a base so I can model a ditch around the outer wall and other terrain feature.

TTFN

Airhead

Fire base Buddha 5

More progress on the Buddha centrepiece, the top two pictures show jungle vines (garden twine string) glued to the ground base and the head as well. The second two photographs show the head undercoated along side a couple of the fire base bunkers and with the first coat of paint partly applied.

The bottom picture is a before and after photo of two of the bunkers. The bunker on the left shows the sand bags after they have just been stuck into position, you can still see dark gaps between the individual bags. The bunker on the right shows the bags after I have filled the gaps with some cheep filler. I used a paint brush and a small amount of water and used a painting action to push the filler in between the individual sand bags. Giving a much more realistic look to the bags.

On a side note, big up to the Wargaming girls in Sheffield for the article in the Times from last Saturday page 41 also featuring Wargames Development and Tim Gow.

More Fire base picture at the weekend.

TTFN

Airhead

Fire base Buddha 4

A selection of pictures showing some of the components that go into to making the fire base. The top three pictures show some of the concrete corner bunkers. On the right of the the three top pictures you can see the basic polystyrene block cut to the shape of the bunker, the black lines are my guide for the different areas of the bunker, gun slits and packed earth on top of the concrete bunker. You can see that the packed earth firing platforms on the top of the bunker, and the wall of the base have lots of PVA'd sand on them, but the concrete bunkers have much let sand stuck to them. By doing this, I hope that the painted and more importantly dry brushed items will have to look of their respective building materials. We shall see.

The bottom two pictures show a wall section which will connect the corner bunkers. The bottom picture shows the inside of the wall, with corrugated cardboard and cut art board as supports.

Next time a closer look at the sand bags.

TTFN

Airhead

Fire base Buddha 3

More progress on Fire Base Buddha, the basic concept is 4 concrete bunkers, one on each corner with packed earth firing point on the top of each, with inter-connecting walls with firing steps. I've used corrugated card to represent steel cladding to hold the earth walls and firing point in position.

Sand bags created back in 2009 were then dug out of storage and used to top the walls and the firing points on top of the bunkers, with retaining walls on the firing points made from coffee sticks. More detailed pictures to follow in the next post. Still debating if it should be all based on an MDF base board or built in a more modular fashion.

TTFN

Airhead

Fire base Buddha 2

More progress has been made on the Fire base, the Buddha is now on the top of its rocky outcrop. To the back of the Buddha are some cut stones, representing parts of the long lost temple. The Buddha has had some small lengths of string PVA'd on to its head, representing jungle vines. More needed though.

The big debate that I'm having with myself at the moment is, should all the walls, bunkers etc be stuck to the base. Or like my Roman 10mm fort should all the various elements be based independently. At the moment I'm thinking that all elements apart from the Buddha will be stuck to the base. And I'll keep the Buddha as free standing, so it can be used in other areas.

TTFN

Airhead

Fire base Buddha

Progress on Fire Base Buddha, I sketched out the outline of the base on a piece of white card. With the sleeping Buddha positioned in the middle, I've done minimal research into Fire bases, just a quick search on google images and a look at the cover of the Osprey book on Special Forces camps, and what I remember of watching the Green Berets, in-fact thinking about the title of this post, it should be Camp Buddha really, ho hum.

I've done the cheap purchase, getting the Buddha for 99p. The next purchase come in a bit more expensive, £270 for some really bad ass polystyrene, it did however come rapped around a new Bosch dish washer.

But back to the polystyrene, it is very very dense and can be carved with a sharp blade. Great stuff for building terrain with, some of the polystyrene was just the right shape to use as the walls and the was lots left over for the bunkers and the central rock outcrop which the buddha will sit on.

Right off to get some free coffee sticks from the local coffee shops.

TTFN

Airhead

99p Buddha

Another trip to the high end of the retail delights of Birmingham (99p shop in the arcade above New street station) and I found this Buddha for the princely sum of 99p. Its intended as a garden decoration. At this price it was to good to miss, and as I have my 15mm scale special forces camp for Vietnam on the to do list for this year. I thought it would make a great centre piece for the camp. As for the rest of the camp I've not really thought that much about it yet.

Once I got it home and examined it closer it was apparent it was cast from plaster. My idea was that the statue would be at an angle after subsidence had undermined it. I cut some lines into the figure with a hacksaw blade to represent the blocks of stone which make up the figure. The middle picture above shows the figure after the lower right section was cut away, with 3 Peter Pig US Vietnam infantry passing in front to give an idea of its size.

The first picture above shows the figure after its  been covered in PVA glue and sand and stuck to a small circular MDF base from War bases.

So next I better start to think about the layout of the SF camp, nothing to big, about 12" across at the most. On other fronts more progress on the 10mm card buildings and also a bit of a change of course from my usual areas of interests, but this project will remain under wraps till later in the year. 

TTFN

Airhead

Mission accomplished and then some

First things first, I went back to the original B&M bargains store on my way home from work and there were still some of the original packs on the shelfs, so mission accomplished. The following weekend at the Local B&M store to my home, just taking a quick look around and there in front of me was a tube of no less than 5 loach's for the mind blowing cost of £1.99, yup 38p each.

This was just to good to pass up. These models are different in construction to the original three bound for my Air cavalry in Nam. These new ones tail sections are made from plastic and are joined to the metal body work half way to the tail. The is no tail rotter modeled on this version. Also the main rotter blades are quite a bit shorter than on the original models.

The idea with these new ones will be to build an Israeli special forces team including a tank hunting team of MD-5oo. This will involve some re-building of the tail section and the addition of some TOW rocket tubes and optical tracking gear. The two with the Blue glass canopies are destined to meet a more dramatic end in combination with a SA-7.

Nam OH-6 Loach

Spending some time in my local B&M bargains store on the look out for targets of wargaming interest and came across this pack of 3 vehicles for the princely sum of £1.69p, and there it was, a Loach OH-6. To good to miss. When I got the pack back home the 2 vehicles went strait in the bin, a note of warning here, I later fished out the camper van from the bin, after the thought that the body work on the back could make a useful pre-fabricated building for my yet to be built fire base.

On closer inspection of the OH-6 the skids had been put on backwards, but I was able to pries apart the 2 half's of the body by putting a small screw driver up the engine jet pipe. This has opened up the option of not only painting the inside of the cockpit but also perhaps using the Peter Pig Hue crew, and put some additional detail in the cockpit.

In the bottom picture I've put a steel ruler in the shot for people who are interested in the exact scale of the model. For people like myself who have a more relaxed attitude to the exact scale of things I've put a Peter Pig 15mm scale 8th army figure in the picture. Looks to me just slightly over scale, but not by much. Next mission is to go and find some more, 2 should do it.