"An Army I do not need for a War I am not interested in..."

Empress have recently released their first two infantry packs for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

So amongst my order I added the two packs and the existing crew pack. As I thought they could do with some wheels, I could have gone for an ARVN M113, but decided that another V100 would suit my current terrain better.

Now just got to start building them.

Governor General's Army - part 1

Crooked Dice released their Governor General's Army sets a while ago.

This is set 1. I decided to paint them as an organised, well turned out group of soldiers, with a selection of support vehicles including a V100 APC.

The first one is armed with a FN FAL battle rifle.

 The second one also has an FN FAL.

Fire support is provided by an FN Minimi Light Machine Gun.

 He has a back up pistol.

The boss giving orders. Armed with another FN FAL and a back up pistol.

The fire team patrolling in town.

Lined up in front of their transport, a V100 with twin machine guns.

Another Empress V100 Cadillac Gage Commando

The Cadillac Gage Commando served in areas other than Vietnam.

There are some examples in the Osprey book.

This particular example has been painted up as a well maintained vehicle in a drier climate.

The vehicle was first undercoated with Citadel Chaos Black, followed by Citadel Zandri Dust.
To generate the camouflage pattern I got out my trusty glass plate and the compass cutter to cut the patterns out of a strip of masking tape. The pattern needed to be concave to give the effect of the Zandri Dust overlying the Humbrol Olive Drab.

Once the masking was in place, the hull was sprayed with Humbrol Olive Drab.

Vehicle numbers come from a Warlord German Armour decal sheet, the smaller ones from the German Turret Number sheet.

 The vehicle registration numbers are from two Rubicon Jeep sheets, as is the First Aid box marking. The weight circle is from the Rubicon LRDG Chevy deal set.

 Here it is with the previous US Military Police example from last year.

Empress Cadillac Gage V100 Commando

The Cadillac Gage Commando V100/XM706 was a armoured car/wheeled armoured personnel carrier that was used  in Vietnam by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), the US Military Police and the US Airforce. Armed with a twin machine gun turret, it provided security and convoy escort throughout South Vietnam.

Empress released their 1/50 scale model as part of their Vietnam range.

 I modelled an example with an 0.50 heavy machine gun and a 0.30" medium machine gun.

I used two sets of Rubicon DCUA007 Willys MB decals (for the Military Police labels) and theoretically one Rubicon DCUS002 M4 Tank decal sheet (I ended up needing two as I messed up one of the US Army decals and its associated serial number).

 The US recognition stars in front of the side doors use the Rubicon 8mm decals, the ones on the rear half of the upper hull are the 5mm ones - all from the DCUS002 sheet. I added a jerry can from the Empress stowage set. A shovel from the same set together with a piece of plastic rod make up the pioneer tools on the rear of the vehicle.

A US Marine advances supported by an XM706 belonging to the US Army Military Police.

The  Marine takes cover while the XM706 engages targets.