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As a side note, was there two places called Samawah - Al and As? or am quite confused becaused i seen a few people calling it As Samawah, and earlier in this blog I recall it being called AL Samawah. Sort me out !

Adam

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In Arabic, the "L" sound in "al" is pronounced, or not pronounced, depending upon the first letter of the word following it. If that word begins with an "S" sound, then the "L" sound in "al" is not pronounced. Therein lies some confusion in attempting to anglicize many of the Arabic spellings and pronunciation, I'm 90% sure there is only one location, Al Samawah, pronounced A'Samawah.

That said, in Iraq there are two distinct villages, both named Al Walid.
And in Afghanistan, two different villages called Sharona.
In both cases they are in different provinces, much like us having 37 different Springfields in the US.

ok I have just purchased the dog and its on it's way. I know some of you are wondering what dog kit I bought in the end, and I think you'll be pleased. I did'nt want to post the pic of it unless I secured one as they are very hard to find at a reasonable price..

Kit has two dogs, I think you can guess which of the two mutt's I will use. (very appropriate for this diorama).. I won't use the other one.

Adamskii
PS it's amazing how some things seem to find you by mistake, and are better than what you were looking for to begin with.

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don't know if this one is any good to you at this late stage, but I took this snap at As Samawah in June 2005

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Nice pic. Always useful. Although to be honest I want to analyse the pc as much as the cart. I see brush guards are removed including smoke. RWS with 2 crew out of hatches, driver sealed up, typical antenna configuration. Splashboard extension removed..(Jason always nails me on this- i think i am calling it wrong name ), Exhaust has tins removed, and as usual barely any stowage is apparent. Not a 100% but I think that vehicle (03) was fitted with bar armour at some point ( I think a remnant of the mount can be seen on top of the superstructure deck). The tyres are nice black - no sand/ dust buried up in the treads - this is going to cause problems for competition modelling. Oddly I can't see a towing cable across the front deck.

The cart is typical cart - as the pc is typical pc - nothing extraordinary going on that I can see. A good pic for colour of the road though. I been asked a few times when am i painting mine - this pic good reference for road colour..

Would love to see more As Samawah pics if you have them - especially buildings or daily Iraq life

Adam

I'll put a few up on here when get home ... I have a few snaps of the mangy dogs that seemed to be everywhere.

Ever thought of putting a correspondent in to your scene?

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I'll put a few up on here when get home ... I have a few snaps of the mangy dogs that seemed to be everywhere.

Ever thought of putting a correspondent in to your scene?

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Look forward to the snaps - Can you repost the one from previous page as the link broke before I could save it for reference. Is that you in the correspondant pic? Reminds me of joker from FMJ ; Animal mother "are you a photographer?", Joker - "No, I'm a combat correspondant" and so it goes.. about seeng a little combat on tv and vague reference to peanuts.

I have considered the TV crew sets of which there are now 2 suitable for modern diorama. BUt I have decided not to include them for couple reasons -basically I dont think it adds to the overall story or picture, but rather it would be there just for the sake of being there. If the dio was an event which an embedded reporter might find newsworthy then perhaps. That brings another point - unless its a freelance reporter, the embedded ones have troops around them and it introduces a complication of how did the news guys get there, what vehicles, what security do they have and so on. Such questions are inevitably asked and need resolution in the planning. So yes they were considered but when I went down the burrow on that one, I found it might complicate things ad distract from the central story (these sub plots overtook the original plan before I changed the street). Also considered using them because It would add to the busy street scene (extra head count). and in original plan that was conceivable.

cheers

adam

Thankyou very much for the photos. Some of them are quite provocative. I have'nt seen many pictures of the grenade launcher mounted on RWS in theater. Very clear pics. I can do alot with those.... talk about timing as I am just quietly working on finishing touches of construction prior to weathering of my vehicles.

There have been several people who have contributed photos from personal collections that really have helped make a big difference to the authenticity of this project.

Thanks again. Might have to message you for some hi res evrsions of a few of these

Adamskiiiii

It's easy to get wires to look like that. Put them in a drawer in a neat and orderly fashion, leave it for a week and when you get them out, they will be in genuine tangle that cannot be unravelled!