I've been interested in the battle of Dien Bien Phu for quite some time, and wanted to recreate Bazeilles, one of the M24s (known to the French as Bison) that fought in the battle. I picked up a Testors/Italeri M24 for very cheap at my local IPMS show five or six years ago, and subsequently gathered updates for cheap on eBay. However, I never found the inspiration to carry out the build until a purchase at the latest edition of my local IPMS show fired up the creative juices for this as well as another DBP project.
While I was so inspired I managed to finish construction of the kit.





In addition to the aftermarket parts by Friul, On The Mark, and Accurate Armour, (some of which were left off for ease of painting) I also used some bits and pieces from my collection of spare parts to dress the kit up as needed.
I decided early on that I wanted to recreate Bazeilles as a wreck atop Eliane 2, so painting needed to start with laying down a foundation for the burned out areas of the tank. I mixed this color from Vallejo steel, burnt umber, and hull red.

Once the paint had been given a day to dry the necessary areas were masked off with silly putty.

Next up is laying down the color base coats. I'll post pictures of that as soon as I can.

Looking good.

I also built a DBP Bison a looong time ago. I built Aurstadt during the battle.

I'va always had a hankering to build one of the Bisons as they are today and actually bought an M45 Maxon turret to build it as it is today near the bridge, all rusted over.

I'm looking forward to how this is going to turn out.

Paul

Ed,your build is looking great so for ,cant wait to see it
finished.

Interesting project. Here is another one built by a French modeler.

http://maquettegarden.free.fr/IMAGES/Gallerie%20amis/Dien%20Cai%20Dau/gkgal.htm

Here is the link to his blog dedicated to the DBP battle.

http://dien-bien-phu.blogspot.fr/

BTW, I never heard of the M24 being nicknamed Bison by the French. The usual denominations were either Chaffee or M24.

Olivier

Really???

Interesting. Every reference I've ever seen regarding the M24s in French Indochina calls them Bisons. This includes Bernard Fell's Dien Bien Phu and Street Without Joy, and he was there at the time "embedded" with the French units.

Similarly the M29C Weasels were called "Crabs".

Now, this may not have been true during WW II. The name might be unique to Indochina.

Paul

Paul, you're absolutely right about the Crabs which were manned by Foreign Legion cavalry units. The French also nicknamed the LVT4, Alligator.
In the French military literature (the little part of I read ;-) ), I haven't seen any mention of Bison for the M24. Last year, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by general Preaud (one tank platoon leader during the DBP battle) and he never called his tanks Bison nor Chaffee but simply M24.

Olivier

Back with an update. First of all, thanks for the comments and links. As far as the term Bison is concerned, I'm in the same boat as Paul, having read Bernard Fall use the name repeatedly in his works on Indochina, as well as in Morgan's "Valley of Death." Zaloga also uses the term Bison in his Osprey title on the M24 with regard to operations in Algeria. Perhaps it's a case of a name being somewhat common, but not universally used. Whatever the case may be, on with the build.
As far as the build is concerned, I've progessed pretty nicely through the first stages of painting.
First up is the M24 in its base coat of OD.

Next came spot filtering and dry transfers.

Finally a couple of overall filters, pinwashes, a tiny bit of drybrushing, and a few rainmarks.

That pretty much does it for the pre-DBP weathering. Next up is a coat of field applied camo as well as adding preliminary burning and dirt effects. I'll post an update showing all of that as soon as possible.

That looks excellent as it is. Well done. The damage to the fenders looks spot on according to the photos in Olivier's link.

Very nice job on your Bison so far

I must apologize, it looks like I didn't read my references deeply enough. The name Bison appears here and there in the French military literature as well.

Olivier

Hi Ed. Very nice weathering effects. You captured the streaky, dusty look perfectly.

Ed,

Fabulous job with the weathering. I agree with Frank, you have hit it out of the park with that chalky, dusty look to the streaks down the sides. Eager to see what your next step adds to an already nice build.

Cheers,
Rick

Ed, this isn't at all what I expected under "Bison"! Sounded more like the German variant, not one of my all time favorite tanks... Great work! The damage looks very realistic.

Cheers!
Stefan

The paint job is really convincing Ed, congratulations !

I made some deeper researches about the name bison and I found that it was the call sign of the tank company deployed in DBP. So your "Last Bison" is fully correct. It is not sure though that it could apply for other M24 in French service.

Do you intend to build a stand to put your tank on like the Vietnamese did?

Olivier

Hi Ed,

Excellent subject (I'm mad about Indochina war ) and impressive rendering. I was wondering why you pallied the rain mark/rusts/filter before adding the camouflage ?
I didn't undertsand if you were to illustrate tyhe tank as a memorial or during the battle. If it's the second option, and that you want to add some life around, I strongly advise you to use Bravo 6 mini serie around DBP, especially the machine gunner. they are reaaaally sweet.

I also bought the Italieri M24 kit with french marking. I see that Bronco is about to release a post war version of the chaffee, but without french marking/modifications. What a shame !

Eager to see the progress on your work

Julien

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to give my build a look. I really appreciate your comments and questions.
As far as the 'Bison' name is concerned, I'm glad some extra evidence was found to show I wasn't off base in my choice of title.
Instead of as a monument, I plan on showing the tank as it would have looked at the time of the surrender of DBP on May 7, 1954. I've wanted to reproduce the mental image I've had of the tank half sunk in the mud atop Eliane 2 with a paratrooper firing the turret mounted .50 caliber to the bitter end. I plan on converting an old Italeri US paratrooper to serve as my French paratrooper. I have both Bravo 6 DBP sets and agree that they are awesome, but I'm saving them for a diorama I have planned for the near future.
With regards to my weathering the tank before adding camouflage, my understanding is that most of the tanks deployed to DBP had been serving in the field before their assignment to the base. Once assembled after arrival, the tanks received a hasty field applied camo job and then went into battle. I thought it would be best to recreate this look by following a similar process of layering the colors according to the timeline of the tank's service life.
I'm almost done painting the camouflage, which is a time consuming beast to reproduce, and hope to have pics of that up in the next couple of days. Once that's done I'll begin the process of making my M24 look shot up, burned out, and weather beaten.
Thanks again and I'll have an update as soon as possible.

Just a quick update. Here are some in progress pics of the paint job from various angles.





Despite my best efforts, I couldn't find any pics of the actual vehicle in action, so I came up with my own interpretation of the camouflage pattern based on a couple of color drawings I stumbled across. The colors are very vibrant now, but I'm sure the weathering process will tone things down nicely. I'll post more pics as the project progresses.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I had a bunch of real life projects to take care of while we had some nice weather around these parts. With that work done, I have time to get back to the bench and get to modelling again.
Upon returning to this project, I realized that I somehow managed to show the M24's turret burned on the wrong side. After a good deal of sanding, repainting, and cussing, I got things fixed. I then removed the silly putty masks and added several thin coats of white oil paint to simulate burned paint.


I then added layers of black oil paint around the edges of the white burned areas. I also added a few spots of more opaque while acrylic paint to more completely cover the underlying camouflage. In addition to the paintwork, I added a layer of dirt to the lower hull and running gear.




In addition to the work on the M24, I also got the base started. I picked up an 8"diameter cork disc intended for use as a base for houseplant pots. I glued to layers of 1/4" cork sheet to this then cut and sanded things until I was relatively happy with the look of things.


Here are a couple of pics of a test fit with the M24 on the base.


Next up is adding dirt and dust to the M24, then adding rust and ashes to the burned areas, and maybe even installing the running gear. I also plan on adding wood edging to the base. Hopefully it won't take so long for me to have the next update ready.

Here's the latest on this project. I've added a coat of dirt made from a thin mix of muddy red weathering powder and distilled water.



It may not be too evident from the pics, but I also added rain spots by flicking water onto the M24 with a lightly dampened brush. I added dirt streaks by applying spots of a thicker mix of the weathering powder then dragging them down with a damp brush, similar to how you work with oils.
Next up is a pic of the base with a layer of celluclay.

Finally, here are a couple of pics of the M24's hull with the running gear and tracks installed.


The next steps are to attach the tank to the base, add a few details to give the foxhole behind the tank a lived in look, give the base a couple of coats of color, and add more weathering. I'll post another update as soon as it's ready.

Apologies for the extended absence from this blog. Now that the last couple of months worth of distractions have passed by, I'm back with an update.
The M24 is securely attached to the base and has received a healthy dose of rusting and weathering.



Hopefully I'll have a problem with my camera sorted out and I'll have better pictures of the base to display soon.
In addition to the vehicle, I've finished construction of and modifications to the figure that will be displayed with the M24.


Next up is getting the figure painted as well as a bit more weathering for both the vehicle and the base, and this build will be close to completion. I hope to have more pics soon.

Time for one last update. First of all, I finished the figure.

After that I put the figure in place with the turret mounted 50 caliber.

Once that was done, I added standing water and added a few small detail parts to the base.






With that I'll call this one done. Thanks to everyone who dropped in and give a look.