Working on a new project. I am thinking of a small diorama with the Meng pickup and several US Special Forces and a couple of KIA Rebels.



I am planning on using these guys also:

I like these ideas:


Love this background structure:


Any suggestions?

Those are nice dios and really great work. I think you should build whatever makes you happy!
J

Man that top picture is exactly what I wanted to do with almost the same items.... I still want to use the truck and Evolution guys, but I have to come up with a different setting now...

I was thinking something like this for a layout:


Now my dilemma is Whether to go more to an Iraqi structure (more elaborate) or go to an Afghani one that is simpler and rougher.
Suggestions?

Afghanistan... I dont remember many Hi-Lux's during my deployments to Iraq with AFSOC...

Thank you for the observation Jeremy. That certainly is helpful. Now the two figures I have for the dead rebels are wearing keffiyehs. Were those also common in Afghanistan?

No, they are not the common headress in A'stan. They wear what you see in the above dios. Verlinden has some dead Taliban that will work for A'stan though.

I'll be watching this as I have the pick ups. I'll probably get the figures too!

I cannot access my Photobucket account from where I am, but for good images, check out my library. Account name is 18Bravo_photos

You'll see a variety of different headdress, and a few shots of my two gun trucks, based on the Tacoma.

Almost done with the pickup interior




I took a very close up picture of the two faces I just painted, and with that degree of magnification they don´t look too good!

Eyes are still my nightmare!

Thank you Robert. Those pictures were helpful.

Nice!

I have something similar in mind, but using the GMV conversion set for the Humvee. A high school friend of mine with multiple SOF tours in A-stan and Iraq has been providing me with "technical advice."

Cheers,

Tim W.

Hello!

As far as I know Arabic keffies weren't typical not even with the Arab fighters at the beggining of the last decade.

The most typical head cover for most ethnicities in Afeganistan seems to be the pakol beret.

Diferente sorts of turbans are also in use, specially by pashtun men.

Hope this helps.

All of my US troops are ready!

Here's a mod you can't see from my photos of our trucks:

Add large handles to the inside of the door. If you need to egress the vehicle quickly, you don't want to fiddle around trying to find the handle. We made ours from green parachute cord and large wooden toggles.

what would be "typical" gear you would find in the cab of the pickup?

And Robert, you wouldn´t happen to have a picture of the above mentioned mod, would you?

I do not, but I DO have 550 (parachute) cord with me. If I can find a length of wood dowel I'll gin you up a prototype in a day or two. If not, I guess our broom handle will become a little shorter. Then I'll post a photo.

As for gear, we didn't load them up too much. In our Tacomas there was a jammer over the center hump. It's a rectangular box about the same dimensions as the A/C box in the M1114's.
There are go bags (the Legend US pack set has very good ones for this) for each guy in the cab, one for the gunner in the back (but his is in the back with him) and maybe a water bottle to two. We had our Icoms on our kit, but usually took another radio which I'll not name, to reach out to our firebase or whomever else we needed to talk to. Not much else really. Since we did not have HWMMV's at the onset, we also lacked other gear as well, so you could put something that looks like a civilian GPS on the dash.
All of the other gear went in the back.

Jeremy-if you look at my Photobucket site, you'll see a mud covered (camouflage) Hi-Lux we used in Iraq. they were there, but not as popular as GMC's, Chevys, and a host of Chinese Hi-Lux knock offs. It has another interesting feature, but I'll leave you to see what that is.

One more small point for everyone's edification:
Afghani is the unit of currency in Afghanistan. Afghan describes the people, or things originating from there. They're kinda touchy about that.

Thanks for the info Rob! I remember being TDY to Pope and seeing some of the newer trucks going over. They were SWEET!

Excellent figures! I like the way the camo came out.

Tim W.

My toyota pickup about to go into the weathering department.

looking good so far!

Looking good so far.

Rob what do the go bags look like? As I'm new to modern armor modelling.

Thank you in advance for any help.