I built this guy about 25 years ago while still at Ft Bragg. I recently gave it as a gift to a fellow Platoon Sergeant from my old Company in the 504PIR.
He showed it to my old 1Sgt and CSM and they both wanted one!!
So now I have to go back and figure out exactly how I did all this as it was a pretty long time ago.
Exhibit"A"



He has the old BDUs and the Hermann helmet with para sponge pad in back and velcro jump straps,M1950 weapons case. LCE with 2 ammo pouches(w/grenades),1st aid pouch,two canteens,M9 pistol and ammo pouch,bayonet,squad radio,flashlight and smoke grenade,which is what I jumped into Omar Torios airport with in Dec99.
In addition a medium alice with e-tool attached,main and reserve parachutes.
I can tell you,I was not standing as tall and straight as this figure with all that weight on me that night!! There was a claymore and 25 rounds of 50cal ammo in the ruck along with more 5.56 ammo and smoke grenades. Very little in way of personal items as there was no room.
I start with these two kits



I will pick and choose items from each as I think some are more accurate or"look the part" better.
The requirement is for both to look like the first fig but one with black hair and the other wearing a beret. So the plain jumper will get the jungle boots like we wore that day and the beret guy will get the corcorans as well(we never jumped with those)
I like this smoke grenade and this bayonet from the WWII Dragon Para set

These are also from the WWII set and the corcorans don't look too bad. Maybe thin the backs out a tad?


Not so sure here. I like the e-tool cases as they are spot on. The canteens...maybe. This is a Tamiya sprue.


These jungle boots look pretty good from the green beret set


As do the berets. I will have to tweek these however. Ask any former para and they will tell you there is rarely a decent beret depicted anywhere,specially in TV or movies.


The ammo pouches are from the Dragon Marines set and kind of"soft" but I like that they are grenaded up. Not usually shown in figs.


The Hermann helmets from the Marine set are also not bad. I seem to recall the older Tamiya set had better ones? I don't have that part of the set any more.


Pretty nice squad radio.


I have been racking my feeble brain trying to remember if we jumped in with butt packs or not. I should call up one of the old buddies.
I will have to,of course,scratchbuild all of the parachute/airborne pieces of equipment and the ALICE pack as well.
Anyway,there is enough to get the ball rolling and cross the LD. OK,lets establish commo with higher,lock and load and shake out a nice traveling overwatch formation and see if we can get to the first RP in one piece.
ADVANCE!!

Great start Jerry, Im sure you are much better at figure modeling than 25 years ago so this project should be great. Its interesting hearing about the loadout of American airborne. We had a huge bag that we slung in front of us, after the chute deployed you would release it and it was hung underneath you on a 4 meter sling. Made jumping a little less complex. I once jumped with a short 82mm mortar barrel and all of my gear, the c-130 crew had to throw me out the door, needless to say i wasn't in the air for very long.

I'll be watching your guys load up with great interest
Bryan

Bryon,
Thanks for checking in. Always nice to meet a fellow Para. We also lowered our equipment while still in the air. Right above"treetop" level we released the rucksack by pulling on the two yellow straps you see on my figure just above the top of the upside down rucksack. This dropped the ruck down on a 25foot nylon tape. The guys that jumped the crew served weapons then dropped the M1950 weapons case down that nylon tape as well. If you jumped with an M16 you didn't lower that.
If I had it to do over I would have left the M9 Baretta pistol back at Bragg as it wasn't needed and it,along with the extra ammo just added more weight. As it was,my web gear was so heavy I almost couldn't lift it with one arm! 210 rounds of 5.56,45 rounds of 9mm,a pistol,4 frag grenades and 4 quarts of water plus the webbing to carry it all adds up to a bit of weight. Then ad the M16,helmet,rucksack,main and reserve parachutes and yes.... that is a good load. I have permanent damage to my spine from that night.
J
J

What a cool figure. Fantastic job all around, nice work on the BDU's, I've never been able to paint them properly. Especially when trying to replicate the way they faded. The black would turn a dark grey and the tan would sometimes go to a purplish-tint.

I would have thought that all the guys in the 82nd would have had butt packs. Aside from a poncho liner, the butt back was the 2nd most critical piece of gear I took in the field.

Please post some pics of your progress!

Thanks 11B,
I would have never thought I'd forget things like the buttpack as back then,it was all seemingly so important. I do know we generally were not issued them but we did get some stuff changed around once in a while.
But...given that we were put on alert for the jump into Panama with no notice,locked into the ready area and about 18 hours later were jumping into the airfield in Panama,I don't think we were ever issued the buttpacks. Could be wrong though.
J

Spent quite a while today getting some basic work done on the first dude. The one that will be wearing jungles boots and Hermann helmet.
I had to cut the boots off another guy to put them on here. They still need to be "faired in" as the one on the right has too much lean to the left.
Just basic work so far. The old style canvas web straps he is wearing won't matter as they will be covered by his parachute harness. His web belt will turn into the belly strap for the parachute and the reserve as well.



I selected a Hornet head with a bit more age on it as the usual Command Sergeant Major is around 40 years old,give or take,even in the 82nd Abn.
I see I need to drop the head down a tad yet as the chin should be more in line with the shoulders?
J

Ouch (suddenly my back hurts in memory, but I was lucky enough to find soft places to land, sand, mud, a tree (oops)).

I think the incorrigible over-packing which paratroopers always exhibit comes from watching a Bridge Too Far and the knowledge that XXX corps wont make it in time. We almost crashed a Blackhawk on the way into Gaza but that is a story for a different build, couldn't very well leave the coffee behind.

Ill keep watching your guys load up
Bryan

I know what you mean. You can survive anywhere with coffee, toilet paper,parachute cord and a good knife.
Conversely,the three worst things are cold coffee,wet toilet paper and Second Lieutenants.
BTW,we have dear friends from Israel and the husband was in the IDF during the last war with Egypt. His Sherman was dug in out in the Negev(I think) for a long time with incoming arty preventing them from leaving the vehicle for long periods. He served for over 30 years and has quite some stories.
Iron man,steel will. But a big heart for his friends and family and life!
J

Hi Jerry,

More than just a great figure beginning, you're bringing the character to life here. Thanks for sharing the experiences.

—mike

Very nice Jerry,

Top work for 25 years ago fella, I think it's really great and looking forward to seeing the latest version.

Regards

Dan

This is looking really promising Jerry and all the technical details you are providing (and those provided by a few others) are truly fascinating.

Mike Dan and Karl,
Thanks for looking in and for the words of encouragement buddies!
I need all the help I can get to keep me motivated. I have already done this theme years ago as you saw from the first pic here which means it is not that much of a mojo builder for me. I need anything I can get to keep up the"skeer" as a notable cavalry commander once said.
Got the basic stuff stuck together for the second dude. He will be wearing the corcoran jump boots and beret,seemingly for a Hollywood jump,as we never wore that stuff for a mass tac jump. Once again,I used a Hornet head with a few years on it to try to replicate a senior NCO. I still have to tweek the beret. You almost never see these in models made correctly and also never in TV and movies,although the TV show "Army Wives" got them right after the first seasons. Go figure.



Here I used the Dragon Green Beret kit for the beret and torso. If I did it again,I would have just made the beret from putty as this one was waaaaay too big and not shaped right. The boots and legs were from two separate Dragon figures from the WWII Para set.
Funny,I was issued the old canvas web gear when I first joined in 1977 and I don't remember the shoulder straps being this wide. Of course,that was a long time ago.
J

Brings back a lot of memories, Jer. Hard to believe that we were ever that young... LOL!

YES!!! Things I did on a regular basis back then now take me a few days or weeks to recover from! Hahahaha
J

Smallish update. Not much time to work on this as our furnace broke!! Fun times.
Before I added any putty work I wanted to add the basic straps for the parachute harness. I am starting from the lowest level,of course,and working up as I add things on top so....


Here is the overseas bag,made out of foil,that we folded and placed under the two leg straps. I still need to add its' handle,which the left leg strap was threaded through. This bag was used after landing,to place the parachute in after retrieval. It was then turned in at the collection points on the DZ in a training jump or just left in place during a combat jump,like in Panama. Some troopers did not stow their 'chutes correctly in the bag and this resulted in a big mess when the Chinooks and Blackhawks came in to pick up the strike forces going to Old City and also the main PDF base on the"hill". The stray canopies would get sucked up in the rotor wash and almost brought down a Chinook that was trying to pull a Sheridan out of the swamp next to the DZ.
I have also added the basic leg straps. I dremeled a lot of excess trouser leg off the bottom of the pants as this is what happened when you cinched up the leg straps,it pulled up the trousers pretty snug. The leg straps also made you want to keep your legs apart for obvious man-related reasons.
I also channeled the indents for the main and chest straps.
Anyone still interested?
J

Have you thought about having the finished one scanned and 3D printed?

I am more old school and planned to make a RTV mold of this guy and the various smaller bits to cast in resin,as I used to do with my resin company.
J

I'm still here Jerry,

We would stuff the parachute bag under our reserve but when we got into later jumps we would actually strip down our m4s, bubble wrap them and put them in the bag and that fit underneath the reserve. This was nicknamed the "commando." Last tidbit, only the bravest and best of us would risk certain death to steal one of these bags from the parachute school. The bags were a highly coveted possession for carrying personal gear like night vision, optics, vest etc.

Where did you guys put your rifle?
Bryan

I don't want to hijack Jerry's thread, but to answer your question about where the weapons were carried:

Jer's figure at the top of the thread has his weapon in the M1950 Weapon's case:



In the unit I served in, we general jumped with our rifles rigged "exposed:"



It could result in a little more wear and tear on the guns, but procedures to sterilize the DZ were simpler because we took less stuff with us that had to be cached.

However, you've never had the full airborne experience until you've jumped with full artic kit - show shoes or skis. (Jumping skis was / is only done over the ramp and not out the troop doors.)





Although, I have to confess that we usually pushed our skis out over the ramp rigged in a bundle with Bear-paw snow shoes rigged on our rucksacks to be lowered as normal.

Oh the fun we had...

I'm still here, this thread gets more interesting by the day! If you mould this Jerry I will buy it! Your going to do the full arctic kit next right? !

Just wondering how much in terms of weight that full arctic kit was? I mean it seems in a regular jump you'd be pretty weighed down but that arctic kit looks like it would take being weighed down to a whole new level. Also- where was your weapon stowed in the arctic configuration?

i'm following too. The first figure is fantastic.

Have you looked at the Hornet Heads with Berets?

On the side of the paired snow shoes or between the two skis.

And, yes, it's all very heavy. Even in the aircraft, someone has to help the first jumper to his feet so that he can help the next guy to stand, and so on. A "Non-Jumping" Jumpmaster is usually used for GMRS jumps since a "jumping" JM can't spot the DZ markings or release point. For CARP, it's just "Green Light - Go."

When jumping the skis, a Safety is required to go along and check the leg tie-downs on each jumper's skis since the jumpers can't bend over to do so themselves.

In the extreme cold, the subsistence load (your rucksack) grows exponentially larger and heavier, while your fighting load and mission equipment never decrease. Add snow shoes or skis just to get around, and the entire prospect is just damned hard physical work.

Apologies to Jerry for taking his thread off on a tangent.

Unfortunately I know exactly what you guys are talking about!

Just back from (yet another) M.A.S.H. I must say this thread is surely one of the presently most interesting (and nostalgically relevant ) topics on Armorama!!

OMG, we were actually that young, weren't we!!

Hard to believe...!!

Jerry m8, you are the one and only man to do this modelling job!!
And fortunately there are other veterans here to assist with valuable info should the memory fail!

Regarding the beret I see your point! I always found that your way to wear it was very different from ours, especially the pulling up of the front part sporting the badge.

Cheers

Romain

Karl,thanks for checking in,always welcome your enlightened responses. I think Mike got to your question though. Mike has really helped out a bunch since he sent a few burned copies from the Army FM on para ops. I forgot some little details about the gear and it really helps to have the nomenclature drawings on hand. Going through jumpmaster school I would never ever have thought I would forget any of that stuff as the repetition and training were overwhelming. But 25 years is a loooong time!
I am making molds of some of the small parts right now. When I get the first guys' body done I will also cast him up.
J