Hello everybody, after some time I,m working hard on the helo "Darkhorse 19" for my dio ... Here are some wip pictures; it was painted first acrilics, second decals and wethering; now I had to paint rotors, blades, skids, micropainting and pigments, repairing of the canopy and so... I´ll post some picture of the helo on the diorama just for making an idea of how the whole dio could look.

Thanks to everybody, I,m near of the end of the (long) road








A picture of first phase of painting; base coat and lights and shadows with acrilics.

It is good to see that your long road to completion of this diorama is coming to a close. The LOACH looks quite nice. I just have one question: Why are the smoke grenades red? I have never seen any painted like that in real life. M18 Red Smoke Grenades only have a red top and then the markings indicate the Red color. The body is painted green. I don't know how hard it would be for you to change that at this stage, but that will bring questions when looked at.

Other than that, it looks great to me.

Cheers,
James

Yes, usually the smoke grenades are green with color on top, BUT there was full red body ones in Vietnam...See the pictures of helos of the same unit that mine (C troop 16th Cavalry Regiment, aeroscouts platoon)... Just like my model, the grenades are secured to a wire along the side of minigun ammo bay

The reason that the grenades in the picture are red is because they are actually AN-M14 Incendiary grenades and not M18 smoke grenades. That loach wasn't just a gunship, it was also a bomber! Nice pic, thanks for sharing. I have this kit on the shelf and your build is inspiring me to start it.

Andrew

Wow. You learn something new everyday. Thanks for the pics. I had never seen the Thermite grenades painted red before. I've only seen them in a whitish color with purple markings as that is the kind I had in my vehicle in Iraq. I never would have thought to have flown with that many Thermite grenades, but I guess they would be helpful for setting huts on fire when dropped from above or destroying their radios and weapons that they couldn't remove if shot down.

Good job on making the details true to the helicopter you are depicting.

Cheers,
James

Ohhh, thank you very much for the explanation for red grenades mistery...Really such a kind of aeroscout helos use to had onboard what they called "bombs" made with C4 (see the packets in the pictures) Mr. Hugh Mills described such a "bombs" in his book "Low level hell".

Now I had to do some more smoke grenades (most red because it was the color for marking targets) painted in green with color on top and put them along a wire on the wall between pilot and gunner ...Arghhh, more details work...

Again, thanks for the information ¡¡¡¡

Keep on the good work !

H.P.

Frenchie on the case again!! Never fails,
J

Looking really nice. A couple questions though. Shouldn't the upper windows above the pilots be clear green? Also, the rear upper windows should be clear, not painted over in OD.

"Le disiple du paix"??
Have they tried to write something in french , something like "le disciple de la paix"?

Hey Gino, you are wright about what you said, but about it I must say:

-. Yes, the glass over the pilots should be dark...I´ll glue a piece of very thin dark plastic sheet on the high part of the canopy to reproduce the real one...There are some picture we can see a film of dark plastic maybe taped to the high part of canopy...Remember, this model is still wip




-.About the rear window, yes most oh-6a in Vietnam had this window clear, but some of the late war oh-6 had that windows painted over, or even with metal plates on...I suppose that the reason was to avoid sun in face of the rear gunner...Really the window was unuseful because the gunner never looked up, just down looking for Charlie

-.Here are some pictures of blanked windows, some maybe painted, but other are clearly metal plates on.



This one is "Sweetpea", from the same unit of my helo and same year 1972




A detail of the helo I made "17173" Darkhorse 19 in june 1972...I see clearly that window isn´t clear, I see it painted or metal plate, not just glass ...



A general view, on the background is "The enforcer", the helo of Rod Willis, clearly with metal plate on rear window...



And finally another view of Darkhorse 19 tail number 17173 in june 1972 (the date was an information from mr. Hugh Mills, then the chief of outcasts platton)...



The instruction set of Fireballsmodels decals fot OH-6a in Vietnam points the paneled rear windows...





-.The picture of "Discipline pour le paix" or something ike this is very beatiful...I had a picture of the other side of this plane ... And about the window, you can see that this helo was an ex-silver spurs one (see the old marks still on the helo together with C-Troop 16th Cavalry ones), so that probably the reason for a clean clear window, not painted or metal plate on...I suppose that .

Anyway in the picture of the left side (the minigun side) you can see clearly that rear window isn´t clear, just painted or paneled with metal plate, same color the the whole helo...Maybe the picture of the left side was made later than the other right side one, when the crew had paneled the windows...





This one is a very beatiful and original helo to model, quite original with marks of two units on ...

Anyway, I maybe wrong about my 17173 and its rear window wasn´t painted or with metal plate on ... but many of their mates helos in the same platton (the outcast) in the same moment (1972) had plates and paint on their rear windows, so I think it could be so ...

If there is any 1972 ex-outcast veteran in the room, please give us some information about rear windows mistery ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡
Anyway, thank you very much for your comments Gino ¡¡¡¡¡¡

nice pictures, the flight shirt with Blackmon name on it was an Outcast crewchief/gunner platoon sergeant in 1971, like i posted on another of ur threads, the red canisters are not smoke grenades but incendiary grenades, smokes are like u said colored on top and have a colored strip around them, usually tired to carry several different colors so multiple targets could be marked.

Usually carried a smoke grenade attached to the strap holding the M60 so that we could easily drop it when we starting taking fire, so that the cobras circling overhead would have a marker to start firing their rockets at, as we exited the area.

Still impressed with the details that you have in put into ur work!

what are the white strips on the windscreen just forward of the front door openings?

grimmo, the "white strips on the windscreen" are the antennas for the radios

Of course the m-60 gunner (not picture here) had a smoke grenade in his left hand ready yo mark the target and the "pig" in right hand firing to nva...About the grenades, right now I,m making the smoke grenade ones in green with color tops in order to place them along the wall between pilot and gunner, at hand for making targets, just like in Vietnam ¡¡¡¡ Thank you very much...