This is my idea for a new diorama. A dusty street in Vietnam between ricefields. The base is ready.


I'm not sure about the vehicles. I'm thinking about this ones.







I have some vietnamese civilians and water buffalos.





For the GIs I have this kit from Masterbox and from HobbyFan





And maybe I will use one or two old figures. Will see


When I have new pics of the diorama status, I will share it.

The M151A2 Mutt, was not used in Vietnam, good luck with your project

The M35A2 is not really the most correct either. It saw very limited use there, especially by the USMC, who are usually the last to get new equipment.

The correct Vietnam-era jeep is the M151A1 which is available from Tamiya and Academy. Tamiya's is accurate; I reveiwed it here. Tamiya's also is better detailed and gives you more USMC-specific features. Academy's still has the incorrect M151A2 rear suspension and a few other issues. I compared both makers' versions here. The main differneces were a different rear suspension, split windshield in the A1, and different front turn signals and rear light setup.

M151A1


For the cargo truck, the more correct Vietnam-era version is the M35A1. It can be made by taking the AFV Club M35A1 "Nancy" guntruck kit and building it as a cargo truck w/o the guntruck parts. The main differences are in the front turn signals, rear light setup, and exhaust pipe (which ran along the frame and exited between the rear wheels on the right side as opposed to a stack on the right front fender). Also, a note when using the AFV Club "Nancy", in either the guntruck or cargo truck version, you need to fill the hole on the right front fender as it wasn't there in the earlier version (AFV Club left this step out).

M35A1

Thanks a lot for the pics.
And thanks for your criticism.
The picture of the Mutt kit by Academy is not right. I don't now why but in the package is the same kit like the Tamiya kit. You can build two versions. A1 and A2. It was a very cheap kit I found on a garage sale.

The M35 was a present by my girl friend. So I have to take it.

No, the Academy M151A2 kit builds into either an Army or USMC vehicle, but they are both M151A2s. It is a poor copy of the old Tamiya M151A2 kit. The Tamiya M151A1 is a new kit.

If you are interested in accuracy, you could tell your girlfriend that you will use the truck on something else and get the correct truck and jeep for this one.

Whether 100% accurate or not, I cant wait to see some progress pics!

Here some new picutures of my dio. I painted the dio and colored it with MIG pigments -Vietnam earth- .
After this the dio gets some gras and plants. During the drying I started a new dio. It's a smaller one. So I didn't worked on this dio at the moment.
Here are the latest pictures of the progress.

Hello,
Your dios are super. For this one just decide if you'll have army grunts or leathernecks and then just have fun! Personally, I'd choose an army truck and jeep (M151A1) with grunts in resting position in 66-67 (careful with individual equipment). In my opinion the LVTP5 would take too much space.
With the soldiers and civilians you can show the two worlds i.e vietnamese peasants and soldiers completely oblivious of each other. If you want a link add a "coke girl" (soda seller) or a vendor of some sort. Cheers

Impressive collection of material that you assembled for this! I like what you've done so far.
J

Ground work looks good ,any updates ?

Sorry, not at the moment. I was the last 4 weeks for work in china, so nothing's happend on my workbench. The next 2 weeks I'm on vacation. I hope after this I can continued the work.

Hi Christian,

Nice work on the base so far.

Interesting subject and I think MAIM figures are a good addition. Hope to see your progress soonest.

Cheers

Hi folks.
Some news from Vietnam
I changed a little bit on the dio. The large bushes in the back I changed into palm trees. The palm trees are handmade from paper, limbs and Fimo. Painted with Vallejo colors.
I added some lasercut plants.
The figures are finished too, pictures I will upload later.







Regards
Christian

Love it!
Keep going please

(nice buffalos btw)

Wow!!! Lots of very nice looking stuff and great progress! The palm trees are very nice!
J

Hi,

Good scene, Schreiber. It's familiar to me.

Exactly, what you made are the coconut trees, not palm. Coconut seen anywhere in VN, but palm was just seen at western border, next to Kampuchea. Besides, Vietnamese peasantry not use the saddle on the buffalo. Maybe, he is a Chinese. The closer buffalo is excellent.

Thanks for your idea, your dio.
Sincerely,
K.

An Ontos could be a nice tough and would be correct since the marines were the only ones to use it.

Also, half the M16s in that Masterbox kit use the 30 round curved magazines instead of the more correct 20 round mags. I would recommend getting Trumpeter's M16 set to correct this, or grab some M16s from your spares box.

Did you decide on vehicles yet?

The Ontos is a good option too. It would look much better than the inaccurate M35A2 and/or M151A2.

Thanks for your comments
The buffalo with the blanket, not saddle is a MAIM kit. (Vietnamese old man with buffalo) And I didn't put a figure on it. The old man I used for another dio. So the blanket it's a buffalo back protection.
I use M16s with 20 round magazines. The M16s with the M203 grenade launcher are the only one with 30 round mags I use.
The M151 A2 I changed into a M151 A1 (The Nam Tamiya kit). And I didn't now yet, I will use the M35 A2. Maybe it's too much on the dio. If I will use a truck, I will try a rebuilding from a A2 to an A1. But I'm not sure about this. Will see.