I like the precise placement of the mud/paint smear (QT_012), perfect.

Thanks everybody. No, Jerry, I was not there. However, OIF1, and especially the thunder runs into Baghdad are sort of my specialty - if you will. I, and many others here, have been working on a museum display for this event, so I have gathered quite a bit of material over the years on the subject, and gotten to know many of the crew who were there. I am friends with two of the people depicted here, and that of course made it easy to pull this off in regard to detail.

As a result, I wanted to go all out on superdetailing this project, and I am fairly happy with the outcome. Those are the personal patches and awards from the major, who was in the back, that decorate the base.

One detail that seems to be overlooked by modelers - in my opinion - are the spent shells and links; at least for scenes depicting combat or just after combat. The dilemma for us all is not the depiction of the brass, but the links. In this case, I used Live Resin links for the .50 cal. Mission Models used to make them in brass but they were super expensive and you did not get all that many, and you had to fold/turn them too. Live resin is all ready to go, but there are no "holes" in the loops. I think at this scale they are not missed. Note, for the 240 there are no spent links in that scale, so I used the tiny stowage handles provided in the Eduard PE set for the M113 - I rolled them in my fingers and painted them black and that got the job done.

The spent brass and links are the one thing the vets mention over and over. It was everywhere and piled high during the thunder runs. At times during lulls they may have pushed the brass off the vehicle, but it all depended on the crew and type of vehicle, etc. I could write a book...

And somebody REALLY NEEDS TO DO AN UPDATED M113 KIT! Working with the mishmash of either the Tamiya or Academy kit is getting tiresome.