I'm hoping to find some advice for my first armour diorama which I am building as a change of scene from my area of interest.

I have almost finished building Tamiya's M113A2 as a US Army vehicle operating in Iraq at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom and am planning to display it in a simple diorama laid up in cover away from the front line and have got a question about the equipment used by the figures I can include in the display.

If I have fitted the vehicle's commander in the turret wearing body armour and a helmet, would it be correct to include one or two additional figures from Trumpeter's Logistics Supply Team working outside the vehicle wearing only fatigues and tee shirts or, in a conflict zone, would they also be wearing body armour and helmets?

Thank you.

Personally I'd scrap the idea of depicting it in Iraq, I'm not going to say you wouldn't see something like what you're envisioning in Iraq. You'd have a better chance of seeing something along those lines at one of the camps in Kuwait before the invasion kicked off, I'd also go heavy on the chow and water boxes vs. the soda boxes; I can't speak for what they did on the Army side, but space was at a premium and the priority was was beans and bullets (and water).