Bobs Fictional Countries

Having modified the old ‘Carry on line  you may think with all the pictures of Tanks and the other AFV,s that I have forgotten the PBI.

Painting Infantry can sap my enthusiasm,  so I tend to leave them till all the vehicles are done for that respective force.

So when I finished the East Riding(British) I did the Infantry.

Now I Know some on this August site prefer metal to Plastic  ,but in this case I am not overly struck on the Battlefront Modern Brits, they certainly suffer in detail particularly faces compared to not only their own but PSC’s Soviets, though looking ay the later Anzacs and Canadians  they seemed to have upped the metals quality.

The above were done with a base Zandri Dust  followed by Sepia wash for a base Khaki effect , dabbed over with a flesh/cotten and Dark Umbra for cammo.

After guns and faces blocked painting I gave them the traditional Agrax Earthshade wash.

As others have done I used different coloured army painter tufts and scrub to differentiate the different platoons of the British Rifle Company.

The Volgan’s (Soviets)  were a pleasure to paint in comparison  both Battlefront and PSC  the figures being so close in pose and size  that now they are finished I can hardly tell which is which.

Again done with Zandri Dust  but with Reikland Fleshtone for a more brownish Khaki than the base on East Riding . Belts and webbing were given a 2nd more careful coat of the same to darken them from base uniform.

Again block painting of wpns boots and flesh before the Agrax Earthshade wash. As with the ERC different coloured tufts are used to differentiate the Rifle Companies. Although one Company has a much lighter flock on base as I ran out during the lockdown of the darker Autumn hue I had so made do.

Well in the few bits of downtime I have had over last couple of weeks I have been building and painting the additions to rhe Royal Mercian Army….

I have found building the various Battlefront kits relaxing, even in the late evenings when tired  genrally whilst listening to various audio books ( Recomend ‘The last days of the Thinderchild) . They do have a more tactile robust feel them to the models from other companies.  Nothing wrong with the rival kits its just a personal preference.

For an example here are two Bradleys  the model on left is the Battlefront version   the one on the right is Zveda ( you can see they match nicely for size though)

Sovfar I have finished the recon troop of M1’s   the troop of Bradleys , a recon unit of HMMV’s, and a complete company of assualt guns.

I have also got round to putting decals of to finish off some items sitting in a box since March.

And all completed in one shot

Funny when I think about it this project is now over 12 months old. It started as a little project around my salute buys the last Salute, The Alt history idea grew out of it as I wanted to mix tank units from different nations, plus like Warren I wanted to steer away from actual wars that many may have fought in. It has now grown in size as I have expanded it for Team Yankee sized battles, with units of Mercenaries and the Evil Vogans from 2000AD battling over fictional islands in the med.

As its developed the  was the Mercian’s  got a bit sidelined with only had an odd number of vehicles completed.

As is my want when Battlefront released the New American forces for the game I invested heavily.

I was asked if my new Americans were going to be painted as Americans or……..

Or was the answer.

Most of the purchases will be used to expand my forgotten Mercians.

All of the starter box bar the Apaches and two of the Bradleys.

All of the Assault guns as well

Plus a platoon of Canadian Infantry.

I had split my 4 Zveda Bradleys 2 to Mercians and two to Mallets, so did the same to bring each respective unit to 4.

I brought a box of LAV AA which will go the Mallots as they already had the original LAV’s

The Warthogs will probably be part of an American air mercenary unit  as may the Apaches.

Anyway I have now begun to rebuild the Mercians. Even though I had a partly done unit of M1A1’s which were in various stages of basecoating and washs  I decided to start with two more M1’s and a recon unit of HMMV’s . The M1’s will increase my number to 4 who will make a recon troop for the Squadron (Mercia uses British unit names for tank companies) , with the squadron eventually having a troop of M1A1’s, a hq troop of M1A1’s and A heavy troop of M1A1HC’s to reflect the different issue’s of tanks they have received over the years.

I then put a line of Nuln oil overcthe centre of the grey lines, and finally another light dry brush of Zandri Dust to weather it for the effect in the 1st photo at beginning of this section.

We were talking about Alternate time lines on Warrens Cult Radio show on Discord and I mentioned the Authors Jerry Pournellles uses for many of his sci fi novels in his Co-Domininum – 2nd Empire history .

So in an attempt to pull it all together and Warrens Timeline here is my 1st rough draft at the events leading up to my particular war included bits were Warren can slide off for Arabistan

Its in early stages and by no means finished, ideas and criticism from all particulalry James Oriskany welcome

Updated 31/7/20 done some more work on below, still work in progress , interestingly as I look to make changes in time line find that events can be effected in a ripple effect by earlier events , such as for Warrens timeline , how would the American attempt to free the hostages in Iran in 1980 have changed the timeline if it has succeeded , would it have made the formation of Arabistan more likely ?

Update 5/8/20

Getting near to final draft, added a few entrys to timeline to explin volgan population increase in Mid 50’s to 1990’s and started date the period leading up to the outbreak of war. Bit of tidying up of grammer and spelling.

Update 6/8/20

Got to thinking may have stabilised middle East a bit to much , so re-introduced elements which may re-ignite the various conflicts.

Hope to re-introduce the Invasion of Kuwait , as as it stands would Saddam have needed to invade if he had control of Arabistan oil fields. hence Islamic overthrow of Pro Iraqi regime in Arabistan.

update 13/8/20

Re done above and got Timeline up to 1993 with 1st Gulf war beginning roughly 22 months later than it did historically

this nearly caused a hiccup as wasnt sure who the respective U.S. President and British P.M. as would the Western Intervention happened without Thatcher pushing Bush, but allowed that John Major and George Bush would have still intervened though it may have taken a bit longer for them to react.

For those awaiting more models should an update at weekend with how I’m using my new U.S and French buys. I’ve also tried to sort out the strange font changes , grammatical and odd typing/spelling errors .

Using the now well practiced grey camo scheme I finished the ACAV’s on thing about these models is they had flat areas big enough to used some of the Hammers Slammers names that came with the crest sheilds.

Way back when this project started I brought 4  Zveda Bradleys (nice to see today that Battlefront have brought them out for Americans update, though surprised they didnt do the Soviets 1st, no doubt John will do a video on it at some point ) . Two I  did for the forgotten Mercians , the final 2  I decided to do as trial vehicles for the Mallots.

Then I did my favourites Helecopters , I did one Cobra and 2 Bo 115’s (they are cute for a certain version of cute)

I have also done a 2nd company of Leopard 2 and plan another company of 1’s when they turn up .

For this I brought the M901/M163 box st of 4 for the unit.

As you can see this not only gives you the option to build these variants but also all the Vietnam era ACAV’S.

How survivable or useful they arr in Team Yankee is anyones guess but they look cool and fit in with Both the Hammers Slammers but my own background history for the Unit.

I had mentioned that the Manglers had been recently rehired by Mercia after being involved in low intensity anti insurgency operations and as such there Infantry transports were stil in their legacy configuration.

There have been a series of upgrades to the designs from their original Vietnam concept.

Firstly most wpns can be remotely fired, and newer wpn systems have been routinely added such as Mini guns and Auto Grenade Launchers. Plus additional Armour protection has been added to front and sides.

This is the beauty of the set in that you get lots of wpn options  plus you can use the side and front Armoured panels from the M163’s for the upgrade armour.

The two above are configured , one with mini gun and 2x squad support wpns on the sides, but on the 2nd the squad support has been replaced with auto GL’s.

Haven’t yet decided on wpn options on last 2 but the recoiless Rifle is an option on one.

After the dry brushing I block painted the guns exhausts etc Army Painter gun metal . The tyres were done in GW Corvos Black which is really a very very dark grey. Periscopes were done white.

Then metallics were washed in GW Agrax Earthshade, and Periscopes GW contrast Talassar Blue. A bit of Black on gun and Smoke launcher muzzles and done, ready for decals

The Commader was done in Vallejo German Field  grey , a bit of Army painter Skeleton bone for face and hand. Goggles were done same method as vision slits on vehicle, and then figure washed in Agrax Earthshade.

I have now put the decals  on Hammers Slammers crests and appropriate U.S tank names.

Once Micro Sol has cured them and Set has put protective layer , they will be varnished, before a final Dry Brush of Zandri dust on wheels and lower hull for weathering.

When I painted the Leopards , it was pretty much an experiment in the development of the Cammo scheme I was going to use.

Why Grey  ?

Its was the colour of The Hammers Slammers in the Novels, Steel Grey I believe which is Much of the Images in John Treadways rules show them in polished steel. For the WW3 setting I preferred grey.

Now having finished the tanks , what else, I had decided on M113s in ACAV variant which had been the basis of the combst cars in the novels. I plan to upgrade the wpn selection with mini guns and auto Grenade Launchers.

Whilst waiting for them to arrive  I thought about a recon unit. I had brought a box of LAV 25’s that I had intended to add to the Mercian’s force  but couldn’t quite figure how they fit in the TOE ,I’d even base coated them in Zandri Dust. As with the Leopards they had been sitting built and base coatrd in a box for best part of a year. last night after having a serious thunk decided to add them to the Manglers as a recon AT force, so they got re sprayed Army Painter Uniform Grey.

Its a bit lighter than the GW Grey  so rather than Dark Tone  washed them Nuln Oil (my resupply arrived)

Although I used the same grey shades as on the Leopards,  rather than Splodges went for bands similar to that on the British European cammo style  but using the  rwo shades of grey previously used.

Again for weathering I did a GW administarum grey dry brush.

As with the tanks I then carefully did a white highlight.