And here’s the final.
Nacho - have you done snow in a diorama yet?
As I related earlier, Widowmaker One Four overflew us on the way back to our firebase. Miraculously I was able to make comms and they turned around to help us search for the car with the 107’s in the back. The problem. nearly every Corolla hatchback in Afghanistan is white. We pulled over several. Up until that point, all dry holes, as in the following video.
We had a noob on the team who had been in country over a month and still hadn’t learned
a single word of Dari or Pashto. So he says “Have a nice day,” like the former cop that he was. Right after I say “I like those,” to one of the AMF. He’s in light blue with a tan pakhol cap. Same guy as the one wearing the pink scarf on the MB box art. I was referring to the Oakleys I had given him. Soon after my battery dies.
We continued on, and found another similar car parked outside a mud house. Wet mud underneath, engine still ticking, blanket in the back which had covered the rockets.
So we stacked up on the door. The Apache hovered less than two disks away and three feet off the ground with the gun pointed at the front door. It was surreal.
We were about to kick the door in when my terp got the bright idea of knocking on the door. Little old lady appears, knows nothing about the car. Searched her house and surrounding area but never found those particular rockets. But we did find assloads of of others…
This is the first thing I saw in that addon: no stands for the gunner, as the ones you’re standing in the Tacoma picture, but I have decided to scratch these supports. Anyway, I don’t have any gunner to use. Other than that, if I’d remove some stuff of the addon and leave some room for the gunner to stand, will it be ‘partially approved’? I still have some stuff from the Dumvee I didn’t use.
I have also added some spare rocks in both sides and in the river bed. Also a slope in the right bank just un case I place the Hilux entering into the water.
I’m not sure you can convincingly remove anything from that chunk of resin and still have it look good. You’ve got the skills - just add your own stowage. It’ll look better.
As you may have seen from the video, when we’re rolling two gun trucks, there’s minimal equipment n the back - just enough to accomplish the mission, plus any unforeseen opportunities. The photos you see online with loaded down trucks are of teams making a major movement, like when we drove from Kabul to Orgun (more videos from that fiasco) or an ODA planning to RON for a few nights. I can tell what I normally carried in the back when I gunned. It was usually gear for just two dudes, and maybe a go bag for the terp.
I really like your terrain. Obviously there’s a lot unseen extending in either direction. That could be one feature in an ongoing river like in the video. We wouldn’t let ourselves be caught in a bottleneck where we had no egress from the river.
I just realized - I knew the title to your thread was familiar. This is from the build log of the chopper I built out of weapons parts. Twelve year old thread! Read what it says above the photo.
Unfortunately neither is quite correct. Ours is a four door extended cab version. You have to get another cab and doors and do a little kitbashing. You’d also need to shorten the bed in front of the wheel wells a bit to make up for the extra length in the cab, but it is definitely doable!
That last one is the one you want. Even the wheels are correct. I’ll have to order one or two myself. Might have to use tires from Meng or Legend. I’ll know once I see the 3D printed ones. I alreay know I’ll replace one with a plain spare.
The front is very close to perfect. There’s another maker on Shapeways who does that crash bar. I already have it.
As for water level under the cabin - yes, that would be ideal. In the video when I say “sh!t!” and then we start laughing, that was the part where I went too deep and the truck stalled. Fortunately momentum took us to another shallow spot and it started right back up.
Perfect then! I’ll buy this file and I will print it at home. The main problem with a 3d printing is that I can’t make many changes in the vehicle, for example, it will be difficult to adjust the suspension heights if I put the car entering into the river. I will have to make some shock absorbers more or less long.
Live-resin makes one as well but it’s too modern. The Legend one is a better starting point.
Or you could modify one of the figures from the MB set. As you saw in the video, they were actually the ones manning the guns on our two gun trucks that day as we were so short handed. In fact when I saw only three team members remained in Orgun that was not quite correct. There was me and the noob on my team. The third guy was actually an SF Lieutenant from the firebase command section. Explains why I was the one leading the parade. Also, look at Legend figure LF0119 - the driver figure. You’ll need a couple of those as well.
Why do I need 2 drivers?? I have thought to use just one handling the wheel. Plus 5 soldiers I have and the gunner, there are too many souls to ride in the Tacoma
After posting my last message I realized that, if I’m not wrong, an ODA is made of 12 members (6 senior and 6 junior), so for the diorama, I think 6 is a good number to display. I just have to remove one soldier, or even one of them could be moved to the gunner position.
First coat of base color. I have used raw sienna as base color. After that I will make some variations with airbrush and oils. My son has painted around 75% of the base color, so I had a good help.
