CONSTRUCTION OF LIMBERS.

HOW I MAKE AND PAINT LIMBERS.

Limbers are used extensively in my armies not only for artillery and heavy weapons but also in Cavalry and Horse Artillery regiments to tow supply, ammunition and utility trailers. The premise is that such regiments require full off road capability and that can only be provided by limbered transport.

Construction of limbers starts with a balsa block 15mm wide and 10mm deep cut from standard trailer stock of 5mm thick planking. To this is added a cut down toothpick shaft. The standard toothpick as used straight from the box for wagons is about 55mm long. To fit the smaller limber I cut them down to 40mm. This can be seen in the photo below.

The next shot shows a batch of 32 limbers with shafts attached. The next step is the usual one of applying sealer to the end grain which is sanded smooth when dry.

Next task is to add wheels, towing hook and the horse mounting block on the shaft, all as seen below and very similar to the work required to build GS wagons. Construction is now complete so the wheels and towing hooks can be primed ready for painting.

As is my usual practice I also cut out the horses required for a batch of vehicles and paint them up at the same time. The photo below shows the horses partially primed  in the normal  head up or head down situation.

As above but now painted my standard horse brown  ( Humbrol Burnt Leather ). The colour of horses is a constant issue with my wife who is most upset that I do not have a variety of horse colours to reflect reality.  She particularly wants me to have dapple gray horses.  I tell her the official Army view is that horses only come in one standard issue colour and that is brown !!!!!!!!!!

The limbers are now painted olive drab, my standard vehicle and equipment colour.

The next step is to glue the horses to the mounting block. It is vital to glue the painted side as the paint provides a key for the glue. It also makes it much easier to complete the painting of the horses.

This next picture shows the horses after all painting has been completed.

The final steps are to add the twisted wire harness and paint the limber wheels black as shown below.

Basically, other than the initial cutting of the balsa block body, the rest of the construction process is the same as described in the post on building GS wagons.  These principles also apply to all other vehicles and trailers used in my armies.

BOOK REVIEW: RATTLER ONE-SEVEN.

 A VIETNAM HELICOPTER PILOT'S WAR STORY.

Yet another book from my library. I hope the reader is not getting fed up with all these Vietnam books, I wanted a change of topic. I have another couple of Vietnam books to review and will then move to another subject.

Although not to the same standard as the classic "Chickenhawk" book about flying helicopters in Vietnam, this is a good book.  The author joined the army straight after graduation from high school in 1968 and, on a whim, applied to be a helicopter pilot. He passed the tests and became a warrant officer helicopter pilot. In due course he arrived in Vietnam in May 1970.

The bulk of the book describes in good detail the various missions and general military life of the "huey" pilot. The author was clearly a dedicated officer and constantly strove to improve his skills if for no other reason than to enhance his survival chances. He became a Senior Aircraft Commander which demonstrates great skills and towards the end of his tour was probably the most experienced pilot in his unit.

Most of the authors work involved supporting the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) as by that stage of the war US involvement was diminishing. In addition the North Vietnamese army was providing most of the enemy opposition as the VC had been eliminated during the Tet offensive. These factors combined to give the combat an entirely different perspective with US pilots coming up against substantial heavy anti aircraft weapons manned by well trained soldiers while trying to support operations by less than effective ARVN troops who suffered one defeat after another.

After the war the author trained as a fixed wing pilot and secured his professional pilots licence and became an airline pilot.  Despite the inevitable bad memories the author concluded that his war experiences had been generally positive in developing his character and he remains proud to have done his duty.

Overall a good book and recommended.

BOOK REVIEW: CREW CHIEF.

 

Another book from my library. The author served as a mechanic, door gunner and crew chief in helicopter assault companies in Vietnam in 1967-68.

The book is written as a novel rather than as a personal memoir. Therefore it is written in the third person about a character called Jim MacLaughlin and relates the story of his tour of duty as a helicopter crew chief. The author admits the stories told are a mix of personal experience, things that happened to friends and friends of friends and general war stories known to all but without  provenance.

Even with all that in mind I have to say that, based on reading dozens of books about Vietnam, this book is pure fiction. It is inconceivable that so much could happen to one person. I have no doubt that everything related probably did occur over the years to somebody or other but certainly not to one individual in one tour of duty. On that basis the book is "over the top" and loses a lot of credibility, which is a shame. This is perhaps a case where "less is more".

However the book is well written and is exciting to read as long as the reader remembers this a work of fiction based on fact. It does give a flavour of life as a helicopter crew chief and certainly illustrates the dangers for those who served in the helicopter combat environment.

Overall I do recommend this book but as a good story rather than a historical record.

UPDATE.

 There has been great excitement in my little world over the past few days !!!!  

Back at the beginning of February I reported that I had been engaged in the process of buying a new car with delivery expected at the beginning of May. Well that timescale came and went, repeatedly !!!! However , at long last, after  20 weeks, almost 5 months, I at last took delivery of my new car yesterday !!!!! and I am very pleased with it.

However the major problem over the past months has been the total lack of reliable information from either the dealer or the manufacturer's customer services. In fact I learned more about what was happening from online forums. Eventually  last Tuesday the manufacturer's customer services told me the car had been delivered to the dealer the day before. When I called the dealer they didn't even know the car had arrived !!!! 

The lesson is not to buy a new car via a factory order at this time. Only buy what dealers have in stock...unless you have the patience of a saint...which I don't !!!!

Anyway, I have it now. The level of technology in the car is almost scary....it will take me  months to figure it all out but that seems to be the norm nowadays. That said it drives like a dream and looks stunning which are the most important things of course.

On the modelling front I have not been very active recently, too many social activities and of course gardening chores. I have managed to complete a batch of 40 house bodied headquarters wagons as shown below, note the rolled up awnings on the roofs,  together with yet another infantry battalion. The next construction task is a regiment of cavalry which I have just started.

FLAGS: CONSTRUCTION AND PAINTING.

FLAGS OF THE WOODSCREW ARMY.

My army has three types of operational flag. 

The national flag is carried by all battalions and regiments and is oblong, solid blue in colour with a single white star in the first hoist area of the flag. 

Each battalion/regiment also carries a battalion/regimental  flag which is triangular, with a blue field and  the battalion/regiment number in white on the field. The staff is coloured to the arm of service for that particular type of battalion/regiment. In the case of brigade command battalions the main part of the staff is coloured red for command but the top of the staff is coloured to the type of brigade, infantry or cavalry. 

 The third flag is the general's personal flag. These are also triangular with a blue field but the staff is gold and there are small stars across the field, either one, two, three, four or five to represent the general's rank. All the stars I use are decals purchased from Fantasy Printshop of Cornwall, hand painting small stars was just a step too far for my skills !!!!

This photo shows from left to right, the national flag, the battalion flag of 7th army command battalion, a two star major general's flag and lastly, a three star lieutenant generals flag. 

The only other flag in my army is the red cross flag which is flown by all ambulance wagons. Other medical vehicles carry a small red cross sign on each side only.

My historic reference for many of the design ideas of my flags is  based to some degree or other on the US army of the Civil war period.

CONSTRUCTION.

The construction of flags is straight forward and is in fact, based largely on the 1969 Miniature Warfare magazine article that originally introduced the idea of using screws as soldiers.

 I start with a pin and a piece of ordinary copier paper, that is 85gsm for the paper experts !!!!! I usually use scrap from the printer but avoiding any printed areas. Flags are 12mm high by 18mm long when finished so I cut strips at least 50mm long so as to allow for wrapping round the flag staff with a bit left to cut to length.  As for the flag bearers, I file a groove in the screw at about 20 degrees off vertical. I hope the groove can be seen in the photo below.

                                      

The strip of paper is then glued and wrapped round the pin as shown below. I then cut the flag to finished length and in the case of triangular flags I then cut the angles.

A drop of glue is placed in the groove on the screw soldier and the pin flagstaff attached. After half an hour or so I then apply a big blob of glue ( UHU HART ) to smother all round the flag staff ensuring the glue goes well into the thread of the screw. Don't worry if the glue goes right round the screw or how big a blob you have as it shrinks as it dries as shown below.

The next step is to apply primer to the whole of the flag, staff and the glue joint as shown on the left below. Its then just a matter of final painting of the flags which in this case are for 28th Infantry Command battalion.

BOOK REVIEW: STEEL MY SOLDIERS HEARTS.

 THE HOPELESS TO HARDCORE TRANSFORMATION OF 4TH BATTALION 39TH INFANTRY UNITED STATES ARMY VIETNAM.

Another book from my library. This one is written by the legendary Col. David Hackworth, one of the US Army's most decorated soldiers and a well known figure of the Vietnam era. 

Known as Mr. Infantry because of previous publications aimed at improving the performance of infantry soldiers, Hackworth had an illustrious career . He joined the army aged 15 as a private in 1945 and by the end of the Korean war he was a Captain. He served almost five years in Vietnam including a tour commanding the 4/39. 

This was a problem unit which had one of the worst casualty rates and poor discipline records of any Infantry battalion  in Vietnam. Full of drafted soldiers, Hackworth was given command with instructions to make the battalion effective and efficient. This book details his efforts.

Over the following months Hackworth introduced improvements on a daily basis, sacked and replaced inefficient officers and instilled discipline in the battalion. His soldiers initially hated him and there was a bounty on his head. By the end of his command cycle however, the battalion had the lowest casualty rate and the highest body and captured weapons count of any unit in country and his troops considered him the best officer in the army.

Hackworth was however unpopular with his peers due to his tough no nonsense and uncompromising view that most of his fellow officers were incompetent ticket punchers. Eventually he became so frustrated with the poor performance of senior leaders that he provided a press interview where he laid bare all that was wrong with the US Army.  Although promoted to full Colonel, the youngest in the whole army at the time, he was encouraged to resign his commision. He then turned to writing and completed a number of books including this one.

I am a fan of Hackworth. Even allowing for the inevitable bias of any author, his story is inspirational. There is little doubt that if the US Army had followed Hackworth's teachings, the Vietnam war would have had a very different outcome. Unfortunately the Army encouraged officers to pursue promotion via a series of ticket punches as more of a priority than to fulfil their real duty of winning the war by training, developing, protecting and leading their men.

I hope that attitude no longer exists today and Hackworth is recognised as the premiere infantry officer he undoubtedly was during the Vietnam era. This is a highly recommended book.