Skirmish Sangin Armies of Afghanistan – M-ATV Build part 1

We have always been more than fortunate with the people we have involved with Skirmish Sangin, all those people that offer skills I just don't posses, which all comes together to create the high quality products we create for you, our discerning audience.

We are fortunate to have in our mists the Great Queeg aka Brent one of the world pre-eminent vehicle modellers (See the great example of his work above) and we asked him to put this together for you guys so over to the Queeg...

Musings from the warp...

While waiting for some of the ordered parts to arrive I filled in the time by assembling 2 Empress Miniatures Oshkosh M-ATVs to provide some patrolling and scout forces for our slowly building American forces.

The first thing that needs to be said is that these boys are big units. The only way to hide these things would be to find a building and drive into it for cover, and it’d have to be an American sized building at that, they stand over the Abrams and dwarf the British Jackals and US Bradley, which I thought were pretty big vehicles anyway. I must admit I’m unconvinced of their use outside of patrolling a tertiary warzone or policing duties but I guess time and combat success will tell the tale …. that and how they perform on the table of course!

 Now the models ….. as supplied they comprise 15 resin and 15 white metal parts. The resin is impressive, being very crisply moulded with very little clean up required to get the major parts flush and aligned. The basic assembly was straightforward  with only a couple of minor issues, while filing I did “break” through the resin surface and exposed a couple of sinkholes but a little Tamiya epoxy putty should fix them ok and one of my turrets was close to being a miscast. It looks like the moulds shifted during pouring with the top being off center to the base and one side pretty roughly cast, although after some clean up and paint I suspect only I’ll notice.  The white metal parts are ok and typical quality for mixed media wargaming kits.

And as usual for me lately I decided to add a bit of extra detail. These are big vehicles and as such I figured that any extra detail would help break up there size and provide a little more visual interest. After scouring as many web pics as I could find and also several 1/35^th kit build and logs I added the following details;

• lifting eyes on the lower hull sides and the upper rear of the cabin
• support chains for the steps
• front grill mesh
• Rhino front mounted IED jammer
• power supply boxes for the DUKE jamming system mounted on the rear cabin
• rear access step ladder
• mounting bracket for the spare wheel
• hatch for the gunners O-GPK (Objective Gunner Protective Kit) turret
• mounting brackets for the truck and turret wing mirrors
• turret joystick slew controller
• turret stowage rack
• wiring for the aerials and low light TV drivers aid
• Ibis Tek tow bar
• coil springs and lower suspension arms (only on 1 and undecided if I’ll do the back or the other vehicle yet)

With most of the add ons in place I primed them with Tamiya rattlecan desert yellow enamel. It both acts as a primer and seal coat for the various materials used during detailing.  From here the tops coats and finishing work will all be brushed acrylics (mostly last gen GW).  After the base paint is only and most of the shading done I’ll add the final details that I’ve left off so as not to break them during all the handling while painting.

Still to add after base painting;

• Aerials (4 per vehicle) and some wiring for them
• Flexible cover for the Harris AN/PRC-152 SINCGARS radio (left rear)
• tow shackles
• emergency door pulls
• tie straps for the Rhino and tow bar
• side mesh for the rear stowage bins
• various stowage bits to the rear bins

Brent

Aka Queeg ( check out more of Queeg's work at http://houseofqueeg.wordpress.com/)