Charlie Starts Surfing

Some of my stands for Charlie Don't Surf are finally coming along, so I thought I'd post the current state of affairs as a Work In Progress. The US vehicles are done except for sealing, the VC units need to be touched up then drybrushed on the base, then some shrubberies added.

I've thrown some other scenic bases I've been working on into the photos as well, they'll be used on top of felt to either identify terrain (e.g. open fields) or exceptions to the underlying terrain (e.g. an opening in the jungle).

As always, clicking on the photo brings up a bigger image. It was tough getting good shots, so you'll have to excuse some fuzziness.

The US vehicles en masse, 5 Bulldogs, 5 Sheridans, 3 M577's, one done up as a first aid vehicle.

The Sheridans and M577's closer up.

The Bulldogs closer up, also doubling as ARVN vehicles.

The VC forces en masse - one company of 3 platoons, plus MG's, RPG's, snipers, and commanders.

The nefarious VC Captain So Wat, showing off the spiffy grey Mao jacket he picked up on his last trip up north. I'll be the only one who ever sees this, but I painted him clasping his hands behind his back (manical giggling couldn't be portrayed).

One VC platoon, and a bit of another. The Dullcote seal should take off some of the shininess from their weapons.

Somewhat fuzzy RPG teams, peering through the brush.

VC LMG's, with a HMG denoted by the extra two men attached. At least until O8 makes some proper heavy AA MG's.

A rear shot of the VC, showing off their webbing and rucksacks.

Another angle of the US vehicles, plus what's up next. More US vehicles, plus some PT-76's for the NVA. The grey bases are those vehicles that will be gamed on pavement.

Another shot of the to-do collection.

Vietnam Palette

Back in the winter I collected public domain pictures and maps of Vietnam in preparation for making terrain for Charlie Don't Surf, and I'm posting here my collection as a couple of PDF's for others in the same, um, sampan:

Vietnam Palette

Hopefully they turn out ok in Google Docs, I'd suggest downloading the file, I think you get better images. (edit: had to switch to the original Powerpoint file, the pdf's looked lousy after being converted to pdf then to Google's version of a pdf - sorry for the large file size).

Tank Saturday

Over the Victoria Day weekend I learned Oshawa (Ontario, Canada) has the Ontario Regiment's museum, which includes a decent number of tanks and other vehicles. Better yet, during the fair seasons, on the first Saturday of the month it hosts "Tank Saturday" and runs one of its vehicles for our viewing pleasure.

Yesterday was one such Saturday (the second of the year) and for me anyway promised to be a treat, as they were running their M4A3E8 Sherman. So I drove the hour or so down to Oshawa and caught the day's second running of the Sherman as well as purusing the rest of their vehcile collection and their static displays.

The museum is very much a labour of love and a working restoration facility; it ain't what you'll see in Ottawa, but in some ways is the better for it. The staff are all volunteers, many of the older ones are vets (the day's MC was a post-war Sherman tank commander), but we also saw younger volunteer mechanics working on some of the other tanks - Saturdays are the museum's main work day. For the 90 minutes or so that I was there I'd estimate there were 50-60 visitors, including a lot of children, and the volunteers seemed very pleased with the numbers.

The museum could use a gift shop or something else to help support it, I think everyone visiting would have been willing to pick up something, I know my wallet was loaded for bear.

Some of the highlights of the static displays are an impressive collection of medals, dating back to the late 18th century and including one from Waterloo. There is also a good amount of weaponry, including German war booty from both WWI and WWII. The vehicles include about everything Canada has used from WWII onwards, excepting a Ram Kangaroo (or a regular old Ram for that matter, but I doubt any exist anyways) and Leopards.

Here's a selection of snapshots from my tour, strictly of the outside tanks and other AFVs. I took more pics, but they were for painting purposes.

The running Sherman, before the festivities.

Side shot of the running Sherman.



It was quieter than I thought. Or perhaps, "not as loud as I thought" is a better way to phrase it.

The museum's other Sherman, more of a gate guardian now. Took this pic to remember the rear markings.

The museum's Centurion - man is this a big tank.

One of the M60's.

The other M60. Different camo pattern with four colours to it.

Abbott Self-Propelled Gun.

Lynx with interesting colours, that's an actual white with green.

Ferret from the front.

Ferret from the side.

Sheridan, the funkiest tank.

Silent Death Stats for Original Battlestar Galactica

There was some discussion last weekend on The Miniatures Page about BSG stats for Silent Death, and while some exist online for the new series, I never could find much for the old series, which I prefer. So I used my dusty collection of BSG notes to start statting up the ships while on a space kick last December. I also started Star Wars at the same time. Both are about 2/3 done, mainly the larger (Warhound-sized) ships are left to do.

So for those interested, here are Silent Death stats for the old school BSG fighters:


Cylon Raider
Template: Lt. TPAC
400t
30 Slots
3 Crew
36 Hits
Drive: 12
DV: 12
DR: 0
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
1 x Mk. 30 Torpedo Launcher, Fwd Arc, 10 Ammo
Poor Structural Integrity
Poor Reactor Design
Critical Design Flaw
Cargo: 2 Units (10 slots)
Cost: 33

Cylon Scout Raider
Template: Mdm. TPAC
600t
50 Slots
3 Crew
54 Hits
Drive: 16
DV: 12
DR: 0
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Poor Structural Integrity
Poor Reactor Design
Critical Design Flaw
Cargo: 2 Units (10 slots)
FTL (5 slots)
Cost: 29

Cylon Control Raider
Template: Lt. TPAC
400t
30 Slots
3 Crew
36 Hits
Drive: 12
DV: 12
DR: 0
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
1 x Mk. 30 Torpedo Launcher, Fwd Arc, 10 Ammo
Poor Structural Integrity
Poor Reactor Design
Critical Design Flaw
Cargo: 1 Unit (5 slots)
Control Unit (Cost 20, 5 Slots): Can’t fight while controlling shell fighters, can only evade; also requires 2 crew (1 per 3 shell fighters) to operate a 6 shell fighter flight. Control unit counts as two weapons for damage tracks.
Cost: 45

Cylon Shell Fighter
Template: Lt. TPAC
400t
30 Slots
0 Crew (crew hits count as ability loss) Pilot 1, Gunner 1
36 Hits
Drive: 12
DV: 12
DR: 0
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Poor Structural Integrity
Poor Reactor Design
Critical Design Flaw
Receiver Unit (Cost 5, 5 Slots): Counts as one weapon for damage tracks.
Cost: 18

(later) Cylon Heavy Raider
Template: |Mdm. TPAC
600t
50 Slots
3 Crew
54 Hits
Drive: 12
DV: 12
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
1 x Mk. 30 Torpedo Launcher, Fwd Arc, 10 Ammo
2 x Mk. 50 Torpedo Launcher, Fwd Arc, 6 Ammo (each)
Poor Structural Integrity
Poor Reactor Design
Critical Design Flaw
Cargo: 1 Unit (5 slots)
Cost: 76

Colonial Viper
Template: Lt. SPAC
100t
9 Slots
1 Crew
10 Hits
Drive: 16
DV: 14
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-3
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Armored Cockpit
Poorly Shielded Drive
Cost: 14

Colonial Viper (Improvised)
Template: Lt. SPAC
100t
9 Slots
1 Crew
10 Hits
Drive: 16
DV: 14
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-3
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Armored Cockpit
Poorly Shielded Drive
Poor Mechanical Reliability
Cost: 12

Colonial Asp
Template: Lt. SPAC
100t
9 Slots
1 Crew
10 Hits
Drive: 19
DV: 15
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-3
Armored Cockpit
Poorly Shielded Drive
Cost: 13

Colonial Azure Viper (later)
Template: Lt. SPAC
100t
9 Slots
1 Crew
10 Hits
Drive: 17
DV: 14
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-4
Twin Splatterguns (lasers), Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Armored Cockpit
Cost: 14

Colonial Scarlet Viper (later still)
Template: Lt. SPAC
100t
9 Slots
1 Crew
10 Hits
Drive: 17
DV: 15
DR: 0
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-4
Twin Impulse Guns, Fwd Arc, Infinite Ammo
Armored Cockpit
Well-Shielded Drive
Shielded Weapons
Cost: 15

Colonial Shuttle
Template: Shuttle
400t
15 Slots
2 Crew
40 Hits
Drive: 10
DV: 10
DR: 1
PD: n/a
Decoys: n/a
DC: 1-2
Cargo: 6 units (1 bay)
Cost: 19

- torpedoes are strictly air-ground or anti-ship in nature, not anti-fighter

Back on the Table Again

Had a good night last night working on 3mm Vietnam bases, the first time in about 6 weeks I'd been at the table, due to the previously mentioned work overload and sleep underload, and a bit of lack of focus. Finally broke open the DAS bag to model some terrain on the heavy weapons bases; the figures look a bit lonely kneeling in trenches or behind trees that end in the middle of nowhere. So I used the clay to extend the trees and trenches/berms, or convert the trees to trenches. I even managed to simulate tall grass with one base, matching the figure.

Less scary and time-consuming than I'd thought, although I had to break open two bags of DAS, as the one I think I bought in the late 1990's had gone bad, the newer one was fine.

I got so far along I even started up some more terrain bases on pennies. Since most of the Vietnam scenarios will feature large stretches of similar terrain (e.g. jungles), I'll use felt to delineate the terrain, then small terrain pieces to give the felt some feel. However, when I want to show something other than the background terrain, I'm working on small terrain pieces on pennies. So for example, a clearing in the jungle would be some yellow grass on the penny. Or as I worked on last night, some huts and a lone palm tree.

Pics to come later.