Mrs. History PhD's new FOW project

Having said that she was ready to begin a new Vietnam War vehicle, Mrs. History PhD has chosen to recreate her 1/285 South Vietnamese National Police Field Force M8 Greyhound (see my post of April 13, 2015) in 15mm. She's set to begin, as it arrived in the mail yesterday:

She's tinkering with it as we speak. Stand by for a follow-up post in due course when she finishes!

Addendum to "Mrs. History PhD strikes again!"

On 4/13/15, I wrote a post about Mrs. History PhD painting up a South Vietnamese National Police Field Force M8 Greyhound. 

At the time, I was positive that I had a few more photos of South Vietnamese M8's, beyond the ones I attached to that post, but I just couldn't locate where I had stashed them. Today, I just happened to blunder across the very photos!! So, here they are:

And this one I find quite interesting:

Not only has it had the front and rear fenders removed, which was not uncommon, but it seems to have run afoul of a barbed wire entanglement. It could just be that before he took off, the driver forgot that the vehicle was surrounded by barbed wire, but it makes me suspect that this was not an accident and that this vehicle was involved in the urban fighting in Saigon during Tet. The M2HB has also had its barrel either removed or broken off. 

And now these have made Mrs. History PhD want a FOW M8! 

Where will it all end? That's it for now! 

She's really cranking them out!!

During the recent research my wife did in order to paint a South Vietnamese M8 Greyhound ("Mrs. History PhD strikes again!" - April 13, 2015), she came across an article that described several ARVN M113A1's that had been locally modified by adding turrets to them taken from non-operational M8's. She (and I) found this intriguing, though no amount of Googling since then has managed to turn up a period image. Undaunted, my wife has forged ahead and I have provided the necessary bits and pieces for her very first kit-bashing!! 

M113A1's in South Vietnam, were they ARVN, US, or Australian, generally had the flat, rectangular trim vane (really just a breakwater) that you normally associate with the M113:

But not all did. Others had a modified vane that was supposed to cause less buffeting of the vehicle as it swam and provide additional flotation:

That being the case, I had just the item lying about. The unused hull of a GHQ M163 Vulcan with the modified vane. This had the added advantage of having a turret ring already cast onto it. 

So here is Mrs. History PhD's offering:

She's really taken to the "severely grubby" look that I prefer. If you've never spent time around military vehicles that have been in the field for more than an hour or two, take my word for it, you really cannot overdo the muckiness. I bought the wife a bottle of Mig Productions Vietnam Earth pigment powder:

which I have never used before, but I must say that I'm very impressed with it! If she keeps on like this, she'll bring back my "Vietnam fever"!

That's the weekend done, so more next time!

Mrs. History PhD strikes again!

A couple of days ago, after an extended absence, Mrs. History PhD voiced a desire to paint "something for Vietnam" other than the VC infantry stands that she has hitherto completed. "Maybe a vehicle...something obscure." So we sat and talked and poured over Internet images of some of the possibilities that I brought up.

After a bit, we unearthed these two images, the top one captioned "Saigon, November 1968":

The second undated, but obviously near the same time as the first. So she chose an M8 Greyhound:

The two Vietnam images are of one (or possibly two) of the eight Greyhounds operated by the National Police Field Force (NPFF in English, Cãnh Sát Dã Chiên - CSDC in Vietnamese), the paramilitary wing of the RVN National Police. These vehicles were stationed in Saigon as part of the security detachment for the National Police HQ building and the main building of the Bank of South Vietnam and they took part in the fighting during the Tet Offensive. It's a common misconception that these armored cars were left by the French, but they weren't. As part of the United States' direct military aid to South Vietnam, eighteen M8's were supplied to the RVN between 1956 and 1958. 

And here is what Mrs. PhD has turned out:

She's even added the distinctive yellow ARVN license plates, front and back.

I think she's done quite well for her first ever vehicle! I had her weather it in the orange earth style of all the rest of my Veitnam vehicles, even though the real thing wouldn't have been, being on the streets of Saigon and not in the countryside. 

A fine job sweetheart!