Friday 29 January 2016

From JohnM: USMC Platoon Pacific 1942-43 (192 points)

These troops were finished a couple of weeks ago, but the tufts to decorate the bases just arrived. This is about half of the troops needed for my Chain of Command USMC platoon for a Guadalcanal campaign. Most of the troops are from Warmodelling, but I supplemented the support teams with troops from the PSC US Heavy Weapons Box.
Squad 1: made up of a JL, a BAR and 7 riflemen.
Last year I put a lot of work in researching the WWII Pacific theatre (I knew absolutely nothing about this aside from reading Norman Mailer's Naked and the Dead many years ago as well as watching the The Pacific mini-series). My main goal was to put together a CoC Army List for the type D USMC organization. A Type E organization list already existed but this was quite different that what was used in the 1942-43.

Squad 2: ditto, in 1942 most men and officers carried the M1903, by the latter part of 1942, the  M1 became available.
I game WWII in 1/72, and in metals there is not a whole lot of choice aside from Eureka and Warmodelling. There are a 2-3 other companies who make metal figures but they all looked like grunting chimpanzees to me. I had bought a couple of boxes of Waterloo 1812 plastic figures, and they were quite nice but I really am not keen to use soft plastic. Lovely slender sculpts though and they have figures for both the USMC and the Japanese. I can recommend them if you want plastics.

I had used Warmodelling for my Winter War Finns, they are nice sculpts but the casting was quite poor. I had been assured that when Battlemodels took over that the all casts were going to be re-done. Unfortunately they were not and the models suffer from the same problem with especially poor faces and a lot of flash that is almost impossible to remove.

M2, 50 cal HMG, one of the few guns with AP ability. The gun is from PSC as well as the most of the team.
Anyway, I went ahead and painted them up and they look OK. I am still missing rifle, BAR and raider squads and these are on the way from Eureka Miniatures. These are much nicer figures, my Japanese Platoon which is next up on the painting table is made up of both Eureka and Warmodelling, the Eureka Japanese are quite nice and I am sure that their USMC figures will be equal in quality.

M1917, 30 cal MMG, the USMC support teams had big crews.
Each group is described in the captions and I did enjoy putting together the force.

Bazooka Team
M1919, 30 cal LMG with a 3 man crew.
Flamethrower Team
Forward Observer
Five man 60 mm Mortar team.
For those who are interested here is the list I developed for CoC, it has got big Rich's stamp of approval. You can download a pdf here and read about it's development here.







Well, more US Marines for today! It's great to see the Pacific Theatre of WW2 drawing more attention and interest all the time, and I'm sure these fine figures will make for a great force in Chain of Command (an awesome set of rules).  You've done some excellent work here John, between the camo and the groundwork, I can sense the heat, humidity and bugs of the Pacific...and considering the weather outside my house right now, you have no idea how nice that seems!

I sympathize with your experience on the Warmodelling products - very, very unreliable quality and some abominable castings.  It's disappointing the commitment to redo the molds has apparently not been followed up. But good to see there are other options out there, and you have made good use of the US figures from Plastic Soldier Company. Thank you also for sharing this info on the Pacific for Chain of Command, I'm sure there are many folks who will appreciate it.

These lads will net you 192 points.  We are looking forward to seeing their Japanese opponents soon!

19 comments:

  1. I do love a well researched and produced unit. well done

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  2. These look excellent John. I really like your use of the long tufts to convey the Pacific setting. I think I may have an earlier draft of that CoC list. Wonderful stuff! That is a tremendous amount of work and I for one really appreciate you putting it all together. Thanks for providing us copies here!

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  3. Nice paintwork and basing, you done better than me on the camos;-)
    Who is the maker of tout grass tufts please?

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    1. Damn keyboard!I would say your grass tuft please ?
      Semper fi!

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    2. Tamija1 makes the tufts, wonderful stuff.\

      John

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  4. Nice to see the Pacific theater represented. What those men went through making those beach landings is beyond horror.

    You did a lovely job with these and I particularly like your basing. Those tufts worked perfectly for the setting.

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  5. Lots of Leathernecks this year. Lovely work John :)

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  6. Nice to see you can still mass produce when needed! ;-)

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  7. I can see what you mean with the sculpts but I must say the painting has covered up many of the flaws. The Basing is first Rate Great work

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  8. Very nice, the bases really enhance the setting of the Pacific!

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  9. Very nice .. Often tempted with the Pacific island campaigns .. Nice to see some such good work

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  10. Thanks you all, I am up to my neck in little plastic bamboo pieces in order to make a jungle, it has been one of my more challenging terrain projects.

    John

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  11. Nice work John! The basing is especially good, really evocative of the theatre.

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  12. When you see these you just want to get a set and give it a go. My word I think I shall!

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  13. Very cool basing on them! For the soft bodies, you painted them up well! They will certainly get the job done. I look forward to your reinforcements and jungle! ;)

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