More Bundu!

I bought a welcome mat today but it says it in Welsh. Will cut this up to make patches of grass for my battle field.

Also bought more scouring pads to make more acacia trees.

I have also had some pieces of framing backing cardboard  from my framer today which I will use to make the tracks and river beds, bu painting with burnt umber acrylics and then glueing sand and scatter on them. Must visit the beach tomorrow to collect more.

Will also be ordering 15 acacia tress but may make some more my self. 4D modelshop.co.uk which is based in London.

I PVA glued my acacia trees to cardboard to give them more stability. Must blue sand and scatter to those next.

Found some excellent stone chippings in the garden today and have cleaned them , ready to glue to the scenery.

 

 

Creating the Bundu.

I have dug out an old rock outcrop I made many years ago out of clay, and painted it.

I have resurrected old acacia trees which I made out of wire lengths and modrock wrapped round the trunks and branches. I have pulled apart kitchen scourers and with PVA glue, glued flock to the scourers to make the foliage of the tree.

Hills and ridges are made of polystyrene, painted with burnt umber acrylic and then glued with PVA and various scatter applied. Included sand from the beach. I found there was no need for painting and dry brushing.

At the moment a load of polystyrene ridges and hills are drying. These will give me ground features on my battle field which was the Rhodesian Bundu.

I also made a Baobab tree but would like to improve on it.

I also have an old Kraal in a box so this will add to the scene.

Dirt roads and dry rivers are the next items to be made.

Aircraft Stands

I recently bought Aircraft Bases with magnetic rods.

I based the resin bases on to card to give them more stability with the heavier 28mm Eureka G-cars.

I painted the resin base with a dark earth colour and then with PVA glue, glued sand and fine rocks to the base. I found these looked good enough for African terrain, without painting. I later glued dry grass to the bases.

You will have to buy washers to glue to the bottom of your aircraft, so the magnetic end can attache to it. I struggled to find smaller washers in B&Q but I will try a local hardware store next for my smaller aircraft.

Extract description from the S & S Models site for this product:-

Product Description

There are quite a few gamers who like to have their aircraft flying over the table so we designed these bases.

They are made to look like a tree stump and have a 9mm hole drilled in them to accept a standard telescopic & magnetic rod from one of those magnetic pick up tools often found in car tools shops for picking nuts ect from inaccessible places.

Magnetic rod supplied

RAR 1st Wave Sticks Completed

I have now completed my three 1st Wave sticks for an RAR Fire Force.

Eureka 28mm figures

Still need to add telehands to the two African stick leaders. Telehands high on left shoulder.

Any spare figures left over from my packs will be converted to make troops for the back of my vehicles. Pilots will make good vehicle riders once head changed, joy stick removed and an MAG or FN in the shoulder.

Jumbo Fire Force.

With the advent of Jumbo Fire Forces in 1979 three extra G-cars or two SAAF Puma helicopters created extra 1st Wave capability. This had come about because of the deployment of AB 205s (Cheetah) in the Special Forces roll thus freeing up more G-cars. SA also made Puma helicopters available during this period. SA Forces by deploying parabats and SAAF, in one way learned from Rhodesia experience in the field.

K-car 28mm Eureka model.

I have just spent today completing the Eureka 28mm K-car model. Very nice!

See attached a series of photographs showing how it was put together and painted.

G-car crew and cab detailing

Eureka 28mm G-car model.

As mentioned earlier I am doing these G-cars in their last format with twin brownings and front seats removed and replaced with light weight bench facing backwards.

Bench made from spare resin bench cut in half and backed with plastic card and glued into place.

The crew wear one piece flight suites which came in the plain light green colour or in Rhodesian camouflage. Much favoured by Rhodesian paratroopers.but some crew would wear shorts and Rhodesian camouflage combat jacket and trousers and others would wear shirts and shorts.

Kosta an opportunity to do a crew variation by doing bare legs for Tech air gunner.

Note I have added miliput to Tech to show body armour.

Note mix of colours on crew unifoms. See photographs.

Black and white photos show an earlier G-car with single browning or MAG mounts but demonstrates crew uniforms of the period. This is an RAR Fire Force with African troops shown. Other photo of swarm shows late crews preparing.

 

 

RAR FIRE FORCE STICKS

I have just started up grading my G-car sticks to RAR troops and changing  to the appropriate poses for trooping in helicopters.

Hats removed and in stuffed in shirts.

Weapons in laps pointing out of the helicopter.

Stick leader with head set on to listen to pilot and the talk on to the target. Also a tele hand attached to left side of webbing, high so that stick leader only had to angle head and using left hand to press pressel switch to listen to transmissions. The stick leader could still use his FN in his right hand while using his radio. Both were made and shaped from milliput.

RAR usually wore full kit so all wearing trousers. A blob of resin glue to create trousers bottoms.

My spare African heads put on the new figures

I will have to buy extra packs of G-car crews but I will use my extra MAG Gunners as per the latest lists.

G-car – Eureka 28mm model details

I have nearly completed my Eureka 28mm model of the Rhodesian Air Force G-car.

Note safety rail near rear tail rota is actually yellow and green.

Tips of main rota are red.

I still have the main rotas. antenna and red light on top of cab to put on.

I have added a number of detail photos which you might find of interest. Also included is the AVTUR barrels used to refuel G-cars in the field. These could also come in red but stick with the grey version.

Humbrol paints:- Dark Earth and Dark Green are the main colours. I added a little dark earth and a touch matt black to the Dark Green. If you want to lighten just add a touch of matt white.

Rhodesian Air Force 1/72 models

I have made up a series of the main aircraft used by the Rhodesian Air Force during Fire Force operations.

Most of the camouflage schemes are reasonably accurate. I have a few things to add to some of the aircraft.

Note the Islander was a utility aircraft used for transporting and picking up parachutes from the FAFs for return for repacking.

2RAR Fire Force

This is an extract from Chris Vincent, A Company  2 RAR. Serving in Fire Force during the period 1977-1979. With more MAGs coming available more were distributed among the sticks. Chris had x3 MAGs in his stick, and x2 in his other sticks, and considered A Coy had extremely good kill rates because of the heavy fire power.

“A” Company 2RAR ~ Fire Force Orbat Variations:
Overall Fire Force Commander: Company Commander (Major) c/s 19

Stop 1:
Commander: Lt or 2nd Lt
MAG Gunners x 3

Stop 2:
Commander: Snr NCO (PWO, C/Sgt or Sgt)
MAG Gunners x 2
Rifleman x1

Stop 3:
Commander: Lt, 2nd Lt or Snr NCO
MAG Gunners x 2
Rifleman x1

*Note: Some of the gunners may have been junior NCO’s (Cpl or L/Cpl)

Para Sticks:
4×4 men sticks + 2 spare NCO’s with radio’s who could be used to replace anyone that may have been injured in jump from 500′ ~ the 2 extra NCO’s [call-signs “Wanker 1 & Wanker2”] jumped with the 2 port side sticks because on some [rare] occassions not all paras were dropped .. if nobody was injured, the two “Wankers” packed up all the
parachutes on the DZ for recovery later.

Port side of C47:
C/S Vulture 1:
Commander: Lt or 2nd Lt
MAG Gunners x 2
Rifleman x1

C/S Vulture 2:
Commander: NCO (PWO, C/Sgt, Sgt, Cpl or L/Cpl)
MAG Gunners x 2
Rifleman x1
C/S Wanker 1 NCO & Wanker 2 NCO

Starboard side of C47:
C/S Vulture 3:
Commander: Lt, 2nd Lt or Snr NCO
MAG Gunners x 2
Rifleman x1

C/S Vulture 4:
Commander: NCO (PWO, C/Sgt, Sgt, Cpl or L/Cpl)
MAG Gunners x 2
Rifleman x1
*Note: Some of the gunners may have been junior NCO’s (Cpl or L/Cpl)
cont page 2 …

Page 2
The Company 2ic (Capt) would remain at Fire Force base to help co-ordinate any CASEVAC’s they may be required and to dispatch the “Land Tail” wth up to 16 x 4 man

Sticks (C/S’s Stop 4 to Stop19) and additional fuel (AVTUR) for the helicopters and extra Ammo and 60mm Mortar crew to road location near the contact area ~ Note: and tail was only dispatched when there was a road within 15-20mins flying of contact area and that the land tail could reach within a couple of hours … Other factors considered before
dispatching the land tail were recent land mine activity in the area of the contact.

During RAR Fire Force Operations, the Callsign personnel were rotated every couple of days, but the Company Commander & Platoon Commanders went on every call out!!

FIRE FORCE Air Force Compliment:
Although it varied from time to time, the standard Air Force compliment and Air Force personnel in a Fire Force make up was:

K-Car (Allouette III with 20mm Cannon)
K-Car Pilot was in overall command of all aircraft within the Fire Force
Aircraft Technician (20mm Gunner)

(Ground forces commander Major, or  could be Capt or Lt would fly in the K-car)

3 x-G-Car (Allouette III’s with 2 x .303 Browings)
G-Car Pilots
Aircraft Technicians (Twin .303 Gunners)

Cessna 337 (Lynx) Call sign prefix “Hornet #”
1 x Pilot
Aircraft armed with 2 x .303 Browings (above cockpit)
2 x 15 gallon FRANTAN (Napalm) bombs
2 x (15x37m) SNEB Rocket pods
Note: Later part of war, small +/- 100lb Golf-Bombs were sometimes used in place of
FRANTAN

Douglas C-47Call sign prefix “I can’t recall!”
2 x Pilots
Aircraft Technician x1
PJI x2

Other aircraft that could be called to support Fire Force Operations depending on the number of gooks sighted etc were:

Hawker Hunter FGA-9
Normally dispatched in Pairs to support FF Ops
Call sign prefix “Red #”
Armed with 30mm Cannon & mix of 1,000lb bombs &/or 1,000lb “Golf” Bombs, &/or
68mm Matra Rockets, &/or 67mm SNEB rockets

English Electric Canberra’s
Call sign prefix “Green #”
For Fire Fire Ops, Generally armed with “Alfa Bombs” (Bouncing bombs)

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

Note the 1st Wave RAR sticks waiting for the call! The numbers of MAGs can be seen.