After my efforts at making bunkers for the Firebase game I decided to just buy an artillery emplacement:
It looks much better than my attempts and, as it is larger than 6" square, I think it will make two terrain elements for the Firebase, the emplacement itself and the ammunition bunker.
I also ordered two M551 Sheridan tanks. These are resin models and initially I wasn't that impressed with them, however they cleaned up nicely and I'm pleased with the final models once they were painted:
As I know little about Vietnam era tanks (or to be fair tanks in general) I did some "research" (aka Wikipedia) to find out more about them. The Sheridan was designed to be parachute dropped and to be able to swim rivers. It was introduced into the US Army in 1967 and rushed into service in Vietnam in 1969. General Westmoreland, the Vietnam C-in-C, when urged by the general staff to deploy the Sheridan to Vietnam earlier argued that it was in fact a $300,000 machine gun platform!
It appears to have had a number of drawbacks, as the hull was made of steel (!) it was very vulnerable to RPG and mines though it could stop machine gun bullets. The ammunition for the main gun was not available in Vietnam until 1968 and in any case actually firing it badly affected the delicate electronics it was fitted with. A number of upgrades were made to the model and it continued in service until 1996.
I thought perhaps I'd need more casualty figures so ordered a few packs more:
Finally I painted up some left over figures from the Esci plastic box of US Special Forces and a few odd Britannia Americans I had left over that had been on the painting table for ages including a mortar and crew and a sniffer dog and handler:
As I liked the artillery emplacement I've now ordered a command bunker, mortar emplacement and a watch tower which will give me enough stuff to complete the interior of the firebase without having to mess around with more DAS clay!
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