First Terrain Tile for 15mm Vietnam Project

[bigjackmac]

All,

And here we are again, and I'm quite proud of myself, a lot of catching up the blog happening here.  So here's the deal: if you're not aware, I'm a former US Marine.  Now I proud myself on that fact, as well as my knowledge of Marine Corps history (and military history in general).  But I was sitting on the couch not long ago watching The Military Channel (or whatever the hell they're calling it), and a show called "Against the Odds" came on, which features various battles in which one side fought a numerically superior enemy and, if not win, they at least gave good account of themselves.  So this episode was called "The Battle of Dai Do," and I sat there and watched I was both fascinated and sickened.  Fascinated because the story was fantastic, and this single, three-day battle saw two men win the Medal of Honor and several more win Navy Crosses (2nd highest award for valor).

I was sickened, and I still am, because I'd never, ever heard of this battle before.  We're talking Vietnam, up on the 'Z; we've heard of Da Nang, Rocket City, Monkey Mountain, Hue, Khe Sanh, The Hill Fights, Operation Buffalo, etc..., but I'd never heard of Dai Do (sometimes referred to as The First Battle of Dong Ha).  Here's the Readers Digest version: immediately in the wake of the failed (from a North Vietnamese standpoint; the Viet Cong were eliminated as a force in the South) Tet Offensive, the NVA pushed an entire division of infantry across the DMZ, looking to eliminate the major logistics hub of Dong Ha and cut I Corps off from the rest of the country.  The NVA division successfully infiltrated unnoticed, but they blew it when one of their patrols fired on a Navy landing craft on the Cua Viet River (major artery running east-west in northern RVN).  The Marine Corps decided to send a company up there to check it out, and that's when all hell broke loose.

Ultimately the entirety of 2nd Battalion, Fourth Marines (the "Glorious Bastards;" I actually floated with them once on the 31st MEU) was committed to this battle, even reinforced with another infantry company, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines (I did a Tandem Thrust exercise in Australia with them), but they were committed piecemeal and with limited arty and air support.  Ultimately, five Marine rifle companies ATTACKED an entire NVA division, throwing them out of four separate villages, one at a time (the largest being the village of Dai Do), before reaching for a fifth village and ultimately being kicked out of the fourth village and back into the third village.  But at that point the Marines had so badly bloodied the NVA division that it fell back across the DMZ into North Vietnam to reconstitute.

So I quickly went to Amazon and picked up the book, "The Joint Army-Marine Defense of Dong Ha," which laid it all out for me.  I took copious notes and (focusing only on the Marine part of the battle, for brevity's sake) I compiled a book of ten separate company-sized scenarios that I want to play out on the tabletop, playing the Battle of Dai Do out (for the Marine units) in its entirety (the Army had a battalion assigned as reserve for the 3rd Marine Division, and it was called up to assault a village to secure the right - eastern- flank of the battles at and around Dai Do).

To do this I decided I needed some terrain.  Having seen several wargamers make good use of these foam mats, I decided to give it a shot, so I bought a bunch of 2' x 2' foam tiles and I'm making terrain to play out the ten scenarios.  Each table will be four tiles, so 4' x 4', and I've figured out I need to make a total of eight tiles to play this out (with a little bit of fudging ground scale).  I've been cutting, gluing, painting on latex, spray painting on texture, hand painting on dirt, drybrushing the dirt, spray painting water ways, and putting flock on like a champion, and I've just finished my very first terrain tile.

I'm very happy with it, so I figured I'd show you guys.


Here it is, 'naked.'  I plan on adding buildings, trees, and foliage when playing, but you can see a tributary, road, space for the village, rice paddies, and several trenches and fighting holes.

To see more pics, including some with troops and terrain added, please check the blog at:
http://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2016/06/first-terrain-tile-for-15mm-vietnam.html

I'm very proud of how this turned out, only seven more to go...  The only problem I'm having is with flock; I need to figure out a way to protect it, i.e., fix it in place, make it a bit more resilient to touch.  Maybe a matte spray?  I heard old fashioned aerosol hair spray might work?  Tell me what you think or know, please, it's already showing some scuff marks.

More to come!

V/R,
Jack

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Excellent.
Flock, I would apply with 50/50 water pva, and then spray varnish

[paulr]

 

I would also recommend a good spray varnish, I use Testors Dull Cote.

Some lines of green tufts in some of those paddies would set them off very nicely. Perhaps use a needle or similar to stick them in

[Techno]

Looks terrific, Jack. 

Cheers - Phil

[nikharwood]

Very nicely done, Jack 

[toxicpixie]

Cracking! Flock - decent PVA and then a fixative like a decent spray varnish. Although I'm told hairpsray also works?

[Subedai]

Great looking start. I don't know whether you've seen it but this guy has a lot of info on how he made his tiles.

http://6mm.wargaming.info/page3.shtml

MickS

[Bodvoc]

Looking good.

[bigjackmac]

Thanks everyone, glad you like them, and I'm very happy with the look.

I've got a test strip of terrain tile that I've flocked, I'll try out the hairspray and matte spray on them to see if that does the trick.  As it is, my first tile has about a 5" scrape on it already...

Paul - I'd thought about (and am still considering) putting some vegetation in the rice paddies, either using tufts or static grass.  My one concern is that, after a bit of playing and placing troops on it, it will all get mashed down and look terrible.

Mick - I hadn't seen that web page (or I had, but only the figures, didn't notice the terrain tiles), it's awesome, thanks!

V/R,
Jack

[paulr]

Paul - I'd thought about (and am still considering) putting some vegetation in the rice paddies, either using tufts or static grass.  My one concern is that, after a bit of playing and placing troops on it, it will all get mashed down and look terrible.

Good point, how about a sprinkle of flock on lines of glue, rice just coming up through the water but hopefully won't get mashed down

[bigjackmac]

You know, I think I'll give it a try with the flock.  Thanks Paul!

V/R,
Jack

[jchaos79]

haha, I had those kind of tiles for my son, when he was a baby.

Good to see you on Viet Nam topic. (is a pitty not 10mm)

[Matt J]

Excellent project idea jack, I'll follow this was interest as I m going to be doing some terrain boards for my own Vietnam project.

[bigjackmac]

JChaos - Thanks man.  And I wanted to do it in 10mm, but I couldn't get any Marines with M-14s...

Matt - Great, I can't wait to see your stuff, you're much more a crafsman than me.

V/R,
Jack