"ARVN from Gringos 40" Topic

Long awaited and I hope I will soon get some pics from Ged. These I have really looked forward to and I am assured they will be little guys, dwarfed by their helmets and weapons and with very tight tailored pants.

You cannot wargame VN without what was probably the single largest army involved (Never mind the quality, feel the width)

Ooh – if anybody can do these guys justice it's this range…

Can't hardly wait…

I don't think you'll get "small" ARVN from Gringos, unfortunately, judging by their VC/NVA. Empress do small Vietnamese/proportionately larger US-Aussies. No ARVN from them yet, though.

I got two platoons of ARVN from Baker Co and love them.
Can't wit to see these guys.

I wonder how they'll be armed, Garands and carbines for '62-67, or M16s and 203s for '68-75?

I always imagine ARVN as even smaller than NVA. I am counting on these not being Rambos, but short skinny guys, with standard size US kit that makes them even smaller!

Fingers crossed. ARVN I have long awaited. I have no idea why, but it is something "different" (and after yet another 51 Prussian hussars for Waterloo, I need a change!)

I have the Baker Company ARVN as well. Only one platoon with a few other figures mixed in as special characters (like the M-60 team).

Yes – there was and still is a significant difference in stature between Northern and Southern Vietnamese. 1-2" in average height today.

Would it be enough to show up in this scale? Probably not but given that 28mm are more 'cartoonish' it could be a nice touch.

ARVN should be a lot smaller than US figures anyway – averaging 5'2" – 5'4" while the US would be 5'6" – 6'4". It would mean a US figure should stand 26-30mm tall while the Marvin's would be 24-25mm high.

Keen to see the actual figures.

That is actually quite a significant mean difference between North and South and the range in both might differ too. Confirms vague hunch I had.

I agree about keen to see. After so much anticipation, I just hope they are right.

Dont worry too much about height differences between North and South. The land was a complete polyglot of heights, skin tones and body builds.

Height difference from North to South, yeah sure, but with the mass exodus of so many out of the North in 1954 it would have been near irrelevant.

The hieight differences would also be found among racial groups. The red skin toned Khmer from around the delta (lll and lV corps areas) would have been a bit taller, like 5'8" or so.

The ethnic chinese in all areas would have been all over the map in height.

The Dega or what they used to call Montagnard peoples again were all over the map and usually max out at 5'6" with skin tones closer to malaysian tribals.

Scrawny and shorter than your corn fed Iowan boys, that is about all that is important.

Way better than using all the leftover Blacktree US army figures with m1 carbines.

Anything is possible but on average, even today there is an average 1-2" difference between Northerners and Southerners.

Possibly even more pronounced then.

It was one way to ID a suspect PAVN infiltrator – bigger stature, hair cut and of course accent.

It's akin to the variation in North/South in the UK. I was average height where I was born, but slightly tall in the south where I spent several years. Here I'm a giant.

When everything is reduce to 28mm [1/64th?] you could ignore it. But IMO it would be nice to make the ARVN smaller than the PAVN by 1-2 mm. Exaggerated? – sure, but then in 28mm everything is.

and overnight we see the first releases on the website. First impressions are promising. Weaponry is mostly early stuff, which I do like. M1 carbines, even a nice BAR.

Ged has sent me one image and there are more on the site. I would love to see one of them against a US Marine to see the hoped for size difference. Certainly the officer looks "right" with Asiatic features and the scarf is a clever touch. I want helmets and weapons the same size and little gents in their characteristic rig;

Not a bad start. They do look a little nonchalant for ARVN.

Maybe more suitable for the ARVN Rangers or Airborne than standard infantry.

But overall very promising.

Liam and Skarper
thanks for al your positive input
bearing in mind the amount of effort
and research i can see why no one has
tackled the ARVN.very tricky to get right.
im very happy with the end result. and just
to put things straight, they are shorter
then the US Marines, and a good deal slimmer
about half a head (shorter),,slightly smaller then the
NVA and VC..so they match in with my range
as my figures are proper sized larger 28mm
regards
Ged
gringo40s.com
gringo40s.blogspot.com

Thanks jammy four. I am very impressed by what you have done with these and wish you much commercial success.

The ARVN was a big army with quality and performance ranging from quite motivated and competent to, well, the opposite extreme.

US propaganda tended to exaggerate the performance of their 'allies' and that included the ARVN, but that does not mean they were as useless as the grunt humour would have us believe.

There was that famous quote, basically, about "how come our VNs are not as good as their VNs?" (except the term used was not VNs).

The greatest minds in the US could not figure out an answer to that. so I doubt I can easily explain the failure of the ARVN. Hopeless and corrupt leadership, criminal misappropriation of foreign funding, lack of the ideology that was impressed on the NVA….and possibly VC, xenophobia against any foreign military input, allied or not.

But I still remember following An Loc every night on BBC News. They held out. Saigon and even their NE corner of the Citadel in Hue '68 they held out. They were the Italians of SE Asia. Regarded as rubbish, but not maybe due to the fault of any poor individual infantryman.

I bet these will all be painted as Marines, Rangers, Airborne. No one wants the boring ordinary units that actually made up the bulk.

True, we will never have a definitive answer why the ARVN performed so poorly overall.

I don't blame GRINGOS for starting with the more elite units – the USMC and US Airborne follow the same marketing strategy.

If these sell, maybe we will see some Ruff-Puffs on day…

And the Italians were not half as bad as the propaganda made them out to be either…

Totally agree on the Italians. Consider their Marine special forces record for example and the courage shown. Properly equipped and led (that was an exception), these were the same folk who once made up the Roman Legions (some of them who did so were "Italian" after all)

thanks Skarper appreciate the sentiments
im very pleased with the impact of the release
on all fronts! the ARVN in all its component parts
was a HUGE army and makes for fascinating reading
and in depth study…first tranche is now out there!

regards
Ged
gringo40s.com
gringo40s.blogspot.com

and seeing is believing. Now I am convinced. Here is the officer next to what I take to be Captain Christmas USMC Hue.

thanks for posting Liam..
the US Marine officer is indeed
Captain Christmas…

regards
Ged
gringo40s.com
gringo40s.blogspot.com

and here is a glimpse of the initial release;

thanks Liam…………….phase one of Operation A.R.V.N. progressing well!!

regards
Ged
gringo40s.com
gringo40s.blogspot.com