Top picture is my initial attempt to figure out what to do for CIDG or Strikers as all the SF Camp troops were called.
Left to Right are figure one a Gringos 40 ARVN with helmet and M16 for comparison.
Figures two and three are Black tree dsign US army troops with carbines from their WW2 range. They have had their heads cut off, drilled out and replaced by the baseball style fatigue caps from Eureka Miniatures SWAT range of body parts.
Figures five and six are again Black Tree Designs WW2 US Army with carbines again with the head convesions to jungle hats. The heads and hats for this lot were from both S&S Models who did some modern 28mm vehicle crews, gunners and artillery crew with the choice of heads. There are also some heads and hats from what used to be Dadi And Piambo modern Italian range. I think the company was taken over by Jerwood Miniatures.
The joy of these convesions are the second war belts, kit and weapons as well as the size is ok. The biggest bonus is the ability to kit these guys out with mostly carbines and a BAR and either a Thompson or Grease Gun and even an M79 per section, and for a camp defence with heavier weapons like air cooled M1919 machine guns, Bazookas, 60mm and 81mm mortars, recoilless rifles and such.
All that surplus webbing, kit , pouches and odd haversack and shovel are good things as these guys would often be sent on company sized patrols for three to seven days around their camps, often even digging in shell scrapes for the night.
I have converted an oversized platoon of each and all kinds of support weapons. Painting options are any colour of surplus clothes found in the sixties from tans and khakis to olive drab and faded jungle greens as well as any assortment of camoflage from the various duck hunter pattterns to tiger stripe. The limit to these guys is really your imagination.
I was thinking of doing another mob with heads from Empress with the Indochina french and Viet jungle hats styles too.
ponders nirvana.
