Rebels in a Box

Here is my generic rebel army with most of its technicals:

Article on Technicals

I found this interesting article on Technicals and their tactics on  the Modern Warfare group Facebook site.  Worth a look:

Technical Notes: A Primer

Scratch-built Tiny Machine Gun

The problem with building technicals in micro-armor scale is that there are not a lot of free-standing weapons to use and what there is, you don't necessarily want to use for a technical. For example, I see lot of pictures of technicals armed with the Russian ZPU-4 quad 14.5 mm AA gun. However, there are only two companies that make them, GHQ and Scotia. GHQ's aren't cheap, and to paraphrase another microarmor blog, they are very difficult put together. I have a pack of them, but have yet to put them together for fear of screwing up a $10 model. It was hard enough putting together their beautiful Ontos model with its four recoilless rifles; this challenge looks way too daunting. Scotia's model, on the other hand, is easy to put together, but bit too large. I can see why they made it that way in order to cast it, and it looks passable when on the ground, but I can't see it on the back of a pickup truck:

Scotia ZPU-4 with Northern Chalupistan crew

Included in the GHQ's pack of Toyota pickup trucks were some pedestal-mounted, 7.62mm M-60 looking light machine guns (GHQ Stock # TW6). As an experiment, I decided to make my own light machine gun to attach to one of the little open-topped, Trabant Kuebels that I got from Shapeways.

Step 1: Cut out Gun and Glue to Pedestal
Examining the GHQ guns (sorry, I forgot to take a good picture of them, but you can see them peeking out at the top of the picture below), I could imagine that they were made from very thin sheet styrene.
Using a very thin sheet of styene, I cut out my gun. Unlike the GHQ gun, there is no grip on mine. I couldn't imagine how they were able to either cut that out, or glue one on.  The stock on my gun looks really large, too, but I think my gun looks overall passable:

Gun cut out with car next to it.

Close up of gun with pedestal glued on it.

I then took a 2mm styrene rod at glued it onto the gun with a combo of styrene welding cement and superglue gel. I didn't want to trim it to size until I was ready to put it on the car.

Step 2: Adding a Magazine
I could have left it at that, but I couldn't be outdone by GHQ's fantastic work. With nerves of steel, I then glued a tiny block of styrene onto the gun to make the magazine:

Gun with ammo box attached

Its probably out of scale, but it will do.

Step 3: Glue the Gun to the Car
What could be easier? Unfortunately, it was not the case. Apparently, the material that these 3D printed cars are made out of seems superficially rubbery, but in reality, its brittle. Or, it could be that the primer I used made the material brittle...no matter. I foolishly thought that I could drill a shallow, little hole behind the two front seats to fit the machinegun in by using my X-Acto knife. This is what resulted:

And this:

The two halves didn't fit back together well. In addition to the two halves, there were a bunch of little shards.  So, there is no point in fixing it. I will probably use it as a bombed out car. I have not yet decided what to use the machine gun for. I have some Mamba South African APC's that could use some fire power, or I might give the Trabant Kuebel another try. I probably will give another go at making light machine guns. I doubt they will look uniform, but I think that with practice, I can make enough to equip more vehicles.

Three New Technicals

This is crazy! A new post a day after the previous one! More fun & games with my new phone and its camera!

New Kids on the Block

 I painted these guys back sometime in late summer/early fall. I think these are Scotia trucks, but I am not sure. The guns are by Heroics & Ros. Previous technicals were painted a sort of khaki green, but I've decided that from now on, technicals will be civilian colors. Though you can't tell, the front truck is armed with a WW2 German quad 20mm Flakvierling 38. These are pretty small trucks, especially the white one. Its about the same size as the GMC pickup truck that H & R makes.

"We are experiencing technical difficulties beyond our control..."

The various rebel groups that plague the Central Highlands region of Gambusia are always in need of some transportation and firepower. Transportation is easy...you walk. But what about some extra firepower for dealing with government troops? Answer: technicals. Here are some that I have made:


Above we have a GMC pickup truck (Navwar CM4) painted in a civilian red (BTW, it seems like a lot of my civilian vehicles are red...must be a popular color in Gambusia). With the addition of various weapons, we have our pickup truck technicals:


On the left, I added a Russian AA machine gun (C-in-C ACC-19) to the Navwar CM4. On the right, I added a German 20mm AA gun (Navwar FK-20). I deliberately left off a figure manning the AAMG. The figures with the appropriate pose have military uniforms, which I didn't want with a rebel.


GHQ is making some nice vehicles for their Third World Warriors series. Above is an unpainted GHQ TW7 Toyota technical with DsHK MG. As always, very nice sculpt.

I've also converted some various trucks into technicals:


The truck on the right is a Scotia FM29 VLRA Light Truck without any weapons on it. Its nice because its got a wide cargo area and no top on the cab. On the left is one with a 50 cal heavy machine gun mounted on it (C-in-C ACC-4).


On the left, I added a medium (106mm?) Scotia NE25 recoilless rifle from their neutral equipment range. On the right, I added a WWII German 37mm Flak 43 AA gun (Navwar G118).


On the left, WWII US 1 1/2-ton truck (C-in-C US-21) with a spare 106mm recoilless rifle leftover from a GHQ Ontos (VN25). On the right, WWII US 3/4-ton 4x4 Dodge gun portee (C-in-C US-17) with another medium recoilless rifle from Scotia. The gun portee worked really well; the 1 1/2-ton truck, not so much. It seems very low to the ground as compared to the other vehicles. Oh well, I guess its the "low-rider" version.

Finally, we have this funny duck....


I had ordered some French armored cars from C-in-C. Out of four vehicles in the box, three were the armored cars, but one was a light tank missing its turret. I am guessing its a WWII Japanese Type 95 Kyu-Go tank. After much soul searching, I glued on a MG turret from a OT64 SKOT 2A Polish APC (C-in-C P-3). The rebels probably found the tank rusting in someone's barn. They restored it to running condition and replaced the original turret with the MG turret due to a lack of proper ammunition for its 37mm gun. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.