If you follow me at all, you probably know that it was some time ago that I put out the first issue of COMBAT PATROL, or TASK FORCE COMBAT as I am now calling it. You would also know that I have been pretty busy modeling Shermans and Half-tracks and putting together troops. Thought it might be time to pull all those efforts together in one post and show where I currently am with the project.
At some point in time my good friend Phil Ball (Gray Ghost) got interested in the project and asked if he could be a part of building this unit. Which got me to thinking that maybe other members of the SSCC Ohio club might want to be a part of working on Task Force Combat. So with that in mind, I created the above manual and maps as a sort of "membership kit" for those club members who were interested in participating. The manual briefly shows the historical use of the Task Force concept as employed by the 4th Armored Division and outlines how I am borrowing it for the online comic. Once I finish this post, I will create a button below that will take you to a page where the manual pages and maps are displayed. It might be interesting to some (or not) to see where I am going with it.
In the meantime, thought I might spend the remainder of this post talking about what we have accomplished so far in building up our TASK FORCE. You will be able to see the composition of the Task force on one of the manual pages which lists the various units be vehicle number and serial number.
Below is my half-track with a Hasbro Jeep, these two vehicles make up the acting recon unit of the task force.
Below is my half-track with a Hasbro Jeep, these two vehicles make up the acting recon unit of the task force.
Below are the first two vehicles that I put together for the unit. Two M5 Stuarts that I have had for years. I basically just started over again on them adding new periscopes from castings that I created, periscope guards from brass and brass tie-downs. One of the Stuarts received a tool box and on the other one I just redid the tools, tying them down to the tie downs with leather straps
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I didn't go as crazy as Robert Steinbrunn, who did that fabulous book on re-doing an M5 in 1:6th, but I did what I could on the cheap. Both of these vehicles belong to 1st Platoon, Company D, which is a light tank company. Phil has two more Stuarts and SSCC member, Eric B. the fifth tank, which would complete the unit.
The next vehicle in my 37th Motor Pool is this Dodge Weapons Carrier. It was converted from a 21st Century Command Car. It is one of two that the unit currently has, though Phil's is in need of major repair after taking a tumble off of a shelf. The vehicle has room for a squad of eight. During the rebuild, I articulated the front wheels so that they could turn left and right for photography purposes.
By the time that American forces arrived in France, the White Scout Car was already obsolete, replaced by half-tracks and armored cars such as the M8. French and British forces continued to use the ones that America no longer wanted, but in U.S. service they were mostly used by MP units and engineers. This particular one has survived finding new life as a Task Force Command Vehicle. It has been highly modified with added resin seats and a scratch built radio. The gun ring has been lowered to look more correct. The doors reworked, tie downs added and more. Oh yeah, the front wheels were articulated on this one as well. I believe Phil has another White Scout Car which would be used as an Engineer unit vehicle.
Of course there is no end to the number of Jeeps that club members own, both Dragon and 90's Hasbro. These two versions are fairly compatible in size and with just a little bit of work, the Hasbro Jeep can look really good. This particular one below is the Dragon pre-built version. I have four Jeeps total, 2 Hasbro and 2 Dragon. Phil has a number of Jeeps as well and I am certain that participating club members have additional ones.
This was my first Sherman, the Dragon M4A3. I got this one from a former club member and after making a few repairs and adding some details, such as plate armor on the hull and turret, it got a paint job and markings for the 37th Tank Battalion. We now have four Shermans in the unit and they are all part of 2nd Platoon, Company B.
Below are the other three. Two of the three were made from kits. I think Phil and I are in complete agreement that they were the worst model kits we ever put together. The instructions were horrible and there were many things about the parts themselves that made me wish I had never started it. The hull was terribly warped and many of the locating holes for the tools and other small parts had never been drilled (or cast... or however they do it). Don't get me wrong, it will make into a nice model when it is all said and done, I'm just saying that you need to be aware that there will be some problems along the way. All that said, here is the rest of 2nd platoon.
Probably the vehicle what will make our Task Force unique is our collection of three M2A1 Half-tracks. By the time the Allies landed in Normandy the M2 was already going the way of the Scout Car, being replaced by the new M3. But there were plenty of M2s in France and they continued to be used in a variety of rolls. Our Half-tracks are based on the WHITE CO. M2A1. The lure for me of building the M2 vs. the M3 was that I knew we could use the Front of the White Scout Car as our starting point. I also knew that the M2 was only about a foot longer than the Scout Car and that scaling the model off of the 21st Scout Car would allow us a little bit of wiggle room, using the Hasbro running gear from their half-track. Because we went that route, the steps on the back of our half-tracks is far from correct, but it allowed us to use the smaller running gear.
As you can see from this construction photo, even with some of the compromises I had to make in the build, our M2 is much larger than the Hasbro half-track. It's wider, longer and higher (no it can't leap tall buildings).
And that's pretty much where we are at this point in time. Once the winter weather warms up a bit, I am hoping that the members of the 37th can get together and do a first photoshoot, which will then be put into comic form. The Maps will be used to create the story outline and from that I will determine what scenes we need to tell the story. A little different than a typical SSCC photo shoot, but it should be a lot of fun to work on the story together. Hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes.
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