discussion Vietnam Diorama - 1:35 - US troops/vehicles, etc

[pjgtech]

As I am taking part in the current US Icons GB, I may actually end up doing several vehicles, and I also have a few US Vietnam based figures, so I thought once they are all built they might look good in a diorama.
So I am thinking of some sort of Vietnam based dio, maybe a bit of jungle, (never done jungle before, Gulp!) maybe some water, maybe a hut or building, maybe a small jetty for a patrol boat. TBH, I really have not fully decided yet, as it will depend largely on what I build for the US GB, and I have several options, so whatever I end up building will go in this dio, so this is sort of a holding thread,

So far I have my ongoing build of a US M706 armoured car, used in Vietnam, also in other theatres.
I also have a US M113 ACAV that I may use?
I also have several US troops based in Vietnam, general soldiers, plus a couple of Vienamese, "Ladies" and their, erm, chaperone (eg: Pimp!) and a couple of MP's.
Now, as my M706 has a couple of MP decal schemes, I was thinking of some sort of MP based theme?
I also have US PBR patrol boat.....I have the makings of a jungle type hut.....

To be continued..... Cheers

 

[toto]

Bring it on .... popcorn at the ready.

Toto

 

[pjgtech]

Still not decided on what to build exactly, but was playing around with few base boards, laying out vehicles, etc, then I remembered I had a bamboo type hut from an old Airfix Frontier Checkpoint set. NB: I had previously used the little checkpoint hut and checkpoint barrier in my Poor Bloody Infantry (PBI) build last year. It would certainly be suitable for a jungle type scenario....
So this is a possible layout.....


If I use it, I may cut the supports down a bit as I think its too high? I may also distress it a bit as it looks in too good condition IMHO.
But its a possible option....

 

[pjgtech]

I did think about a larger dio, using several foam sheets and the US PBR boat, but laying it out on the base it is HUGE! The PBR alone takes up almost one whole A4 sheet of foam base board! so if I had one or two vehicles, plus a building or jungle hut checkpoint, plus few figures, plus water, etc, it would probably need to be at least x4 sheets of A4, so whats that? erm A2 size! Bit too large for me at the moment, so I'm almost certainly going to be scaling it down a bit to one, or possibly two sheets of A4 foam max.....

 

[John Race]

Sitting waiting Peter, looks interesting.

 

[pjgtech]

Ok, so decided to chop down the jungle watchtower, so its now a lot shorter. I think I'll use some of the off cut bamboos to add an extra vertical support to each side under the hut, in the middle of the two diagonal poles, which I think is how it would have been done.
It looks a bit better on the board now, not so large and overpowering/overbearing!
Also primed it up now ready for painting, and added some distressing, as it was far too pristine, so a few split bamboo poles, few holes, some bullet holes, etc.