Danish Mechanized Battalion

GnomeCon is over and unfortunately/fortunately they didn't schedule my game. I wasn't too upset because I still had two ground units to finish painting. Now that I've got time I can finish them up at the level I want. I still plan to play the sometime after St. Patrick's Day. As for Gnome Con I still got to play some great games including Christian's new roller derby game. I also won the Rubber and Lead tournament.

Yesterday I completed one the last units needed for the ground game. That being the danish reinforcements, a mechanized battalion. Here's the unit all together with a few extras.

I'm thinking of naming the 2nd BN, Guards Hussars Regiment. The danish battalions during the 1980s were a mix of heavy light and reserve units all in the same battalion.  Now to go over the different units. First we have the two mechanized companies mounted on M113s. One platoon out each would be part of the reserves.

Next we have the battalions motorized company, mounted on Unimog trucks. This unit was also part of the reserves.

Next we have the battalion tank company, equipped with Centurions. In addition to adding baggage and ammo crates, I tried a new technique to add camouflage netting to vehicles. It seems to have work very well. 

Finally we have the battalion HQ and support units. This includes a Self-propelled 120mm mortar, a pair of jeep mounted TOW missiles, and the command track, a M113 with a lot of camo-netting on it.

Need to brush off some of the extra flock.

As for the extra's most are from the brigade artillery battalion, to include a Hamlet missile team, a 40mm Bofors AA gun, and an FO Jeep.

The other extras are a recon platoon from the divisional recon battalion and a jeep with a 106 Recoil-less Rifle to support the territorials.

The recon platoon is equipped with M41DK light tanks. These were M41 walker bulldogs that the danish pimped out with laser range finders, Thermal sights, extra armor and stowage racks. No body makes one in 6mm so I had to modify a H&R M41. Here' what the original looked like.

At first I thought doing the forward stowage racks was going to be a pain. I thought of making them out of metal mesh but felt they would look kind of hooky at this scale. Luckily in most of the pictures I saw, these tanks while in the field had their whole turrets covered in camouflage netting.

So using plastic card, I added a laser sight, some rough sides skirts, and made the turret more box like. Then using my new technique, I covered the whole thing in camo-netting. The finished result is not pretty, but it's serviceable.

I think I'll take a brake from painting modern units next week. Maybe paint some new WWII or ACW.