Show us yer stuff!

Cav Dog · Post by **Cav Dog** » Mon Jun 15, 2020 5:20 am

Happy Birthday!

These were used by the Army in the cold war and would've made quite a bang if we ever needed them.

Anybody know what this is and why it was "special"?

BenfromBrooklyn · Post by **BenfromBrooklyn** » Mon Jun 15, 2020 6:17 am

KamAZ Tankers!

BenfromBrooklyn · Post by **BenfromBrooklyn** » Mon Jun 15, 2020 6:19 am

Cav Dog wrote:Happy Birthday!

These were used by the Army in the cold war and would've made quite a bang if we ever needed them.

Anybody know what this is and why it was "special"?

NIKE Hercules
I believe "Special" was from the description of soldiers who volunteered to do in flight maintenance.

PolishGI · Post by **PolishGI** » Mon Jun 15, 2020 7:55 am

No clue Cav Dog! But that is a fun question to see if someone knows.

Following redlegâ€™s lead with today being the US Armyâ€™s 245th Birthday!

Picsâ€¦

Bruce Morris · Post by **Bruce Morris** » Mon Jun 15, 2020 9:38 am

Nike Hercules nuclear armed missile for knocking out Russian bomber formations in the early 1950s

redleg · Post by **redleg** » Mon Jun 15, 2020 10:20 am

Wait...nuclear surface to air missile? Won't all the nuclear stuff blow around in the wind and fall back to the ground?

Ben - those are great looking trucks! What colors did you use on the camouflage tanker? That stream looks great too!

7.62 · Post by **7.62** » Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:16 am

redleg wrote:Wait...nuclear surface to air missile? Won't all the nuclear stuff blow around in the wind and fall back to the ground?

No worries.
Most would have fired off ok with just a few accidents on the launch pads around the US cities.

The some 3,000 air to air Genie missiles with a 1.5 Kt warhead and a 10 Km range may have been more of a danger than the incoming Tu-4's at the time!
Then again most would have been fired over Canada eh!

Cav Dog · Post by **Cav Dog** » Mon Jun 15, 2020 10:20 pm

Yep Nike Hercules SAMs. Nuclear warhead carrying SAMs. The thinking was they would be used at high altitude to destroy incoming bomber formations. This particular example is at a decommissioned launch site which is being converted to a historical site in the Marin Highlands area north of San Francisco.

Interestingly, my dad was stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco and we lived in Army housing in what at the time was known as Ft Barry which was only a mile or two away from several of theses launch sites. I was a paper carrier for the SF Examiner and delivered morning papers to these sites. I had access to the command, storage and launch facilities of some of the Army's most sensitive weapons as an 11 old kid. Dog teams were a big part of the security detachment and the guards were always flabbergasted that dogs pretty much let me come and go without raising a fuss and I knew them all by name.

Later my FIL was a "Special Weapons" Ordnance Officer who commanded battalions that stored these warheads and we discussed these weapons one time. He said that they didn't consider fallout to be a big concern because the detonation would happen 60-80 miles off the coast at very high altitude and the only nuclear particles would be the remnants of the bombers and missiles which would have been a relatively small quantity and dispersed over a very large area.

The issue, even though it wasn't realized until the late 70s, would have been the EMP generated by multiple nuclear explosions, which according to him, would have blacked out and disrupted communications for the entire west coast of the US as far east as Denver and parts of Canada and Mexico.

They were replaced by the Patriot system which was much more accurate and didn't "need" the nuclear warheads he said with a wink.

Hoth_902 · Post by **Hoth_902** » Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:49 pm

Cavdog, Have you ever read the book "One Second After"? its written by John A Matherson. It talks about what an EMP pulse would do to the US. It talks about how 3 well placed, sizable airburst nucklear devices are all that are need to cripple the electronics. Its a really great book.. I have read two out of the three books. The first book was cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read.

BenfromBrooklyn · Post by **BenfromBrooklyn** » Tue Jun 16, 2020 12:09 am

redleg wrote: Ben - those are great looking trucks! What colors did you use on the camouflage tanker? That stream looks great too!

Thanks! It's all Vallejo paints. Earth Brown, green, and Iraqi Sand with a few drops of Khaki added to darken and "drab" it, otherwise the iraqi sand color can look very bright.

redleg · Post by **redleg** » Tue Jun 16, 2020 3:07 am

That's pretty interesting and scary! I still want to shoot one though!

Thanks for the info, Ben! I really like your camo!

Guroburov · Post by **Guroburov** » Wed Jun 17, 2020 9:46 am

Lovely terrain and armor Polish.

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Thu Jun 18, 2020 11:53 am

PGI that whole set-up is quire remarkable.

What miniatures gamer wouldn't drool over that table?
(Good thing you have lots of foliage to water...).

-Mark

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Thu Jun 18, 2020 11:56 am

Just a brief follow-up here.

When I posted my M10s and M36s I lamented that I could not find my M20s to complete a full TD company.

Well, I found them.

Here is an overhead view. This pic is taken in indirect sunlight.

I didn't have to do any real modelling on these pieces. Just some touch-up painting. They had all been put together and painted years ago.

This view is taken with different lighting. Makes a substantial difference. This pic was taken under fluorescent lights.

â€Œ

Each US Army TD platoon had 4 guns, and two scout cars (for the CO and the platoon SGT.

There are three platoons. The platoon leaders are in M20s posed standing with binoculars (from artillery crew sets). This makes it easy for ME to determine which is the command vehicle. The platoon Sgts are just manning the .50cals in their M20s (being the practical types that most platoon Sgts seem to be).

In the pics I have 1 M36 and 3 M10s in each platoon, but I can vary that ratio as I see fit with the extras I have.

The company HQ had a recon section with two scout cars recon section, a maintenance and supply section, and the CO and XO each had jeeps. I gave the CO a jeep with the tarp up to help me spot him on the table.

I am going to keep the HQ elements separate, so that they can serve my M18 TD company as well as my M10/M36 TD company. I also have a full TD company for Tunisia with M3s (with a platoon of M6s if I want 'em). That company has it's HQ vehicles boxed with them, as the M3 Scout Car was used only in Tunisia, but both the M3 TDs and the M3 Scout Cars were replaced by the time the TDs were in action in Italy or ETO.

I tell you what, this project took me a lot longer than I expected. After all the crew figures I have painted up over the last few projects, I think I'm done with vehicle crews for a while. Maybe just some tanks or something simple -- a little painting, some detailing, some weathering, and bang I'm done.

Yeah, that's likelyâ€¦

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Thu Jun 18, 2020 11:59 am

My next project is some M8 "Scott" assault guns.

I only painted up a couple of them. I have one company of M5 Stuarts, and these make a useful support section for the company HQ. But I can't see what I would do with all 5 that come in the package.

Still even if it's only a couple of them, I think they came out looking pretty nice.

Did I say my next project would not have crews? You didn't actually BELIEVE that, did you?

These guys were actually on the workbench at the same time as the TDs. So more part of that project than a separate project.

Next one won't be quite so fiddly. Really. I'm done with crews for a while.

Unless I change my mindâ€¦

-Mark

Show us yer stuff!

KamAZ Tankers

Missile