CASE-2X-M: Mod 2 Backpack Corpsman Variant WIP

The claw arms are magnetized and not only move, but are also swappable.

And as you can see from the above picture I've finished assembling a new Dog. This one is meant for Corpsmen to ride in.

I side stepped the whole Corpsman issue in Bad Dog by the simple expedient of having the company deploy from a CSN Hornet, part of a MEU. In Strike Dog and Ghost Dog my Corpsman character Keith deploys in a MARPACE power armour suit.

However, the next Tachikoma novel, Red Dogs, the story really requires the Corpsman to be part of a combat armour squad.

After talking to a real life Corpsman, you know who you are, I was informed that Corpsmen go off and do special forces stuff that makes them suited for special operations. How could I resist? So after some fiddling around with magnets I made this new Dog.

 

My thoughts behind the CASE-2X-M: Mod 2 are that it's a engineering variant optimized for medical interventions. Hence the claw arms for opening up damaged Dogs to remove their occupants.

Arms swapped over into the stowed position. And I need to unbend that gun part.

This also of course means I have the option on now building a CASE-2X-E: Mod 2 engineering variant. Oh the burden of having ideas.

But before I build that I actually have to build a CAS-1-Mod 3E Ape combat armour engineers suit, which will feature in my next Gate Walker series story: Two Moons. All fun to do. Just have to get some more parts together. I see an order with Dream Pod 9 in my future.

  

CAS-1-Mod 3 Third Model

As those of you who follow my writing blog will know I've had a bit of a setback with my rheumatoid arthritis, which has meant going back on medication. This has discombobulated me considerably. I've not felt like doing anything much.

 

Even when I did feel like making something, my hands would tell me otherwise. Good news is that things are slowly improving.

 

As you can see, I managed to get the third of my Special Forces team Ape combat armour suit completed. Not only that I had a spurt of enthusiasm and got the primer out too.
  

CAS-3-Mod 1C

This is the command variant of Army Ape combat armour suit. Yes, I am that obsessive about building all the different variants of the combat armour suits that appear in my novels. What can I say?

 

Above shows the rear, while the picture below shows a side view of the main armament, which in this case is meant to be a Browning fifty cal.

I'm still working on the third version of this suit.
   

Espera's Ape Suit WIP

Finally got around to finishing off the conversion for the recoilless rifle for Espera's CAS-3-Mod 1 Ape combat armour suit. The delay being down to Real Life stuff, some of it health related that just got in the way of doing stuff.

Side view above, and rear view showing the inverted Heavy Gear engine packs.

Still the most pleasing part of this conversion is the M134 minigun on the arm. Labour of love to make that. Now all I have to do now is repaint the model. Easier said than done.
  

CAS-3-Mod 1 Ape Suits WIP

  

Work in Progress: left to right: third attempt at making Espera's recoilless rifle, next is McAdams's command variant, and though I went with a different weapon, this is a Nguyen's Ape combat armour suit (see below for more info).

CASDA 5136, Combat Armor Suit Detachment Alpha, is my Green Beret Special Forces unit that appears in my second novel Strike Dog. As I was writing this piece up, I realized when I described CASDA 5136 in the book, that I had created a force that was doctrinally different to my Marine Corps 1st Combat Armor Suit Reconnaissance Company.

I was just writing a cool action sequence for a character in a combat armour suit. But on reflection, it's clear to see that by describing the weapon loadouts I created a force that was functionally different to the one I described in Bad Dog.

That is what I would call, creatively serendipitous.

Anyway, I've been looking at my Ape suits (acronym for: Autonomous Pilot Expert-system) and in particular Sgt. Espera's weapon loadout. In Strike Dog I describe him having a recoilless rifle, but my first attempt at instantiating one was less than satisfactory, and I rebuilt it using the parts I had for the Marine gauss rifle. Comparisons of both can be seen here.

Hence this new build. I still have to do some further work involving Milliput, but I'm liking the shape and feel.

I have parts for three more Army Apes tucked away, so my plan is to make half of CASDA 5136. The other six mechs would be identical, as in carrying the same sort of loadouts. My thoughts being that each half of the detachment was a mirror of the other. Like this.

Combat Armor Suit Detachment Alpha 5136

Captain Anthony Downey, detachment commander
Master Sergeant Campbell, operations and team sergeant
Staff Sergeant Morales, combat engineer
Sergeant Mary Lewis, communications
Sergeant Schmidt, medical
Sergeant First Class Frank Radoslovich, weapons

Chief Warrant Officer 1 Andrew McAdams, assistant detachment commander
Sergeant First Class Thomas Nguyen, assistant operations and intelligence
Staff Sergeant Julia King, combat engineer
Sergeant Miguel Sanchez, communications
Sergeant Daniel Robinson, medical
Staff Sergeant Juan Espera, weapons

So, Espera is the heavy weapons specialist, hence he carries the big recoilless rifle. Though a fat lot of good it does him, but to say more would be spoilers.
  

Chinese ZTZ-169C WIP

Work in Progress: Brass and stainless steel tubing barrel originally for a recoilless rifle I made up.

I was working on making up another CASE-2XC and made the barrel far too large. Having removed it I sat wondering what to do with it? I'd spent a bit of time cutting tubes and it seemed a shame to let it go to waste, so I put it on my Ral-Partha Demolisher tank, which I presented as an ongoing project back here.

Gribbly parts from my spares box, gunner from a Sheridan.

I then dressed the model up with bits and pieces from my parts box, and hey presto, one ZTC-169C ready to go to the paint shop.

So, even though progress has been slower than a snail race, I am managing to move models through the production line. Painting though remains a thing that I have to be in the right mood to do.

For size comparison next to a Takara 1/144th scale T95 Black Eagle.

  

CASE-2XC: Mod 2 Backpack WIP

Work in Progress: not glued together, which is why the gun barrel is on the ground.

I'm in the process of making up a third variant of Tachikoma's Dog. This is based on the description of her combat armour in the Gate Walkers book three, Ghost Dog. I started the project knowing I wanted to add an over the shoulder mount.

This third Dog is "loaded for bear," mounting a large rifle, as well as sporting a rocket pack.

Work in Progress: showing barrel fabrication.

As you can see I took a backpack from a Stone Mason twin-set which I had bought a while ago from Dream Pod 9, when you could only get the Stone Mason in pairs. So, this leaves me short for making up the other model.

Look at this lovely, pity it was the wrong type of recoilless rifle.

I started to make up a recoilless rifle using a Dream Pod 9 part, called a very light field gun. I even added exhaust ports. I was feeling very pleased with the work, but thought the barrel was a tad long and needed shortening. Which I did.

However, I'd forgotten what I wrote in my novel, wrongly remembering I'd said she used a recoilless rifle, whereas in fact I wrote recoilless gauss rifle.

The gauss being the important part of the description.

There was some cursing. A gauss rifle is an entirely different beastie, and more to the point a design that I have already made on two previous occasions.

Moving on.

After discussions with Fritz, one of my specialist Beta readers, I realized I needed to think more about Corpsman Keith's role. As a result, I'm putting him in a Corpsman's combat armour suit , which will appear in book five; Dead Dogs (provisional title). So I've started to make up Marine Engineer combat armour suit, which I've teased elsewhere.

Before then though, I need to finish writing Two Moons, which has an Army engineering combat armour suit, which I'm also currently designing.

More will be revealed in due course.

NB: You can see how the models are used to inspire the cover art for my novels here.
  

Accos, Thousands of Them!

Taken with my Olympus 7-14mm F2.8 Pro, at 7mm, F5.6, 0.3 secs, ISO 200. Crop from 64 megapixel Hi-Res shot. Disappointing picture, as F5.6 didn't provide quite enough depth of field.

My beloved told me to do something creative.

I was being all distracted by stuff on the internet, which was not doing my mood any favours. So ordered, I sat at my workbench, and made up three Heavy Gear Accos for my Bad Dog project. I say Bad Dog Project, but as has been pointed out to me, everything is Bad Dog.

I blame it on working on my Bad Dog universe novels for the last five years. Five years, which is a thing in and of itself too.

Also a little soft because it was taken at F5.6.

I took both this pictures with my wide-angle zoom, but currently my camera settings are all over the place after upgrading the firmware. Hence both these pictures got taken at F5.6, which means the depth of field gradient is soft.

I will remember to check that the camera is set to F8 in the future.

Chinese ZTZ-169C

As you can all guess, with Terror Tree now out, tanks, especially large tanks, have been on my mind.

These are old Ral Partha Demolisher tanks from the original FASA BattleTech miniatures range.  Back in the day, when I was young, I bought one, which despite my best efforts to shed stuff over the years I still have.  It's the one at the back.

Over the past few years I acquired two more, which were originally bought to be turned into cybertanks for Ogre/GEV.  But I have a shed ton of Ogre cybertanks, so they've become surplus to requirements.

Since then, I've been of two minds about what to do with them. 

As a BattleTech tank, it really is way too big to use, if you agree that the battlemech models are accurate 1/300th scale representations.  If on the other hand, like me, you're in the habit of using the Dark Age Mech Warrior infantry for your BattleTech games, because they look better, then these Demolishers do look the business.

They would also make a reasonable 15mm, nominal 1/100th scale tanks too.  So, decisions, decisions.

After much thought, I've decided to use them as part of my ongoing Bad Dog project, as I want some tank to support my Chinese All Terrain Suits, and I've given them the designation ZTZ-169C.  I think that the Demolisher looks pretty good next to these Chinese All Terrain Suits I made.  Big without being too big, and one can rationalize the treads as independent electric drive units.

So time to strip the two partly painted models and reassemble them.
  

On My Work Bench

When I'm not out shooting pointy sticks at round things (you've seen the post on archery I did earlier) I've been using Milliput to make a new part for my RAFM Cheetah.  While waiting for the Milliput to harden I thought to distract myself with something else, as I just wanted to sit at my bench and fiddle with stuff. 

I could've done some painting, but conditions are not ideal as the summer heat makes the paint dry faster, which I find rather annoying.  My excuse, and I'm sticking to it!

Anyway, I delved into my stash of Heavy Gear miniatures, and sorted out all the pieces to convert them into combat armour for use in my own Bad Dog universe setting.  So, the above picture shows two combat armour suits nearly finished being assembles, and five more with all the parts sorted out for me to proceed to the next stage.

It was fun, even if it was a distraction from finishing other projects.  A wargamers curse of unfinished projects that build up from being distracted by shiny things.
  

Russian Walker Combat Group

And here are my Russian walker conversions that I've completed so far.

This project seems to have dragged on longer than I intended down to being distracted with other things, and being undecided on how to organize them.  My friend Roger suggested in a comment that I use, the Russian motorised rifle company layout–a total of twelve vehicles, of which something like nine are general purpose, two are special purpose (carrying the machine gun / anti-tank platoon in the original) and one is command/HQ.

So, I will need to assemble three more Accos, and then I can start painting them.

Also, as a result of this decision, I've decided that my Ammon conversions will be used as part of my 15mm Heavy Gear Force project and plan to get a Moab and add two extra legs as a support walker.

Heavy Gear Mods

After fixing my RAFM Hunter Commando I was looking at my Hunter conversion I made to represent Sergeant Espera's APE suit, from my second novel, and thought I can do better than that.  Such is the burden of being self-critical.  Below is the original conversion.

I think my rearranging of the weapons loadout and replacing the boxy rifle looks better.  While it's a pain to rebuild models when they're in the process of being painted, I wasn't going to be happy with it until I did.
  

Further Size Comparisons

 

Last year I posted a piece comparing the size of Dream Pod 9 Gears/Mechs against a scale real world vehicle.  And then another piece looking at the size of the Visigoth tank next to an Abrams.

This time I'm comparing a RAFM era 1/87th scale Hunter Command with a 1/144th scale Hunter conversion next to 15mm–1/100th scale–Abrams and a 1/144th scale Abrams with a Clear Horizon Epsilon 15mm miniature and a MechWarrior Dark Age 10mm Grey Death Legion power armour figure.

What does this mean?

I've been bitten by the accidental purchase of six RAFM era Gears.  I say accidental because I put a low bid on them not expecting to win, but I did: hence accidental.  Now I have the urge to acquire more RAFM Gears because they're lovely and shiny, must catch them all...

Realistically, if I can get hold of a couple of Southern Gears then I'll probably be satisfied as it will allow me to have heroic scale stand-in models of my character's mechs from my novels.  OTOH though, the temptation to go full-on 15mm for my Bad Dog verse project is strong because it's so much easier to get figures in different poses.

What you're hearing is the sound of the wargamers lament.
  

Two More Russian Walkers

Over the Xmas period I had about four days of hobby time that was taken up with a request to take some pictures for a magazine, and then there was writing a reflection on last year for my other blog.

Despite those distractions I have still managed to make some progress building things.  In this case two more conversions of Caprice Heavy Gear models from the Dream Pod 9 KickStarter.

These use parts from both the Aphek and Bashan for this kitbash.

I'm now pondering over whether to have my Russian walker company with 20 models, or whether I will never need more than 11.

My inner slacker is saying 11 walkers is more than enough, but quantity has a quality all of its own.  It really depends on how the rules pan out, which given I've done nothing on them makes answering this question impossible.

The wargamers burden.

Next Wave Of Russian Walkers

Snip, snick went the snippers, snickecty-snack, snick, snick they went some more, and one-by-one the pile of parts did grow. 

And here's a quick work in progress shot of a bunch of Heavy Gear plastic Caprice mecha snipped off their sprues waiting for me to find some time to clean them up and assemble them.  Things are a bit busy at the moment, hence the briefness of this post with a couple of writing deadlines hanging over me.

So I'll catch you all on the bounce next week, when hopefully, I will have made some progress.

Russian Federation Walkers

I like Dream Pod 9s Heavy Gear miniatures. Small giant robot walking tanks, what's not to like? 

However, as is my won't, the chance of me playing in their Terra Nova setting is minimal, not because it's not a great setting, I would go so far to say it's one of the best SF RPG setting books ever published, but because I like to do things my way.

Here's my Meggido-Kadesh-Bashan kitbash: perhaps I should call it a Mekabashan?  Perhaps not.  It is meant to be a command variant, hence all the extra gribbly bits, which I think makes it look interesting.

I'm using the Caprice walkers as a basis for my own near future setting as Russian Federation combat armours:  combat armours being sit-in and drive large power armour suits.  Clearly Russian combat armour is designed to deal with soft ground, from all the snow Russia gets.

The generic name for these in Russian is Pokhodnaya Boyevaya Platforma or PBP, my first conversion of a Caprice Ammon, which I called Object 295, can be see here.

I also made up a couple of Caprice Accos, so I could make my mind up which weapon I preferred?  Still not sure which one I like best.  Again I've added gribbly details bits, in particular the fuel tanks that are signature item on Russian tanks, which for me adds a Russian feel to the models.

My observations on the plastics is that they're OK for what they are: cheap intro models.

The plastic is slightly shiny, and feels like it's some sort of engineering plastic i.e: designed to be slippery.  Some people have had difficulties gluing them with conventional plastic cement.  I use Butanone aka MEK, which welded the plastic together.

Also, I would have also preferred a lighter colour than the very dark grey because it would be easier to see the details when trimming the models off the sprue.

I'm also a bit fussy when it comes to mould parting lines and therefore spent a considerable time filing and fussing over the parts before assembly.  When I took these pictures, I could see that I hadn't paid enough attention to the finish and went over the models with a fibreglass pen to polish the surfaces up.  Also, in my opinion the sprue-gates on the mould did not take into consideration ease of cutting the models off the sprue e.g: on the Accos the sprue attaches to the nose of the legs, which means it is easy to lose detail when trimming the model unless great care is taken.

Still, way better than the Robotech models for ease of assembly.

As for differences between the injected moulded models and the resin originals, I only have the Ammon to compare.

This I can say is going to turn out differently, because the legs are from the Meggido, and do not feature the extra box-like structure on the upper leg that the Ammon has.  As such, it will sit lower and be less imposing.  I will make an Ammon up next and post pictures comparing the plastic to the resin and pewter model in due course.

M2184 HUHMTT

The Oshkosh HEMTT-LHS prototype.

In an effort to get my wargaming mojo back, which seems to have gone walkabout of late, I decided that I need to work on something.  Me being me, rather than restart one of my current projects, I chose instead to work on something different.

As those who come and read here regularly know I'm currently obsessed with writing several novels set in  the near future.  In the second and third novels my hero leads a mission off-world, and I took my inspiration from the current US military HEMTTs.  And there are lots of variants.

In my novel, the team uses an Oshkosh M2184, a Heavy Utility High-Mobility Tactical Truck (HUHMTT) which carries palletized loads in standard ISO shipping containers with a palletized loading system.

Now I want a model.

The metal M977 actually looks OK next to my models but the castings are rough.  The resin version is nice but a bit too dainty.

So, I bought a QRF M977 which is a 15mm model.  My Heavy Gear combat armour suit conversions are nominally 12mm but, because it's SF, where scale is relative to time and space (BTW that's a joke) I thought being a bit larger wouldn't matter.

However, I was less than impressed with the quality of the casting and put it to one side to consider my options.  Then I went bought a resin Kami de Korokoro M997 from Hobby Japan, which is nicely cast but, true 1/144th scale, and just looks a bit too small next to my combat armour suits.

The M977 metal and resin chassis next to some Takara VOTOMS vehicles.

However, I have a bunch of Takara vehicles that came with the VOTOMS I bought a long time ago and I'm looking at making something up using parts from them.  So, my plan is to play around with bits of plastic that I have to hand and see what I can come up with.

As the advertising people say, Watch This Space!

Finally, I hope that all my American readers had a good Thanksgiving day, got some bargains in the Black Friday sales, and generally had a good time.

Combat Armour Tweaks

Back here I posted a couple of pictures of the models I'd converted, with the caveat that I needed a missile pod to be able to finish it.  The part has arrived, and has been fitted.  Huzzah and loud cheering all round.

I still think the rotary cannon I made up turned out rather well.

I've also finished the Milliputing the aerials, and filing it all smooth on the big suit too, which is looking pretty awesome.

In addition I decided to add a missile pack to one other CASE-2X suits, because I thought it look unbalanced when compared to its other three squad mates.

I also commented here that I wasn't totally happy one of my weapon conversions so I went back and modified it.  It's basically the folding field gun with an ammo bin attached to the bottom of it.

So that's that.  Once I've finished the Utopian Alph/Beta squad modifications I can clear my work bench so I can do some painting.  And oh boy do I have a lot of painting to catch up, what with everything that I've been working on recently.  There are even spaceships...

So I hope I'm leaving you all waiting in anticipation for what's to come?
  

CAS-C4P & CAS-3-Mod 1 Conversions

I have been beavering away in the background between writing working on converting more of Dream Pod 9 models into representations of combat armour from my novels, as one does when one is slightly obsessed with the world one has created.  The model on the left I'm currently calling the Cyclops, which may change, because the brevity code word for UAVs operating over an area is CYCLOPs (go figure how a brevity word is longer than UAV, but I don't make the rules about how the military names things – I just try and mimic them to make plausible future names for my weapon systems).  The model on the right is the Army APE combat armour; in homage to Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

Showing the models from the rear, to show all the jiggery-pokery going on with these two conversion.  These models are really still a work in progress shots.  My plan is to now is to apply some  Milliput to tidy up the joints, and blend some parts together; in particular the antenna array on the rear of the left model (I've super-glued guitar wire onto the castings, because they're quite soft, and otherwise bend easily).

A larger close-up shot of the model, which represents an Army Green Beret Special Forces combat armour suit, which appears in my second novel for one of the major supporting characters.  It's mix and match of parts from the Hunter and Jaguar gears.  From the glossary in my novel:

CAS-3-Mod 1    Combat Armour System Dash (Mark) 3 Dash Model 1 is the Army’s latest upgrade to their drive suit, which is supplied to Special Forces troops.  It’s slightly heavier than a CASE-2X, and slower, but has the ability to be outfitted with a large array of heavy weapon systems according to its mission profile.

I'm going to add a round rocket launcher to the right should, the medium sized one I had looked wrong to me; I wanted more smaller rockets rather than five larger one.  So I've sent off for a small order of parts and stuff, and I will have to wait until they arrive to finish the model.  My original plan was to use Dream Pod 9s rotary rotary laser cannon (a quirky idea of combining mechanical and electronic systems to provide what might be better described as a pulse laser) for the basis of a M134 Gatling gun, but it was way too large.  My one complaint with the Heavy Gear models is that the weapons are disproportionally large, but that's my taste for things to be made to a scale and my desire for plausible hard SF models coming out.

So I ended up scratch-building the mini-gun that it's carrying in its right hand.  I used a BattleTech part, I think from a Mad Dog, but the barrels weren't up to snuff, so I replaced them with stainless steel micro-bore tubing.  A bit of a fag to cut and assemble, but it really looks the part.

In the left hand the model shoulders an automatic grenade launcher/auto-mortar – I'm still pondering the actual details and nomenclature.  I'll get back to this later, once I've done a bit more research.

A close-up again of my Air Force Security Forces combat armour suit, the primary function being the control of android combat teams.  It appears in the third novel I've written, and again its a major characters ride.  The model is a combination of different parts from a selection of gears: Mamba arms and legs, the torso is from a Diamondback, it has a Razor Fang Cobra head, and the rear pack is from a Kodiak with Viper antennae.

It carries a modified Heavy Gear rotary laser cannon, which I've modded up to represent a 20 mm rotary auto-cannon with a scratch-built ammo feed.  Not easily seen, but it also has a modified pack gun on the left arm to represent a Browning M2HB .50 cal.

Again from the glossary in my novel:

CAS-C4P    Combat Armour System Dash C4 (Command, Control, Communication & Computer) PetMan.  Informally called a Cyclops for the active LIDAR array that looks like an eye, the suit bristles with aerials for its primary role of controlling Human Operator Surrogates aka PetMan robots.  See HOS.

M261    The M261 GAU-5L is Global Dynamics special lightweight rotary auto-cannon designed to be carried by combat armour suits that fires a 20 x 102 mm High explosive dual purpose anti-tank (HEDP) warhead with the rate of fire limited to 500 rounds per minute.  Due to the size of the round the range of the weapon is 3 kilometres.

I shall be using Dream Pod 9s GREL infantry as stand ins for the HOS PetMan androids with pictures to come.

HOS    Stands for Human Operator Surrogate, which are semi-autonomous robots with a hybrid expert system artificial intelligence operating system aka PetMan.  This allows the operator to effectively multi-task by distributing themselves across a network and act as a force multiplier; Global Dynamics Corporation Defense Industries sales pitch calls them An Army of One.

So that's it for a while, as I need to go away and paint these now.
    

CASE-2X Dogs Conversions

Two more Dream Pod 9 conversions of Heavy Gear Jagers to make CASE-2X combat armour suits for my Highlanders 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Company.  The one on the left is a maxed out version with a heavy missile pack, and carrying a Browning .50 cal in its right hand.  The suit on the right is my new version of my heroes suit, which is stripped down for manoeuvrability.

I showed two combat armour conversions here, and I was asked to show what these looked like from the rear.

Hopefully this will clarify what I've done with these conversions to turn iconic Heavy Gears into Bad Dog universe combat armour.  Finally a group hug shot of my evolving squad.

From left to right we have three of the four combat armour suits from the Highlanders 4th Platoon Alpha Squad; organized as two fire teams of two, so I need to make up another Dog with a light missile pack and 20 mm auto-cannon.  On the right is the basic combat load on a squad leader combat armour suit.  You can see the platoon leader combat armour suit here.

I'm just finishing off work on another two combat armour suits for the characters in Strike Dog and Ghost Dog, the two sequels to Bad Dog.  I will hopefully be able to post pictures of them next week.  As always any comments or criticisms are highly welcomed, and feel free to ask questions too.