Germany 1987 a new project (using old collections...)

We stay in the modern era but we are now going back to the cold war. Back in time I built a large collection of 6mm miniatures for the Cold War. At the time the rules of choice were Modern Spearhead. I still like them but recently I have been caught by the Cold War supplement for Planetary Operations. You have companies instead of platoons, this means you can have artillery on table and have a bit of air battle. It does not require any rebase (ok the rules suggests some new bases taken stright out of FoW... but I keep mine) and this is good. I can play Planetary Ops, MSH, CWC, A Fistful of TOWs, and, when they will be out, also I Ain't Been Nuked Mum. With a full division I have plenty of stuff to create smaller units. The negative part was that my US Army collection dates to several years ago when I started painting 6mm... so I took the opportunity for changing some liveries...

Here for your perusal it is the entire ground force from the 8th Infantry Division back from Germany in 1987. The Cobras are not there, I will take the pictures another time. The vehicles are all Heroic and Ros except the M1 (vanilla) Abrams that are Scotia (and a nice model to be blunt). Now plain M1 are available also from H&R.

Well this is my division box... being an American unit battalions for infantry and tanks are 4 companies strong (with infantry having an anti tank company too), three batteries strong for artillery and variable for other specialties. In 1987 the 8th Infantry was still switching to new equipment, thus there is a quite a lot of variation.

Two tank battalions and the Cavalry Squadron had still M60A3:

I have painted them in Verdant MERDC scheme.

One Battalion was still equipped with M1 Abrams, painted in CARC overall forest Green. The models are from Scotia. They have moulded on MGs (bot Commander and Loader) and some stowage on the turret bustle:

Finally two battalions had already received M1A1 Abrams in three colours NATO scheme. They H&R Vehicles have separate MG but only for the commander.

Here you can see all the sample tanks together, in company scale it is the equivalent of a brigade of four battalions:

The infantry was still moved by M113 and an ITV, here in Autumn MERDC.

Beside the maneuver units the division was supported by artillery with M109 and M110, Enginneers with M728CEV, M163 PIVADS and finally M113ACAV in the Cavalry Squadron. Also you can see the Division command stand with several vehicles in it.

The ACAVs are from Scotia. Not a great model, but at the time it was the only one available at decent prices and the old GHQ was at the same level anyway...

Well for this mega update it is the end. Goodbye from the commander at the Forward HQ until the next because it is time for me to sleep writing on the blog is tiresome!