Here Come the Marines!

[Old Wombat]

The Royal Australian Marines, that is! 


I've finally gotten the modelling room tidied up to the point where I can actually work on a model! 

I'm going to start with the part of this that is NOT Marines operated - the Trumpeter LCM(3) Landing Craft, which will be operated by the RAN. 

I'll follow that up (hopefully) with the AFV Club Churchill Mk.VII. 


Doing the LCM first should give me time to at least try to complete the Mk.VII, as it's a relatively simple kit & will have a relatively simple paint scheme (tbd).

Try to get a pic up tomorrow of the starting point (Internet is due for an outage from midnight, for planned upgrades/maintenance).

[Old Wombat]

OK, I jumped the gun.

[kerick]

Sounds like quite a project! I'm looking forward to seeing this!

[Captain Canada]

Looking forward to seeing the LCM come together !

[jcf]

The Churchill would be good for the Southern Kyushu Operation Olympic (Majestic), not so much for the Kanto Plain Operation Coronet, nor would the US armour have done well, regardless of what the planners thought. Reading the plan narratives, and their rather sanguine estimates of where they'd be day by day, it's clear that they didn't grasp that the "Kanto Plain" ain't flat hard-ground. It's formed from the outflows of several rivers and for centuries it was largest rice growing area in Japan, it was the territory of the Tokugawa clan and why Tokugawa Ieyasu could pay for the armies he needed to conquer Japan and birth the Tokugawa Shogunate, at the time of WWII it was still primarily agricultural with huge rice fields and narrow, slightly raised "roads". The US Army planners somehow believed that they'd be able to just drive armour cross-country with minimal issue as long as they beat the spring rainy season. Yeah, nah. The planners for both the campaign to take Luzon in the Phillipines and the invasion of Okinawa based their plans on incomplete information about the geography of both places, and misunderstood much of what they did have. Both campaigns took much longer than planned, and you'd have thought they'd have learned their lesson on Luzon before the invasion of Okinawa, but they didn't and as a result the USN and USMC weren't thrilled by the Army being in charge of invasion planning for Downfall. Especially as MacArthur wasn't willing to listen to the US Army commanders, and allies, who'd been fighting in the area for years. He wouldn't use USMC ground forces in the PI and rebuffed the Australian offer with a bureaucratic dog and pony show, USMC air and the RAN were involved because the USN wanted them involved, they didn't give a sh!t about Dougie's preferences. Available evidence suggests that for Downfall, especially Coronet, once again the Army was making plans based on incomplete knowledge of the geography and assumptions on what the conditions would be. The pre-planting "dry" rice fields of the Kanto plain had been flooded, drained, flooded etc. for  centuries, a dry-season field wasn't "hard" ground, it would have a thin firm "crust", but beneath that it would be soft. The US Army was going to be using armoured divisions transferred from Europe, primarily units only familiar with armoured warfare in Western Europe. Heavy armour on the Kanto Plain was quickly going to run into trouble, you could end up with a situation not dissimilar to Vietnam but without the advantages of huge numbers of helicopters. It's likely that it would've become very messy, very quickly.

[Old Wombat]

One of my favourite parts of my Royal Australian Marines time-line is that Dugout Doug dies when the PT boat he scarpers from the PI breaks down & is sunk by a Japanese destroyer.   

MacArthur's RW role was temporarily filled by Australian General Thomas Blamey, who was subsequently sacked during the Kokoda Campaign & replaced by Sydney Rowell as commander of the 2nd AIF, with US general Lesley J. McNair taking overall command in middle of August 1942 (Rowell being his 2IC).

[Old Wombat]

Day 1: Deck reinforcing/grip angle iron (PE) x 72 (well, 75 if you count the test pieces) bent into shape. (That's the Eduard pack in the middle of the first pic - there are two of those sheets in the pack, I used almost 3/4 of them.)




My eyes hate me, right now! 

[jcf]

One of my favourite parts of my Royal Australian Marines time-line is that Dugout Doug dies when the PT boat he scarpers from the PI breaks down & is sunk by a Japanese destroyer.   

MacArthur's RW role was temporarily filled by Australian General Thomas Blamey, who was subsequently sacked during the Kokoda Campaign & replaced by Sydney Rowell as commander of the 2nd AIF, with US general Lesley J. McNair taking overall command in middle of August 1942 (Rowell being his 2IC).

Hopefully, the exhausted beat to sh!t boat crew that had been saddled with him were able to float away from the wreckage and avoid captivity. They wouldn't deserve to be lost because of that putz.

Never cared for Dougie and after I first read about what he, and Patton, had willingly done to the Bonus Marchers camp in D.C. it became active loathing. Many of the people who later became the core of the US Army command structure in WWII were young officers at time, Ike was there and he was aghast at what was happening, as were many of the others. MacArthur was disdainful and evidently Patton had no problem using cavalry and tanks against veterans who were only asking for what they'd been promised. It was an interesting exercise exploring the possibilities of using armour for crowd control doncha know.
🤬

[buzzbomb]

Count me in for a watch on this. Not seen a lot of the Trumpy LCM built so keen to see where you take it.
Ditto with the AFV Club Churchy Mk VII, do not have one of those in the increasing Churchill collection, only venerable Tamiya versions.

[Old Wombat]

Hopefully, the exhausted beat to sh!t boat crew that had been saddled with him were able to float away from the wreckage and avoid captivity. They wouldn't deserve to be lost because of that putz.

Hadn't thought about that, but the quick addition of a Catalina rescuing the crew the following day is easily done. 

[Old Wombat]

Count me in for a watch on this. Not seen a lot of the Trumpy LCM built so keen to see where you take it.
Ditto with the AFV Club Churchy Mk VII, do not have one of those in the increasing Churchill collection, only venerable Tamiya versions.

Thanks, BT! 

I've started sticking the angle iron to the ramp & deck ... It, actually, makes a big improvement to the look over the simple raised ridges moulded into the plastic. 

[Old Wombat]

72 bits of right-angle steel glued to the deck & ramp;







Almost as bad as doing indi-link tracks! ... Almost! 

Now, while that cures (Araldite), on to the build proper! 

[buzzbomb]

Now, while that cures (Araldite), on to the build proper! 

Ahhh the epoxy of choice for when you really, really want it to stick. Eventually   

[zenrat]

Araldite.  The smell of my childhood clumsiness.  My dad used it almost exclusively to glue together whatever i'd broken this time.

[Rick Lowe]

"This time..."    Yeah, lot of us've been there.

Looking good, Guy.

And as Kit says, 'The backstory can always be changed...'  Especially to save innocent and put-upon PT crew.