Or, “That moment you pick something up and decide to model it, then don’t stop”. Or something. Then you get depressed for absolutely no apparent reason.
Regular followers of this site, or me on social media, or who make the mistake of being within earshot when I start ranting, will know that I’m currently not very happy with the stuff I’m creating here. My inner historian wants 100% accurate scenery for 100% of the UK and random places beyond. My inner realist knows full well that there’s no way I can achieve that. Heck, I think I’ve got one whole scenery where all the buildings are in roughly the right place *and* roughly the right type of structure, let alone anything else!
One of the things that was bugging me most was that my US scenery was limited to using Larry “Tako Kichi” Green’s vehicles from his Hobbs AAF scenery. Nothing against them at all, they’re superb little models and I’m still extremely grateful to him for letting me use them. There aren’t that many of them, though, plus the bomb trolleys are carrying practice munitions – as they would at Hobbs AAF, a training field, but not so much at RAF Stations Little Walden, Bassingbourn or Framlingham. Therefore, for a long time, I’ve wanted to expand the collection.
Have you ever tried finding information on USAAF ground equipment?
If you have, and you found as much as I did for a long time, the document you want is TM 9-2800, “War Department Technical Manual, Standard Military Motor Vehicles”.
Yes, all of them. From Shermans and M8 Armoured Cars to Jeeps, Motorbikes, trailers, semi-trailers, dollys for trailers and the Cushman Model 39, more of which later. This single document lists pretty much anything that was powered and ground based, or towed by something that was powered and ground based, in the US arsenal. The copy I found is dated 1943, so obviously it’s not quite a complete guide to the war, but it has such useful things as what a USAAF fire truck actually looked like (Don’t start. Just don’t. Of course there wasn’t only one type) and what vehicles were used to do all the hundreds of jobs needing to be done around airfields.
Slightly to my surprise, Airfix actually got A06304, the “USAAF Bomber Re-Supply Set” pretty much accurate, unlike almost all of their RAF equivalents.
Getting back onto topic, before I waste another thousand words, one of the few vehicles I had actually found information on prior to finding the above Technical Manual, was the Chevrolet M6 Bomb Service truck – which is in the aforementioned Airfix model set, but it being Airfix, I didn’t trust it and wanted better sources to show them in use, such as, say, this one, or this one.
So, I modelled one.
Hand crane on the back, three seats at the back, a transparent windscreen that actually works? I was quite proud of this little truck. It just needed something to pull. Like, say, a M5 Bomb Trolley.
That’s based on Airfix’s model. Which is… “a non-standard design”, but I did the one as per the manual, as well.
The suspension arrangement at the front is different, not a lot else. But hey, both are done. If you watched the second link above, you’ll have seen at least one Airfix style trailer in use.
Back to the truck.
The M6 is based on a shortened wheelbase “G506” Chevrolet truck chassis, so, as I had the front end, I stretched it a bit and made a truck… or two…
The problem at this point is that, like most USAAF vehicles, the majority of G506 trucks (known by the manufacturer as the Chevrolet G-4100 or 7100 series) had hard cabs, not soft ones.
Oh. Go on then.
In an extremely rare fit of common sense, I’ve made these with separate chassis and loads – it means an extra draw call, up to three for the open cab ones because of the transparency, two for the hard top ones, but it also offers more flexibility. While I won’t be making any of the more “unusual” things to have been stuck on a 7100 series Chevrolet chassis, for instance I see no real cause to make a G-7173 Telephone Repair Truck, I may revisit the series at some point to add more to the…
FREEZE! STOP! GO BACK! THAT. IS. A. FIRE. TRUCK.
It’s a fire truck! A proper airfield fire truck! It’s what TM 9-2800 shows on page 192, with the description “To provide mobile fire-fighting and crash equipment for air-fields”! And it’s on a G-7100 chassis!
I have a green fire truck for my airfields. It’s not >exactly< correct, as it’s not technically a G-7133, although I’ve called it that. I actually based it off this YouTube video – and promptly disappeared off down a rabbit hole of watching some bloke in Alaska completely rebuilding a G-7100 tipper, but hey. I’m very tempted to model his jury-rigged A-frame to turn the winch on the front of a G-7107 into a crane.
So, I started out with one truck and ended up with five, plus two bomb trailers. Plus another fire truck variant (which may actually be a G-7133 this time) on the drawing board.
At this point, the joys of clinical depression decided to spring back to the fore and, rather than do something incredibly stupid, I sat down and modelled.
Beep Beep!
It’s a Cushman Model 39 Package Car. Admit it. It’s cute.
Utterly pointless from my perspective, but I may chuck a few of them around in dark corners on airfields, for people to look for if they are so inclined. It’s also in the Airfix set – and in TM 9-2800 – so I feel slightly justified.
The problem now is that I’m desperately trying not to paint it identification yellow and give it a smiley mouth under a USAAF star for a nose.
Oh, and I’m no further forward on Halfpenny Green. At this rate, I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and just make a barely-educated guess at the remaining buildings there.
Another “Oh”. That headline image? That’s the Aeroplane Heaven P-47D bubble-top at Boxted which, now I’ve fixed the holds, I think is pretty much done. I just need to decide whether to replace the remaining red Dodge WC based fire trucks with “Not-a-G-7133″s or not. And maybe hide a couple of Model 39s.
Beep Beep! 
