Airborne Lead the Way!

Having written the last post about completing the glider infantry, I decided it would be nice if I actually laid out my fully painted US Paratrooper force.

While there's a couple of bits I might add to this force (an extra P-47, adding an M4A1 Sherman platoon, and expanding the Tank Destroyers to a company so the security section is a legal option again), for now everything in the force is painted and I've not ordered anything more. So let's have a quick celebration!

Paratrooper Platoons

 

 

 M10 Tank Destroyers and their security section

  Armoured Recon Jeeps, Airborne Engineer Platoon and Mortars

More Parachute Infantry

Glider Rifle Infantry

57mm Anti-Tank gun platoon

P-47 Thunderbolt air support

 

Company Headquarters

Airborne Recon in Armoured Jeeps

Airborne Engineer Platoon

Mortars and AA .50 M2 machine guns

M5A1 Stuart tank platoon

Objective

A few notes:

• I've done the whole force in the later M1943 pattern common airborne uniform. Hence, the glider rifle infantry look very similar to the Paratroopers.
  
• The force was original painted for version 3, as such you may notice some oddities, such as extra command teams, or extra Parachute infantry teams (you could add these to represent other paratroopers picked up after the drop).
• This is particularly true of the number of Bazooka team. In V3 the answer to the question, "How many bazookas can that platoon take?", was always "Yes". Less useful in the case of the Mortars, but I liked the ability to add them to the anti-tank gun platoon.
  

Gliding In

I've finally completed my US Glider Rifle infantry to finish off my Flames of War US Paratrooper force. Unlike the Paratroopers, the Glider Infantry were deployed via Waco Glider rather than by Parachute. Also, unlike the Paratroopers, they had not volunteered for the Airborne Forces, but were just assigned into the role.

At least deploying via glider meant the whole platoon deployed together, rather than the Paratroopers who could end up dispersed over a wide area.

This means I have now painted every US model in my collection. Next army task up, finish either the AIW Jordanian army, or the Team Yankee British force!

Hopefully you should see a few more posts from me soon, I've been airbrushing and have a few smaller projects about 50% done, so hopefully we can get a few more things complete.