Team Yankee - Prepping M1s and M106s

At this point I'm trying to work on everything at once so that I can prime everything at the same time. Overall the Team Yankee plastics for the M1 and the M113/M106 are really very clean with only a couple of spots that need some work.

On the M1s there is a seam right in front between the upper and lower hull that needs a little attention. I pulled out the Squadron Green and proceeded to fill in this small seam on all five vehicles. 

A little dab is all you need but be prepared to work fast, this stuff dries out quick.

Here you can see the seam that needs to be filled. Its a bit messy right now.

After I finished the M1s I did the same with the M106s. Again the only seam really appears on the front glacis much like on the M1. This is a bit tricky to fill because of some of the detail around it. Had I been paying attention I probably would have filled this seam first before finishing the vehicle.

I also used this opportunity to try and fix the notches in the plastic from where the sprue marks where left from my clippers. The M1s benefited from the use of my x-acto, skipping the clippers.

After the green stuff had dried, which was minutes, I filed smooth the area. I prefer to use a disposable nail file for this has its gentler on the plastic (or resin for that matter). However, I didn't have any available so I worked gently with a file. Most of the file marks are going to be covered over with primer so I didn't get to stressed out about it.

You can see the scratch marks from the metal file here, its why I prefer the disposable nail files for this kind of work. The primer should fill this in.

Looking good so far. I just need some tarps and stuff to add to the vehicles and they will be ready for some primer. I might try a modulated primer style on these just to see if it makes a difference at this scale.

Care Package from Khurasan Miniature

As I start to get back into moderns I have made a few decisions on what miniatures I want to use. I admit to not really looking to closely at Battle Front's Team Yankee miniatures I'm familiar enough with the WWII line that I figured these were probably not the miniatures I wanted to use. After looking at what is available I settled on Khurasan Miniatures for my infantry. While the line is not extensive the available poses are good, more than good enough for the miniatures table for sure.

Currently my intent is to actually play Team Yankee from Battle Front but I'm certainly willing to go back to other rules sets if necessary. To duplicate the Mech Infantry Platoon from Team Yankee I was going to need some pretty specific weapon groupings.

A Team Yankee platoon is made up of 4 squads, with Dragon ATGM support.

A stand of four figures represents the squad and includes the M249 SAW, M203 Grenade Launchers and LAWs. That's a lot of specialized weapons for a four man stand! I also need four two man stands for the Dragon ATGM, Oh and one stand of 3 M16 (I think this is a command stand as its on a small base)

I sat down and went through the Khurasan listing to see what I might need and found three packs that would probably take care of everything:

1980s-US-INF-RIFLE: 15mm 1980s-1990s US Army Mechanized Infantry Riflemen (x8 with M16 in eight poses)

From the Khurasan Website

1980s-US-INF-SQUAD-WEAP: 15mm 1980s-1990s US Army Mechanized Infantry Squad Heavy Weapons (x6 --x2 M249 SAW, x2 M16/M203, AT-4 LAW, M47 Dragon)

From the Khurasan Website

1980s-US-INF-COMMAND: 15mm 1980s-1990s US Army Mechanized Infantry Command (x8 -- x4 officers/noncoms, plus two teams with M60 machine guns)

From the Khurasan Website

From this list it looks like I would need one of the US-INF-RIFLE, four of the US-INF-SQUAD-WEAP (because there is only one Dragon ATGM per pack) and one of the US-INF-COMMAND to provide some variety.

The last listing on the page was this one:

1980s-US-INF-PLATOON-DEAL: 15mm 1980s-1990s US Army Mechanized Infantry Platoon Deal (one pack of Rifles, three packs of Heavy Weapons, one pack of Command)

I opted to pick up the platoon deal and add a US-INF-SQUAD-WEAP pack to make sure I had enough Dragons. I'll have extra SAWs and grenade launchers but they could come in handy later. I don't know when I'll be able to use the M60 MGs either but I'm sure they will show up some where in a TOE.

I also picked up one M113. The pictures look great but I wanted to see one before I committed. They are slightly more expensive than the plastic M113 from Battle Front not enough to make me cringe though,

From the Khurasan Website

The M113 in my shipment.

Here is the potential miscast. Fortunately it is easily fixable.

After I opened up the bag with the M113 and its associated parts I noted an issue with the rear hull. I emailed Khurasan right away about the potential miscast here and he contacted his caster right away to send a replacement. The caster suggested that it could be fixed with the hot water treatment so I agreed to give that a try. It really did work like a charm. I was able to manipulate it back to straight without to much effort. The entire email exchange probably took 15 minutes. That's some seriously good service. Based on this one and the email exchange I am definitely going to finish up the platoon with 3 more Khurasan M113s.

I will be buying the Battle Front M113s at some point as they can be assembled as the M106 mortar carrier.

You can find all of this on the Khurasan Miniatures website at: Khurasan Miniatures Late Cold War