WW2 American Forces

Okay, so I didn't trade away ALL of my WW2 US forces... 

I did keep about a squad or two of each of US Regular Army Infantry and US Paratroopers for the European Theatre of Operations and Marines for the Pacific Theatre of Operations - Just in case I ever wanted to play Five Men in Normandy/Five Mean at Kursk with them or a similar skirmish game, or needed them for a role-playing game (like Call of Cthulhu?). Most of these were already painted

The small handful of paratroopers I kept were not painted... and we in a box of stuff being based or re-based and having seen pictures of the miniatures Orion was cranking out, I started feeling like maybe I should just quickly paint these up and be DONE with them... So that's what I did on Saturday. 

Part way through painting the paratroopers, I realized one was not a paratrooper but a regular army infantryman. So I went to the storage drawer to see how I'd painted those and realized there were three other unpainted regular army infantrymen, so I brought them out to paint as well. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the exact colour I used to paint them... it is entirely possible I was still using craft paints at the time and the paint is long gone... 

NEWLY PAINTED STUFF 

There are 12 paratroopers and 4 regular army infantry in the lot... 

So this is ALL the World War Two US Forces I currently have...

Regular US Army Infantry - European Theatre of Operations

I had a lot more than I thought - pretty much an understrength platoon; three squads of 7-8 infantry, a platoon commander and radio operator, a bazooka team, a sniper and... Oddball... 

Oddball, Kelly, and Big Joe

US Army Paratroopers - European Theatre of Operations

I have a much smaller force of Paratroopers, less than a full squad really - perfect size for a Five Men in Normandy Patrol, though! 

US Marine Corps - Pacific Theatre of Operations

I have a weird mix of Marines for the Pacific Theatre of Operations... 

There's one squad of regular Marine Infantry... A spare guy with a Thompson SMG... John Wayne... four Corpsmen... four casualties... Fourteen Marine Raiders... and a Jeep with a .50 Caliber Heavy Machine-Gun mounted on it!? 

Again, a great little force for very small scale skirmishes or showing up in a role-playing game. 

1st Special Service Force  - European Theatre of Operations

I also have a small unit of troopers from the 1st Special Service Force... which was a mix of troops from the US and Canada. I got really excited when they first game out and bought all the first packs... I'd hoped to build it up to a complete force for Bolt Action... but then they never made any with the Johnson Light Machine-Guns... so these lack squad support weapons. 

The Bazooka and Mortar and .30 Calibre Machine-Gun teams are all converted paratrooper miniatures. 

STILL TO DO!?

I got really excited thinking the entire force would be DONE with this little batch completed and the others all traded away... then I found a few more things; four injured paratroopers, a second jeep with a USMC crew, and a Sgt. Rock figure I have (that I wanted to add ammo belts to - because I do seem to recall from the comics, the ALWAYS had na ammo belts slung over each of his shoulders!) 

Will I ever add to this collection?! Well... I'll Never say Never! But I have no strong desire to do so at the moment. I might get to rebasing some or all at some point. Because I have Oddball, Sgt. Kelly and Big Joe, I thought it might be fun to get a Sherman tank and model it like Oddball's with giant speakers and an barrel extension - just for funsies. Or maybe get a second Oddball figure and put him in the turret of a Tiger Tank...?