Bronco U.S. Airborne Jeep (Pre-Drop)

HISTORY

When this kit was first released back in 2012 it was known in modelling circles as the “John Wayne jeep”, mainly because the officer figure in the box art painting is so obviously based on him portraying the character of Lt. Col. Vandervoort in “The Longest Day”. Most people fail to recognise Dan Aykroyd from Ghostbusters sat in the trailer, but hey, that’s showbiz.

This kit (CB35106) depicts the Ford variant of the US GPW 1/4ton 4×4 Utility Truck (Mod.1942). A few differences set this apart from the rival Willy’s version; obviously the Ford logo on the tyres and the rear panel (duh); the embossed pattern of the toolbox lids; the shape of the front frame cross-member; and a few other minor details. If you are a purist, you may want to remove the Ford logo on the rear panel, it was only applied to the first few thousand production vehicles. Also, the exhaust is the early oval section muffler, later ones having a circular cross-section.

But I’m being pedantic; set aside the perfectionism and you have a Jeep, pure and simple; and a fine one at that.

INTRODUCTION

What you find when you open the box is a great little kit, one that is extremely well detailed and full of optional choices for you to make during construction. Options include selecting the front wheels positioned steered to the left, right or straight; the bonnet open or closed (a full engine is included); several front bumper arrangements (including wire-cutters and a tow bar); several different weapons options (and mounts) and different windscreen choices. This kit also includes a complete 10-cwt trailer, which is a superb kit in itself.  As you can see from what I did here however, most of these optional parts ended up in my ever grateful spares box.

I wanted to use one of the Black Dog stowage sets for this vehicle, the pre-drop set being particularly enticing. The main thing that led me to the decision to build this as a pre-drop scene is the kit-supplied figures, they are quite sparsely equipped for in-theatre troops, having only pistol belts and holsters. Rather than adding webbing and the like I decided they would appear as if racing around an airfield somewhere getting ready for the D-Day drop, this hopefully explains why all of their gear was in the back of the jeep and would mean I could keep the dirt and weathering to a minimum.

JEEP CONSTRUCTION

I would love to be able to tell you about all of the little details I added or modified during construction, but I can’t; I built this model pretty much straight from the box and didn’t feel the need to improve on anything. What I will tell you though is that even building this kit from the box will take you some time; it is an extremely comprehensive little model.

The instruction booklet is full-colour, clear and well laid out; a definite must with a small kit of this complexity. There are quite a few small parts that will require careful removal and clean-up; some so small that you really have to wonder if some of them could have been merged into larger assemblies. That aside, the only thing to watch out for is that once you have decided upon one of the several options, you need to take care to select the correct components from the sprues; there are some very similar looking pieces, especially with the steering and suspension parts.

JEEP PAINTING

For ease of painting, I decided to leave the chassis separate from the body. I also kept the bonnet separate so I could install the painted radiator without getting overspray on it whilst airbrushing the front grille. In hindsight, this caused more problems than it solved, especially when trying to add the bonnet tie-down catches, I would suggest fixing it all in place first if you can.

I must admit that it is a very rare occasion that I do any vehicle airbrushing; those that know me will agree that I’m not a prolific finisher of my vehicle projects!. However, when the chance does finally present itself my concoction of choice is Tamiya paint, thinned with their own yellow-top lacquer thinners. Inspired by an excellent build of the Tamiya jeep on facebook, I used the same XF61 Dark Green as a base colour for mine. I thinned this to about 50/50 to which I then added a generous dollop of X22 Clear. I find adding the clear really does help create a smooth surface finish and it sprays beautifully.

Over a black primer coat I built up the opacity of the base green with several thin layers, leaving a darker shade on the lower portions of the vehicle and the chassis, trying to create a very loose zenithal lighting effect.

To enhance this further I added a little panel and edge highlighting by adding some XF57 Buff to the Dark Green, just to break up some of those surfaces and add a little interest. Once dry, this was followed by selective filters of thinned Van Dyke Brown oil paint to shift the green tone to a slightly more brownish hue in places. Having let this dry for a couple of days another coat of Tamiya clear laid the base for the kit decals.

There are two marking options supplied in the kit, both depicting vehicles from the 82^nd Airborne Division just after D-Day. Marketed as an Airborne jeep, I was a little disappointed that markings for the 101^st Airborne Division were not represented too. Saying that, it shouldn’t be too hard to source those bumper codes and serial numbers should that be your preference.

After sealing the decals with a coat of satin varnish, the vehicle was given a pin wash with various dark oils, Van Dyke Brown, Raw Umber, Payne’s Grey and Black, among others, being used to mix various dirty tones. I kept any chipping to a minimum, using Vallejo 886 Grey Green and concentrating on areas of high wear. In a couple of places, where I wanted to show a deeper chip, I picked out the centre of some of the previous chips with 822 German Camo Black Brown.

Painting all the little details came next, picking them out in various acrylics with oils being used for the woodgrain on the tool handles. The metal tool parts were painted with the wonderful Gunze Sangyo stainless metallic.

Dirt and dust was kept to a minimum, using various pigments both wet and dry. Various oil washes were then used to break up the uniformity and add some depth to the colour. Most of this was done to the chassis areas and splattered inside the wheel arches, an effect that is all but invisible when the vehicle is the right way up.

  

STOWAGE

Black Dog produce two resin stowage sets for this kit, one the pre-drop set, the other post-drop. As you would expect, the pre-drop set includes parachutes, life preservers and such, whereas the post-drop set is more ammo boxes and baggage. As I wasn’t planning on building the trailer, there were a lot of parts I didn’t use from the set. I only really wanted to use the one-piece stowage lump for the rear of the jeep and in hindsight it may have been easier and cheaper to make or source items from the spares box to make it look busy.

Initially I presumed painting of the resin stowage block would be a fairly quick affair, but that idea went out of the window pretty quickly. I found it quite tricky to paint the separate items without slapping paint on other bits as I went along and it took several painting sessions to complete it all. I found the key is to paint from the inside out, picking out parts that are hardest to get to first.

After an initial coat of black primer I painted the stowage items using various Vallejo acrylics, chosen to match photographs from several references. I tried to keep everything in similar tones whilst trying to push the contrast somewhat to make the items stand out from each other. The image shows the main colours I used along with the relevant highlight and shadow colours.

FIGURES

Once the stowage had been completed I could finally turn my attention to painting the figures. I enhanced them slightly by re-scribing some of the detail then replaced the buttons using a punch & die. Other than that the only real modification I did was to replace the perfectly acceptable kit heads with Hornet ones.

With seated figures it is vitally important to ensure that they look like they are actually sitting in their intended seat, rather than hovering above it. To this end I glued the driver figure to his seat and blended in any gaps with magic sculpt.

The other area that really had to be addressed was to ensure that the driver’s hands and arms were positioned around the steering wheel convincingly. This took quite a bit of dry fitting, using blutak to hold everything in place. Once happy, I tacked the parts together with cyano and filled any gaps, finally bending the fingers around the steering wheel. This did make this figure more awkward to paint but is definitely easier than trying to get everything to look right after it is painted.

I am never really satisfied with a plastic representation of helmet netting, due to the limitations of the moulding process it is usually fine on the top but the sides usually lack any detail at all. In the past I have re-netted these by stretching stocking material over them, this really has to be dry-brushed to stand out and I’ve never been entirely happy with the results. I trawled a few haberdashery stores recently and found something a little more suitable; although the mesh is a little over-scale I think it looks far better. The larger mesh size also means it can be pre-painted before installation, this allowed me to paint the vertical white “officer” bar marking directly on the helmet itself.

FIGURE PAINTING

I have painted the US Para jump suit on a couple of occasions before so the previous colour palette was already in my head. Ordinarily I would paint some spare torsos to test out some different colour combinations but I was happy that I knew how this would come out, give or take.

Light colours can be difficult to shade and highlight correctly without them turning into a muddy mess so it is a good idea to test out a few things on old figures first if you are not sure how the end result will look.

After priming with light grey, the base coat I used is made up from 2 parts 988 Khaki, 2 parts 821 German Camo Beige and 1 part 819 Iraqi Sand. For shadow I added 889 US Olive Drab; be very careful here and add this in small amounts, it will change the tone considerably. The shadow colour was built up gradually, adding more Olive Drab into the deepest folds and creases. To highlight, I added increasingly more Iraqi Sand into the base mix, finally adding a small amount of 837 Pale Sand for the extreme highlights and edging.

I usually switch back and forth between shading and highlighting, concentrating on completing one section at a time. This gives me an almost instant idea of how things are going and should any changes be needed, it doesn’t mean a full repaint of everything. You can see in the photo the difference this shadow and highlighting makes to the overall tone, here the legs of the passenger are still in the base colour.

I was particularly pleased at how the jump boots came out. Often overlooked, I think that painting these small items to the same level as the rest goes a long way to creating a convincing overall paint job. For these I used a base of 1 part 872 Chocolate Brown to 1 part 875 Beige Brown, progressively adding more of each colour into the mix to shade and highlight. Final highlights were created by adding a small amount of 876 Brown Sand into the highlight mix. To finish off the leather I added a couple of coats of thinned Chestnut Ink to harmonise the colours and give the boots a slight semi-gloss sheen. Finally, the rubber soles were picked out with 862 Black Grey. Obviously the boots are all but invisible when the figures are in the jeep, but I know they are painted!

I have been playing around with different mixes for flesh tones recently and I wanted to create a higher contrast than I normally do. For the base I used 876 Brown Sand, I then made up a couple of highlight and shadow tones by adding 815 Basic Skintone and 814 Burnt Cadmium Red. The darkest shadow colour had a little black added for the deeper recesses. These colours were “sketched” in on the face to get the placement right and the transitions were then blended with a 50/50 mix of the adjacent tones using a stippling motion.

The helmets were painted with a mix of 893 US Dark Green and 822 German Camo Brown, darkened slightly with black. I wanted to have a darkish tone to make the helmet net stand out a little more. The lighter tone of the net cover was a mix of 988 Khaki with a little 968 Flat Green added.

BASE

To add a little context I wanted to add a very simple base consisting of a section of airfield concrete with a small grass patch and this proved an enjoyable distraction from the norm for me.

Around a piece of thick insulation foam I added plasticard sides to create a raised box plinth. For the runway base top I drew a few joint lines on a piece of thick plasticard and subsequently scribed these in with an old hobby knife. The joints were then gouged a little with the knife and the whole surface was then stippled with Mr. Surfacer 500 and an old brush to add a little texture.

After a coat of black primer, the concrete areas were first airbrushed in varying light khaki and grey tones before adding the colours using a dampened make-up sponge, creating a more random hard-edged patchiness. Some good old fashioned dry-brushing with lighter tones was then done to highlight the rough texture. Several washes of thinned oils added some depth to the concrete and to finish off I added a few selective stains here and there with a slightly thicker oil mix.

To reinforce the airfield Idea I added a runway light made up of random bits I found in my spares box. (Mainly from a Dragon Panzer IV kit!) I didn’t base it on a real light by any means but used some creative gizmology to fashion something that looks appropriate. That, along with a white runway marking, adds a splash of colour to the base.

 

CONCLUSION

This definitely isn’t a kit you can throw together in a weekend, nor would I suggest is it a kit for a beginner to the hobby due to some extremely small parts. But if you already have a few models under your belt, what you will have at the end of building is, in my opinion, one the most detailed and comprehensive jeep kits available at the moment.

UPDATE - This article appeared in the March 2018 issue of Military Modelling Magazine.