Fleshing Out the Battlegroup

A nice little package from Elheim Figures arrived this week.

I realised that I was missing a C7 UGL and a C9 gunner to complete my infantry fire teams. I was also in need of a C6 GPMG team and a Carl Gustav team to finish off the platoon. While prowling Google Images I noticed that Australians look an awful like Canadians except for the F88 rifles and some small pouches worn at the small of their backs. They also use the Carl Gustav 85mm recoilless rifle for platoon anti-tank support and their FN designed GPMG is the same basic weapon as the Canadian C6, or American M240 for that matter.

Australian Carl Gustav operator on left and GPMG gunner on right

Back details: notice fanny packs on the Australians on the left. Canadian riflemen designated as Number 2s are on the right.

Matt at Elheim kindly let me order an Australian GPMG gunner and Carl Gustav operator separate from their packs. Adding some patrol packs to cover the back details and then adding the riflemen from another pack of Canadians as Number 2s gives me my heavy weapons teams for the platoon Weapons Detachment. The Number 2s will also have patrol packs for ammo. The UGL and SAW from the set will finish the fireteams off.

After closer examination at home I noticed that the Carl Gustav gunner has the Australian rifle hanging at his side. So I need to either file that off or make it look like a C8 carbine.

F88 rifle is very obvious!

A second pack of Canadians will boost the sapper detachment or give me dismounted vehicle crews. In my last game I had to use a couple of Special Forces figures for the bailed out crew of the stricken Coyote.

I also got a LAV commander for the open hatch of the Taurus ARV . I wish I'd known about this figure sooner, I would've ordered some for my Bisons and the Leopard which could've been built with open hatches.

In my games I've also decided that the ANA force isn't big enough, so I got more of his Syrian troops to make another ANA section. I would like to sort some mechanism so the ANSF are better spotting or positively IDing Taliban. Thereby making them a useful asset to the Canadian commander instead of expendable "ablative armour."

Finally a pack of Taliban  dickers to round things out and lurk about the village. They could also be spotters or Hamid calling his mum on her birthday. I guess we'll need some ANSF to decide.

With Sod's Law in effect sometime while my package was en route, Matt posted a WIP picture of a Canadian C6 GPMG gunner. So he's working on expanding from the one pack. Hooray!