Hi everybody. Hope everyone is well in these rough times. I have a dilemma that I hope someone might be able to give some advice on. I'm desperately in need of door gunners for my UH1N which I'm trying to build as either Gulf War 1 or 2 or Operation Enduring Freedom. The only semi suitable ones are the Dragon Vietnam era ones but obviously Vietnam era body armour (I have spare modern flight helmets) isn't going to cut it. So does anyone have any advice or ideas? Thank you for your time

Kiaroa Olddog78,

Have you tried Reedoak? They don’t do door gunners specifically, but they do pilots / crew chiefs for the correct era. These may be easier to convert than Vietnam war or 21st century figures. As an option.

Kylie in Auckland

The Dragon Vietnam-era ones are actually good up to the mid-'90s. The helmets they are wearing (SPH-4) were still used up until the late '90s/early 2000s by the US Army and USAF. The chicken plate armor was used up until the late '90s as well. So they are fine for Desert Storm, esp. US Army/USAF.

The Bravo-6 Vietnam-era doorgunners would work fine and look great for Desert Storm, Army/USAF crewmen too.

The USMC and USN wore/wear different helmets. Reedoak does have the Naval/USMC helmets available though, both ODS-era (SPH-3C) and modern ones (HGU-84/P). You may want to get them to have more accurate USMC doorgunners.

SPH-3C


HGU-84/P


For really nice modern USMC crewmen, you could use the Live-Resin doorgunners/pilots and swap out the helmets with Reedoak's HGU-84/P (modern) helmets.

The Academy Vietnam crew chicken plate is OK for USMC up through OIF I-II in 2003-2004. Just need to Styrene or sculpt in the side torso velcro strips.

Also, sculpt the legs on the flight suits as we didn't blouse them.