GPMG Team

Hello guys,

It has been a tough mind battle, but I decided it is time to tackle the camo and I present you my Slovene GPMG team. 

Each platoon would have a HQ squad with three GPMG teams (pairs, actually). I only got one and given how much fire power they spit out in games, there is little need for any more.

As our army uses the "European" version of the machine gun, and I am converting mine from American infantry (that uses "American" version with a heat shield, just like in case of the minimis), I "had" to swap the barrel for a bit of (way too crooked) wire. In addition, I sculpted something roughly resembling our aiming device.  Both of them got camo straps on the helmet and canteens. Again, vests were left intact as it would require too much work to make them proper for a very little gain.

Assistant gunner originally came with holding an M4 rifle, which obviously had to go. As replacing it with an F2000S would requite a lot of cutting, I decided to just give him a box of ammo instead - it shows that his primary role is to feed the machine gun. His rifle was then "strapped" on his back.

As I've said many times before, the Slovenian army is now using a new pattern, called SloCam (really!). It was developed in Slovenia and it is clearly inspired by Multicam (as is the new British MTP). While this means that in wargaming, painting Slovenes, Brits and - to some degree - Americans is much like painting the same army, it helps with  the recognition of friendlies. It also helps with finding a painting tutorial, as the pattern seems quite daunting. I had to adjust the colour palette a bit, as SloCam is much greener and thus more fitting to forests than Multicam. It also doesn't incorporate any black tones at all.

I did took notes of the paints I've used with my Humvee crews, so I am working with what I've learned and what new I've came up with.

Light green base
I went for german field grey with some goblin green and white added until it "felt right". I then drybrushed it with the roughly same mix, with more white added.

Ochre patches - There is a sand colour as well, but ochre has a bit stronger tone so I'm only painting this one

Dark green patches - Again, it seems there are three different greens, but with green basic colour and dark green, third would probably not be visible enough as camo is crowded using 5 colours already

Dark brown and bone stipples. There is actually a lot more white in it than there is brown.

Vests and equipment are in the old pattern. It's a german field grey base with black, brown and green "amoebas".

Camo didn't quite look right even after the black wash (I should invest in an ink!), so I drybrushed it all together with some brightened fieldgrey. It dusted it up and hopefully brought out some details. It also fades the camo on the vests, which hides the cammo effort, but it's a bit more realistic as far as I'm concerned.

Spent rounds around the gun are something I was quite happy to put on my FOW bases, they really add a touch. Keep in mind there is still foliage missing.

Their bases are conglomerates of round and square 25 and 20mm bases. I saw that Vampifan is basing his prone figures on 20mm bases, which I agree looks a lot better - but not for the gunner as I would hate to see his gun and legs poking off the base.

While I am quite happy with it, something that I can't put finger on bothers me. It's clearly too dark, but I think there should be way more patches and above all way more white dots.
If anyone finds something else, please feel free to comment!

Below are two photos of what I was after - duplicating it seems a lot harder than one would imagine!

 Also, a photo with soldiers using new uniforms with old vests (look at how faded they are). It includes a properly dressed female soldier :D.