Backdated Allied drivers

 After adding passengers to many of my open topped softskins, I had a bit of a review of driverless vehicles, starting with the Allies. I always meant to go back and add drivers to them at some point, and now is that point!

The only Allied vehicles currently driverless are the rump of my Jeep Fleet. These are vehicles of varying vintages and manufacturers, but they do look a bit bare without any crew.

And here they are after their transformation. Doesn't that look better! Sadly I am running very short of PSC seated figures of all types, so I had to buy some more drivers.

These are the Allied drivers, all Peter Pig figures, a mixture of helmeted US and various British figures. The guys in service caps will do for both US and British officers. I ordered some packs of 'seated' figures from PP, and while the US pack came with a mixture of armed and driving figures, I was monumentally disappointed to discover that all the British figures are configured as drivers, despite there being a separate 'British Drivers' pack. Does no-one make any seated British infantry? Apparently not.

You can see from the photo just how much beefier the US figures are than their British counterparts, so I presume these are newer castings. I noticed the same thing when mixing some of the US seated infantry with my plastic Russians, particularly as the plastic figures are so slim anyway.

Anyway, they were stuck to a bit of wood strip for painting and done in various mid khaki shades to cover as many theatres as possible.

Long experience has taught me that seated figures never actually fit in vehicles (apart from the delightfully small PSC plastic figures) and some serious surgery would be required. Having ruined one pair of side clippers chopping up metal figures, I bought this very heavy duty pair from Lidl. Hopefully they will be up to the job.

This is a very old jeep, dating from around 2000. I've no idea who the manufacturer is, but it was in my British box, so it has a British driver. He is in a generic beret, which can be repainted on a scenario by scenario basis as required (khaki for GS cap, maroon for Paras, black for RTR etc).

This one was quite roomy and I only had to cut off the drivers feet at the ankles.

This next pair are BF jeeps (from a pack of five), which did come with various crew figures, but I've already used them for other projects. As they had lots of stowage, they look a bit frontline, so I used two of the helmeted US drivers. The jeeps don't have steering wheels, but the figures have wheels moulded on. I had to remove most of the legs from the knee down, but they went in very well and the moulded steering wheels fitted well.

The last batch are my most recent ones, BPM 3D printed jeeps. I put two of the figures in caps in these as they look cleaner than then others. These took a bit more surgery as I had to cut out the 3D printed steering wheels and the seats had quite deep moulded cushions, so rather more of the figures had to come off, but they went in OK in the end.

I've very pleased with how they came out, and I still have a moderate stock of seated figures left for other things. I often use US figures as Russians, as the helmets are so similar, in fact almost all my Russian vehicle drivers and passengers are US figures re-painted. I need to continue my search for seated British figures with weapons, they obviously exist as Chris Kemp has loads of infantry in his British vehicles.