The figure:

After this lengthy introduction, let us look at the figure itself. It is sculpted to represent Capt. Jan Hougaard who was the OC of the group that killed 201 Swapo troops in the Marienfluss area during operation Super in 1982. About 60 tonne of ammunition and weapons were found at the base that was destined to initiate a Swapo insertion into the Kaokoland. A well known photo of Capt. Hougaard is found on page 98 of the "South African War Machine", by H.R. Heitman. He is holding onto two rifle grenades that he had just taken out of an ammunition box. It is in white metal at 120mm and has only three parts i.e. torso, right arm plus the most beautiful 12Omm AK-47 I have seen to date. I believe they will be sold separately by Fire Force and can recommend them highly for your other figures.

The figure is dressed in a camouflage uniform with no cap, as in the photograph. He is carrying one water bottle and the correct special operations boots. His pants do not have the correct seam at the back but it is understandable, as this is not shown on any photograph. He also does not have the correct belt buckle, again not seen on photographs. During 1982 32 Bn still used the standard SADF buckle. A small fault, not noticeable. The only drawback is the weight of the figure. Mine fell over three times, all three times breaking off the rifle grenades, which had to be re-glued in place.

Painting the figure:

Summer Camouflage pattern.

I painted my figure to depict the summer pattern camouflage used by 32 Bn. Since no off the-shelf colours could be obtained to accurately portray the base coat, I used a mixture of Humbrol No. 28, Testors pale green and Humbrol No. 159 in the ratio 1: 1,5:3. To shadow it 1 darkened it with Humbrol No. 159 and lightened it with Humbrol Matt No. 28 and dry-brushed the whole figure. It is important to keep some of this for a wash later.

Next came the dark green colour and Humbrol dark green (No. 30) was the closest. Mid-brown was again not to be found from any of the paint brands and the mixture closest turned out to be Humbrol HG (No.61), Humbrol (No. 186), Humbrol Matt Black (No. 33) in the ratio 0,5ml : 5ml : 10 drops. For the darkest brown 1 used XtraColour X807 chocolate brown.

This gave me a well-defined camouflage pattern, but it looked very stark. If one looks at any camouflage uniform that has been worn for a while, all the colours are usually washed out. To get this effect on the figure you have to bring out the base colour. This was done by using the lighter base colour mentioned previously, this time as a wash. I did this by varnishing the figure first and then lightly washed it with the base colour. The webbing belt and water bottle was painted with khaki drab: matt 64 : 50 : 50. Chest webbing was Humbrol colour (No. 76). Rifle grenades with Humbrol (No. 31), buckle and web belt tip Humbrol (No. 117). Chest webbing and straps Xtra Colour exhaust black. Boots was my usual mixture of Humbrol brown bess, washed with Humbrol (No. 133) and black wash. The sole usually turned out the same colour as the boot due to polishing.

Base:

The base was made up by stacking two of Verlinden's 12Omm ammunition boxes on top to depict the rifle grenade boxes. A polyurethane resin mixture was made up and once dry sand spread on a white glue with water mix to represent Marienfluss sand. The base was painted with Humbrol browns with numerous washes and then dry brushed.

Conclusion:

Along overdue subject well covered by Fire Force. The drawbacks with this figure are that it is very heavy and one must be very careful not to drop it. The most beautiful AK-47 yet! I sincerely hope someone will do a tired filthy black 32 Bn troop with a PKM and belt and wearing a thousand-yard stare to go with this 32 Battalion officer.