Operation Silver Bayonet - Vietnam War 1965

I think 'boys' of a certain generation have a morbid fascination with the Vietnam War. Fought during a period of major political, social and economic change, by a superpower with seemingly unlimited military hardware, against a fanatical foe dressed in black pyjamas and sandals, over a distant exotic land of jungle, swamp and palm trees, which when coupled with free love and a great musical soundtrack provides the perfect intoxicating mix for a great action film ... and this is where such 'boys of a certain generation' have probably formed this morbid fascination with the Vietnam War!

From this introduction, you'll gather that the Vietnam War is the focus of my latest lockdown scale modelling project. The year is 1965 and the US launch Operation Silver Bayonet. This was a defining moment; it was the first major engagement of US ground forces in a 10 year conflict the Vietnamese would call Kháng chiến chống Mỹ, 'the Resistance War Against America'.  Operation Silver Bayonet was fought during what was to be known as the Battle of Ia Drang during November 1965; the objective being to destroy North Vietnamese positions in the Pleku Province in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.

Scale model company Italeri have, in recent years, produced a number of themed multi kits with all the parts required to recreate one's own historical battle scene. It was a 'no brainer', therefore, that I should lay my hands on their Operation Silver Bayonet kit for this Vietnam War phase of my scale modelling project! 

This Italeri 'Operation Silver Bayonet' multi kit included:

• 2 MDF Village houses
• 100 Viet Cong and US Special Forces figures
• Bell UH-1C Huey helicopter 
• M113 Armoured Personel Carrier
• M48 Patton Tank
• 3 Battlefield buildings

While the most famous event of the Battle of Ia Drang, as depicted in the 2002 movie We Were Soldiers, is the one fought over a helicopter landing zone overrun by the North Vietnamese, I at least needed a location with a village backdrop so as to make full use of Italeri's excellent wooden buildings. My build, therefore, was to depict one of Operation Silver Bayonet's other engagements where US Special Forces,  delivered by air and over land by APC, launch an attack with helicopter gunship support, on one of the heavily defended North Vietnamese supply bases in the Drang Valley. 

US attack a heavily defended North Vietnamese supply base in the Drang Valley

Battle of Ia Drang 1965 - US Department of Defense

This still left me with a few unused bits; namely a checkpoint, watch tower, a storage building and an M48 Patton tank! With these, I recreated the location of another key event of the war, the airbase of Camp Holloway, home of the UH-1 helicopters of the 119th Assault Helicopter Company, located just 3km east of Pleiku also in the Central Highlands. Here, on 7th February, 9 months before Operation Bayonet, the Viet Cong launched an early morning attack killing 8, wounding 108 and destroying 18 helicopters, prompting U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson to begin bombing North Vietnam!

Viet Cong attack. on Camp Holloway

Camp Holloway 1965

In the next few posts, I'll deep dive into each of these models, displaying the finer details of the models which can only be seen in close up shots, explaining how they were constructed and of course sharing those additional factoids and backstories which will hopefully bring them to life!

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The model(s)

Brand: Italeri
Title: Operation Silver Bayonet Vietnam War 1965

Number: 6184
Scale: 1:72
Type: Multi-kit
Released: 2018 | Rebox (Model set)