Operation Silver Bayonet was the name given to the campaign that would culminate in the Battle of la Drang Valley in 1965, one of the early major battles between the US Army and the People's Army of Vietnam. In many ways it was typical of many engagements that were to follow, so this set should be seen more as a depiction of the Vietnam War in general than specific to any one action.
There have been very few sets for the Vietnam War, and some of those from Orion have been only recently released, so it will come as no surprise that the figures for this battleset were sourced from the old Esci catalogue:
There is plenty of heavy equipment here too, naturally all of it American. The kits included are: - 1 of Italeri UH-1C Gunship (050)
- 1 of Italeri M-113 A1 (7011)
- 1 of Italeri M48 A2/A3 Patton (7015)
Adding to the package is a complete set of Battlefield Buildings, plus laser-cut MDF models of a village house and a smaller house.
The American figures are pretty good if occasionally a bit too concerned with how they appear in the movies, and the Vietnamese forces are well worth owning too, so there can be little to complain about with the choice of figures. The Bell UH-1, widely known as the 'Huey', is an icon of the Vietnam War and is surely an essential element in such a set as this. The M-113 armoured personnel carrier was very widely used during the war too, and over 600 of the M48 Patton saw service in that conflict, so all of this heavy equipment is very suitable. The battlefield buildings provide some interesting items that do not look out of place in Vietnam, and so do add value.
We are no experts on the architecture of village buildings in Vietnam, but to our eye the two houses provided look very good. Both are single-storey structures raised above the ground, and like all of the Sarissa MDF buildings in the Italeri range they are really well made, being easy to put together and very satisfying to complete.
The multiple photos on the back of the box of a ready-made diorama show a particularly complicated model - perhaps the most complex of any in the range. The scene seems to be a raid on a village by US forces supported by armour and troops being landed by helicopter, and includes a very large number of features such as vegetation and paddy fields which of course are not included in the set. It is an impressive piece, particularly the effect of the helicopter down thrust on the paddy field, although we were not keen on the North Vietnamese soldiers painted in bottle green. For the first time, Italeri included a complete booklet with the set which includes not only assembly instructions for the kits and painting guides for the figures, but also some ideas for scratch built accessories like those seen on the made-up model, and, rather bizarrely, colour prints of various leaves which are about the size of a man, and so presumably meant for tree tops. While any diorama of Vietnam is going to need much vegetation, we thought this was not a realistic way to achieve this, though it does no harm either.
This is yet another nice set, with good figures and some good vehicles. The buildings and accessories too are well worth having, although the considerable diorama pictured does rather show how much more than just the contents would be required to produce a scene that really feels like it depicts the landscape of Vietnam. Perhaps what we are saying is because of the nature of the country, a diorama such as this is particularly ambitious, though the contents of this box make for a very good start for such a project.