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Hello everyone,
So my latest project of intrest is Imperial Guard. I want to play Catachans because I love the kick ass Vietnam look they have.

What I have thought about doing with them is making my own regiment with it's own new fluff.

the background for them goes as follows:

The Philidelphia experiment (Project invisibility/Project raindow), was started in the WWII era and used an incredibly intense magnetic field
to cloak a ship from radar, and even the human eye. I have made up a little tidbit that the project secretly kept ongoing their research into the
Vietnam War where the experiment was conducted on a cruise liner with a batallion of troops aboard, and once the EM generator kicked on it
created a portal in to the warp and landed the cruise liner into the 41st universe.

Of course I'll have to work on their fluff a little bit, but the question I'm asking is: What Vietnam weaponry can I use for fluff purposes in my army?

I intend on buying vietnam model kits that are similar scale to 40k and using gun bits so they can be WYSIWYG.

I already have the idea of using the old Huey models as Valkyries, and maybe some artilery as basalisks.

any comments and suggestions are appreciated .

Luckily, the IG codex is your friend here!

By staying away from the more sci-fi options such as Sentinels and Ogryns, you can easily theme your force to your fluff.

Some suggestings would be: Vets with shotguns, Demo squads, snipers, Heavy weapons teams with missile launchers, or even LSWs as count-as Heavy Bolters!

The world is your oyster!

There's a guide to build a M60 MBT using Games-Workshop parts somewhere around here; definitely fits in the Vietnam theme.

Another idea: proxy jeeps as sentinels.

You can bend the fluff a bit but remember, a bolter is an automatic grenade launcher, and a lasgun can blow a man's arm off. A heavy bolter is ridiculously powerful. This makes it kinda hard to represent with modern, or older weaponry, but you can approximate as best you can.

i have to say this is one of the more out there army backgrounds but i really like it. so did it spit them out on the 41st millennium Terra? or on some jungle backwater world perhaps? its always refreshing to see people thinking outside the box when it comes to their army's origin and something that crazy fits within the 40k universe just fine.

I never knew lasguns could blow a mans arm off- I was under the impression they worked on the principle of dissapaiting the laser energy internally, essentially cooking you. Fair enough with the Heavy Bolter comment though.

Getting back on-topic, how about rough riders on dirt bikes? dont know if they used them in 'nam, but its a fun idea.

Lasgun=M16A1
Shotgun=shotgun
bolter=thompson.45 subgun ( rate of fire makes up for the "tiny" bullet)
laspistol and ccw=.45 colt and a machete
autocannon=.50cal machinegun
heavy bolter=MK19 grenade launcher -we had the prototypes in nam
heavy stubber=m60 machinegun or even a M134 Minigun
bolt pistol=.357 magnum revolver
missile launcher=missile launcher
flame thrower=flamer
plasmagun=?
Meltagun=? battlefield pickups in the 41st millenium?
GL=GL
etc, etc, etc

cool idea..post pics if you decide to do them!

I like the list except for one item- the Heavy Stubber really is just an M2 (.50) Machine Gun. The Mini-Gun would probably better represent the autocannon.

As for the grenade launcher- M79, if you need a reference it looks like a shotgun with a really wide barrel. Wikipedia has some good pictures of it. It was also the weapon the Comedian used in the Watchmen to fire tear gas at the angry mob.

Autocannons are per definition automatic weapons with a caliber over 20mm. So something bigger than a M134 would be in order, I think. The M61 Vulcan gatling cannon would be possible, although it's rather something like the assault cannon due to rate of fire...

...I can't seem to find autocannons from the vietnam era. The M242 bushmaster you see on the Bradley is a very classical autocannon - however, it was introduced around 1986, a bit too late...

Apparently, autocannons were only used on aircraft around that time.

I've heard that the autogun (aka a semi automatic assault rifle) has the same stat line as a lasgun, so replacing the lasgun with an M-16 is no big deal.

I like your fluff idea. You could use M113 armored personelle carriers as chimera chassis. Just don't use the "amphibious" rule that the chimera gets. You could also use M113's as Griffon Mortar carriers, that was done around that time. I think they had a different number designation, but you know what I mean.

Good luck with your army.

An autcannon has more in common with a flak gun than a minigun. Closest thing to a minigun is a Leman Russ Punisher, since it has a comparable rate of fire.

'Nam styled Catachans is an idea that never ceases to entertain me. Saw a really kickass air cav army that was done with this theme - all units mounted in Valkyries, boonie caps and old helmets everywhere. Even had the Master of Ordinance as Bill Kilgore from Apocalypse Now. I'm sure that's floating around somewhere on Dakka.

Catachan Special Forces Blog. It's under the P&M Blogs.

Fantasic ideas guys much appreciated. I have a few of them painted one in particular is a model from an infantry platoon command squad holding the flag where I did the flag up and painted it to resemble the american flag.

Hopefully I can get my hands on a camera and get pics up.