by Stephen 'Cookie' Sewell

This article appeared in the January 1997 issue of Boresight

Set Ar35001B, US Army black decals; Set AR35002, US Army standardized ambulance crosses; and Ar35003, US Army yellow bridging plates; all sets, $7.95 each.

One of my personal pet peeves has been the gross indifference of the decal companies to provide decent armor markings for modelers. Nothing is more galling to me than to go into either the Squadron Shop DC or one of the local train shops and see literally hundreds of decal sheets for aircraft and trains, and only a few ancient sheets for armor. While there has been some good news of recent date - such as the Tamiya sheets of about three years back - most of them are still incomplete or incorrect. The aircraft modelers don't put up with that - all one has to do is read the scathing comments at the back of any one of the Detail and Scale series books to see what I mean - nor do the rail guys.

While loudly grousing about that one night on the Internet, I received an E-mail message from Woody Vondracek, the driving force behind Ardier Fine Transfers. These are a relatively new line of what had been aircraft: decals and which are of a new generation of quality, and have been advertised in FSM and in the IPMS USA Journal. Woody even gave a very nice presentation on their use at the 1996 IPMS USA National convention. (I didn't know who he was at the time, nor he know me, so we passed like ships in the night as we swapped out after one of the presentations I made.)

Woody stated that he would like to do armor decals (a story I have heard before from Microscale and Superseale, among others) and would be happy to run up some sets if I could supply him with artwork and instructions. Fair enough, but in my case, it was "been there, done that" before. However, having seen some of his products, I did the workups and sent him the info. But unlike the others, Woody sent back some stunningly sharp and precise sheets of production decals, with all of the info incorporated and all of the details intact. Mea culpa!

These first four sheets are typical of Woody's products. While essentially dry transfers, they all come with a sheet of waterslide backing paper so that they can be converted to the more common wet decals. All it takes is a few minutes of alignment and transfer to the sheet, and a quick ooating of Microscale Decal Film to fix them in place, and then on to the water and setting solutions. Pretty good way to get the best of both worlds!

The first two sheets cover most of the internal and external markings found on US Army equipment since the postwar era began. The white ones are valid from 1945 up to about 1974, and the black ones are for interiors and all other vehicles up to the present. No directions for their use in specific are included, as most units had their own method of using them and marking vehicles. There are bumper number sets, fuel can markings, stowage markings, tire pressure markings, and a myriad of small stencils that no other manufacturer has bothered to do. The white ones will make any Vietnam era vehicle - M88s, M48s, or any of the SP guns - really pop out from the dull paint schemes we have all had to use until these sheets were released.

The ambulance crosses are based on the diagrams in the US Army painting regulations and technical bulletins. The large ones are for "hard" vehicles and the others are for "soft top" vehicles like the long-body M825 M151 -based forward area ambulance. They will also be useful for other vehicles converted to ambulance use.

The bridging markings come in two sizes, one for small vehicles and one for larger ones. They also include the red "C" indicating that the vehicle is towing a trailer. The modeler will have to cut a disk of plastic to mount the plates on the grilles of vehicles like the AFV Club M35 trucks, but they are correct and have the right size numbers.

I can't say enough good things about these decals, and would rate them as highly recommended. However, in reviews I have a policy of not doing that on things which I was directly involved in producing; even though all I did was the research, I don't think that's fair to either the producer or the modeler. They are really worthwhile, and I hope to hear from other modelers on their usefulness.

Woody has mentioned that he is willing to do more sets, but before you inundate him with requests, be prepared to furnish him either high-caliber, easy to obtain references or camera-ready artwork on what you want him to do. One-off sheets involve a set-up fee. Woody can be reached (and the sheets ordered from him) via either Archer Fine Transfers, 1205 Silvershire Way, Knightdale, NC 27545, phone (919) 266-4181, or E-mail him at transferman@mindspring.com for a quicker response.