I had long wondered what to do with the early 90's 'Desert Storm' US infantry I had from the HLBS range. Some of the later releases covered the new equipment the US is using in the middle east, and seemed much more inkeeping with the Ultra-Modern setting I've been aiming for (and with the visuals of Arma II which I'm using as a vague guide). Then it hit me - lots of western looking eastern european countries (Poland, Georgia, and I think Estonia) have adopted the kevlar 'Fritz helmet' along with our items of US uniform, but they've retained their eastern blok weaponry... so now all I needed to do was get some AKs and RPKs/PKMs and do a few weapons swops and suddenly not only do the figures become usable, they become eminantly suitable for use as CDF infantry. The best source to by 28mm weapons in any sort of bulk is TAG, and they offer two different styles - their early, quite chunky AK47's, and the later, more accurately to scale sculpts of AK74's...
Here's a comparison showing a TAG AK74 top, a HLBS AK74 in the middle (the magazine is slightly miscast) and a converted TAG AK47 on the bottom. Neither is a perfect match - the AK74 looks a little too dainty perhaps, especially considering the size of the flash hider on the HLBS model... The GL on the AK47 was snipped of a TAG AK74...
AK47 laid ontop of a HLBS AK74/GL combo - looks OK
... as does the AK74 in this context.
So next, how about in position on the figures themselves?
Ak74
AK47 - looks a bit chunky in the photo, but it looked better in real life. It also has the advantage of being a bit more robust, so I'm not going to need to worry so much about bending barrels.
In terms of support weapons, TAG do RPKs, RPDs & PKMs. Given that the RPK is a glorified AK rifle, and that the RPK sculpt used the same body as the AK47, it makes sense to use these for the conversions from the SAW gunners. These also look a bit on the big side, but the RPD is too old (and comparing weapons with a TAG african militia man, a bit small). The PKM may well have been fine, but I decided to play it safe and go with the RPK. The overall dimensions match fairly well with the RPK from the VDV winter gear set, although the HLBS weapons have a slightly longer body/shorter barrel.
The conversions have all been done, and await priming. 3 fire teams of CDF here we come!
(As a side point, the CDF has been left using a locally manufactured, updated varient of the AKM & RPK, following issues with the reliability of their exisitng stock of AK-74s during the Chernarus civbil war of the mid 2000's. This version of the rifle has been designated the ChM2)
Nice conversions!
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