335th AHC Vietnam Skin Pack

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335th AHC Vietnam Skin Pack

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335th Assault Helicopter Company Vietnam Skin Pack

 

"A" Company of the 82nd Aviation Battalion (82nd Airborne Division) deployed to Vietnam in April 1965 in support of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. In September 1966, A Company was decommissioned and recommissioned as the 335th Aviation Company (months later redesignated the 335th Assault Helicopter Company). The 335th AHC was returned stateside and decommissioned in November 1971.

 

This is a collection of eight skins representing the 335th AHC in Vietnam (1966-70) as well as A Co., 82nd AvBn in 1965-66.

• Glossy black of A Co. 82nd AvBn in 1965 (#648)
  
• Two Tone camouflage of A Co. 82nd AvBn in 1965-66 (#625)
  
• Two Tone camouflage of the 335th AHC in 1966 (#561)
  
• Two Tone camouflage of the Gunship Platoon "Falcons" in 1966-67 (#928)
  
• "Horse Thief", a designated recovery helicopter used by the Maintenance Platoon (1966-67). The four-color camouflage scheme was unique.
  
• 1st Platoon "Ramrods" green paint scheme in 1968-70 (#373)
  
• 1st Platoon "Ramrods" green paint scheme in 1968-70 (#572)
  
• 2nd Platoon "Mustangs" green paint scheme in 1969-70 (#252)
  

 

 

 

All reference imagery was taken from

http://vietnam-hueys.tripod.com/335th%20AHC%20home%20page.htm

 

 

Skinner's Philosophy:

 

Because the 3D models used for the aircrew utilize modern flight gear I have chosen to model the skins as "modern aircraft with nostalgic patterns", as opposed to actual Vietnam era skins.. The significance of this is that I have chosen to skin the aircrew in contemporary flight uniforms. I felt that this was more fitting in a setting that involves modern orders of battle, and is also less of an immersion-killer than seeing Vietnam era "uniforms" on clearly modern objects.

 

Note: the camouflage patterns are not historically accurate, but rather are based on the US DOS pattern by Belsimtek. If anybody can provide me with the patterns for the two tone scheme and/or "Horse Thief" I would be happy to redo the camouflage pattern to historical accuracy. That said, in this case I would rather use an existing pattern rather than "make up" 3/4 of the pattern in both cases.

 

 

A note about the Crew Chiefs & Door Gunners:

 

Since enlisted US troops don't wear rank/rate insignia on flightsuits, their rank/rate is displayed on their nametag. Since there are no specific nametag textures for the crew chief/door gunner texture, I have added a nametag to the velcro on the chest armor (as is standard practice).

 

In choosing names for the textures, I opted for US servicemembers who received the Medal of Honor. SFC Paul Smith received the Medal of Honor posthumously in the Global War on Terror, and represents the United States Army in these skins. Here is his Medal of Honor Citation:

 

Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with an armed enemy near Baghdad International Airport, Baghdad, Iraq on April 4, 2003. On that day, Sergeant First Class Smith was engaged in the construction of a prisoner of war holding area when his Task Force was violently attacked by a company-sized enemy force. Realizing the vulnerability of over 100 soldiers, Sergeant First Class Smith quickly organized a hasty defense consisting of two platoons of soldiers, one Bradley Fighting Vehicle and three armored personnel carriers. As the fight developed, Sergeant First Class Smith braved hostile enemy fire to personally engage the enemy with hand grenades and anti-tank weapons, and organized the evacuation of three wounded soldiers from an armored personnel carrier struck by a rocket propelled grenade and a 60 mm mortar round. Fearing the enemy would overrun their defenses, Sergeant First Class Smith moved under withering enemy fire to man a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a damaged armored personnel carrier. In total disregard for his own life, he maintained his exposed position in order to engage the attacking enemy force. During this action, he was mortally wounded. His courageous actions helped defeat the enemy attack, and resulted in as many as 50 enemy soldiers killed, while allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers. Sergeant First Class Smith's extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the Third Infantry Division 'Rock of the Marne,' and the United States Army.

 

 

Installation:

Copy the folders (except for TempTextures; see below) to your Liveries\uh-1h folder (either in DCS World\Bazar or Saved Games\DCS).

 

 

Optional:

I have included files that have (IMHO) improved the default textures of the pilots and door gunners. They now wear the standard green and grey nomex flight gloves and have pencil pockets on their left sleeves, similar to my USN and USMC uniform textures. Additionally, I included a 1st Cavalry patch that blocks the alpha channel for the First Sergeant rank, which removes sleeve rank insignia from the gunners' flightsuits (enlisted troops in the US services don't wear rank insignia on flightsuits).

 

To enable these textures, just copy the contents of the _Optional\TempTextures folder to your DCS World\Bazar\TempTextures folder. To disable the textures, just delete them from TempTextures and the default textures will be used instead. As of version 1.21, the US Army skins no longer use the default aircrew textures, but they are still improvements over the defaults. In either case, using the revised default 1st Cavalry texture is highly recommended.

 

 

Optional:

The release of DCS World 1.2.4 added the ability to add texture paths using the file "autoexec.cfg" in your Saved Games\DCS\Config folder. This will allow you to save hard drive space as long as the skin filenames are unique. My skins support this, so any DDS file with the same name will be identical.

 

In order to enable this feature, add the following line to autoexec.cfg (be sure to create the file if it doesn't exist):

 

table.insert(options.graphics.VFSTexturePaths, "C:/Users/<username>/Saved Games/DCS/Textures")

 

You can use any path (even a different drive), but you must use forward slashes for your path. Backslashes won't work here.

 

Then, you can move all of the DDS files from each of the skin folders to this new folder you've added to your path. Allowing overwrites is not a problem, as I use unique names for each file. Finally, be sure to go into each description.lua file and change all "false" entries to "true."

 

 

 

 

Special thanks to upuaut for assistance with the more "exotic" material names, as well as the assistance with custom rotor colors.

 

You are free to use any of the textures in other skins or projects as long as proper credit is provided in the readme file.

 

 

 

 

-Home Fries

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• Submitter
  HomeFries
• Submitted
  04/16/2014
• Category
  Misc/AI Aircraft Skins