Bolt Action ‘48 – Part 20 “Oddball”

G’day friends, Romans, countrymen lend me your ears,

Donald Sutherland, the legendary actor, passed away on the 20th of June this year (2024) at the ripe old age of 88. As much as he was a legend he tended to fly under the radar a little, in a way. In a world full of big blockbuster movies with big time actors I feel like his old school style of acting got a little lost along the way. That isn’t a jab at him at all, more of an observation of the times. He was no heart throb or muscle bound action hero with perfect teeth. What he was though was a stoic actor with great presence and talent. He started out life aiming to be an engineer but then abruptly changed his mind and started studying drama at the London Academy of music and dramatic art in 1957. A decade later that he scored a role as Pinkley in, one of my all time favourite war movies, The Dirty Dozen. Three years after that in 1970 he was starring in MASH, which I never really got into, but in the same year he landed a role in the classic war/comedy movie Kelly’s Heroes. This brings us neatly to my homage to Donald Sutherland and his character, Oddball, in the aforementioned movie.

No this post isn’t just a focus on my career as a T-shirt model.

For the sake of this post I’m going to assume you’ve all seen Kelly’s heroes. If you haven’t I am disgusted and you should be ashamed of yourselves. I’d suggest you go look in the mirror and have a good hard look at yourselves. Then find and watch, maybe more than once for penance, the movie and come back here to read the rest of this post. 

Donald Sutherland is masterful as Oddball, the hippie-esque-chill-vibes Sherman tank commander, in the movie and his performance steels the show in my opinion. 

Oddball’s tank, an M4 Sherman, is nothing like what the real Sherman’s were like because, well, it’s Hollywood. Creative license and all that stuff. What his tank is though, is very bloody cool. It’s almost another character of the movie. It’s a war machine, it’s a home (like gypsy caravan) and it plays a vital role in the movie too. 

A few years back, after watching the movie for the umpteenth time, I went on a bit of a search for a Sherman I could convert to be more like Oddballs and, to my absolute joy, I found that the good people at Warlord Games already had the perfect one on offer. PLUS they had old Oddball himself poking out of the turret. I was so excited to say the least. Then, like with most hobby ideas I have, nothing happened apart from the box moving to three different houses haha. 

Now, finally, it’s painted and I’m stoked with it. 

Despite it already being a great model I wanted to add even more bits and bobs to it. I glued on more stowage, a few weapons (including a panzerfaust) and, most importantly a treasure chest haha. Those of you that are in the know will know exactly why I added that. I also painted on a “woof woof” on the front because…

I had so much fun painting this tank.

Note the papers stuck to the side of the tank. One says “war” and the other says “VE” as in Victory Europe.

Note the home made scatter rubble. Works well if I do say so myself.

I watched Fury for the billionth time recently and eyed the M3 submachine gun used by Norman the new recruit. It’s a cool looking weapon I reckon so I popped one on the turret next to Oddball just for those close encounters.

Note the building in the background is actually a 3d print of the bank from the movie Kelly’s Heroes.

Rest in peace Donald Sutherland. Another legend lost but one we were lucky to have for so long.

Cheers

IRO