A.R.1989

Added to the wish list!

It’s always tempting to lather everything in mud. However it was a very dry summer in 1918 and the soil around Amiens is very chalky like the Somme so it would have been very dusty and dry so not much mud.

I’m a Langham resident really, my parents and grandparents all live in the village. They did. It’s the 111 that is now in the RAF museum at Hendon. I think it was captured by US troops in 45 and flown back for evaluation. There is blurb here; https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/how-an-american-saved-our-german-heinkel-he-111/ I believe my grandparents still have a B26 nose wheel in their back garden that my uncles picked up on the airfield in the late 60’s.

Ready for inspection is my most recent project. The marvellous Meng 1/35 Whippet. I have finished this as “Musical Box” of B Company, 6th Battalion. The thought behind this is that the crew are waiting to go into action a day or so before the commencement of the Battle of Amiens in August 1918. The kit is fantastic, the fit was seamless and the tracks are workable and just simply clip together. This was a great fun build that took me just a few hours over a weekend. The painting and weathering has been done with Tamiya acrylics, Mig products for the streaking and pin wash and Vallejo pigments for the mud effects and AK enamels for the oil and fuel effects. I am no figure painter and they are there to simply set a scene. The figures are from Stalingrad miniatures. Try to ignore the vignette base. I tried painting static grass after seeing Model Nerd and Night Shift on YouTube. Unlike them I don’t see the advantage of the effect and think it looks most unrealistic. This will be changed in the future. Thanks for looking.

Ready for critique is my rendition of a P-47D of the 5th Emergency Rescue Squadron. This squadron was based at RAF Boxted in the summer of 1944 and was deployed over the channel to drop life rafts and buoys for downed USAAF airmen. Boxted airfield was in fact in the village of Langham, Essex just outside of Colchester. However an RAF Langham already existed in Norfolk so they adopted the name of the next village Boxted. The airfield originally had B-26 Marauders flying from it. This changed to Mustangs in 1943 and finally the famous 56th fighter group flew from Boxted in 1944/45. This was a change of pace for me as I normally build 35th scale armour but as I live nearby to the village and airfield I wanted to build a model of an aircraft that flew from there. This has been built from the excellent Tamiya 1/48 Razorback kit with added Eduard zoom photo etch and Hannants decals. This was a pleasure to build and was a welcome change from building armour.

Fantastic Model! The figure really sets it off. Very well done!

I’m an avid user of the ak diorama mud products. I tend to lay some groundwork down and then water down the wet mud effect so that is spreads out and also glazes for a realistic wet mud effect

Ready for rivet counting is the Tamiya chally 1. This was an accidental purchase as I meant to buy the Chally 2. (beer and eBay don’t mix). This was knocked together in about a week and was straight out of the box. Very old kit that is certainly showing it’s age as the fit is terrible in places, sink and injection marks on the rear of every panel and sooo many seam lines. Hence I spent little time on it as hours were spent sanding and filling. I tried to imagine a scene on the range at Salisbury Plain in autumn in the late 80’s/ early 90’s. Anyway thanks for looking.

PVA glue and khaki paint. Mix it up at around 3:1 ratio of glue to water and a few drops of paint.

Ready for inspection is my latest build. This is my first time posting a RFI on here so I welcome any comments and suggestions for improvement. But please note figure painting is not my forte. This is Tamiya’s excellent 1/35 Cromwell with added eduard photo etch where it was relevant. The build was seamless and the fit was excellent. Built as a Cromwell from the 5th RTR of the 7th armoured brigade on their way to Villers-Bocage on the evening of 12/06/1944.

Evening all. Sorry I haven’t added any update on my Tiger. I have finally had some bench time and managed to get the diorama for my mid-tiger up to about 90% done. Try to imagine a small lapse in fighting in Ukraine, during the muddy and green spring of 1944 following the winter thaw. I hope you approve of the work so far. The figures appear shiny but I can assure you it’s just the light. Thanks for looking.

The front ones are for fuel and the rear are for coolant. If you look at my tiger I’ve added white oil paint to the rear ones to simulate limescale and fuel stain to the front ones. hope that helps

Thanks. I’ve built a few tigers and I can say that I really do like the dragon boxings. My mid is the dragon 6624 purely for the zimmerit. But for ease of construction, price and quality the RFM give the dragon kits a run for their money.

Thanks Bob, I love that you’ve used the photo of the same company of Tigers I used for inspiration for my tiger. It may be the light shining on the cables as I use dark German grey for cables to deliberately dull them down. What would you recommend to dull them down a bit more? I agree with the MG though definetly needs dulling down. any recommendations from anyone on an early tiger? I’ve seen a debate has been going on over the quality of the new border model release but couldn’t see exactly what the issues were? thanks

These should work for you as I think panzer jägers were part of the heer panzer divisions and wore the black panzer uniforms or splinter camo as opposed to the SS camo schemes or the field gray uniform of the artillery divisions that used Stugs. The tamiya set should cover all options though. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/tamiya-35354-wehrmacht-tank-crew-set--1076225 hope that helps