Sabre_days

My apologies for the long absence...I'm back and first off, a big thank you to everyone who voted for this GB and also especially for @Corsairfoxfouruncle for looking after the thread over the past few months. @wimbledon99, welcome aboard! Thanks for joining in, you have been added to the list.

Hopefully better late than never, for a variety of reasons I haven't had much (read: any) time for modelling in the past few months, but I was finally able to get underway a week ago Thursday. My entry, in the Carriers subcategory, is Academy's new kit of USS Enterprise as she appeared at the Battle of Midway. It looks like a great kit in the bags and the build so far has only reinforced that impression: I'll follow up with some in-progress pics in the next few days.

Please count me in!

Quick question - would an F-16 be acceptable as a "Lockheed" product? And if so, would it have to be one manufactured after Lockheed-Martin absorbed General Dynamics' Fort Worth division, or would any Viper in service after the merger (and therefore supported by Lockheed-Martin) be okay? Longer explanation to why I'm asking - a few months ago I bought the digital PDF edition of the January, 1992 tenth anniversary issue of FineScale Modeler, which was shortly after my first few issues of FSM but one I missed at the time...there's a full-page ad for Academy-Minicraft (as it was at the time) in that issue that gave me an idea for this GB: It starts with the line "Past, Present or Future, 1/72 Scale is the Way to Go" followed by photos of three Academy-Minicraft kits representing the present (F-15E Strike Eagle), the future (F-117A Nighthawk) and the past (B-17B Flying Fortress). Aside from the heavy irony that the F-117 is long since retired and the F-15E is still going strong, that ad got me thinking that since this GB is dedicated to the products of a particular company (Lockheed), why not focus my choice of kits on those produced by a particular company (Academy) and take the theme from their magazine ad from 26 years ago and run with it?: The Past: P-38J Lightning The Present: F-16C Fighting Falcon (or, if that's off limits, F-22A Raptor) The Future: F-35A Lightning II Time permitting, the SR-71 Blackbird and F-117A Nighthawk might also fill in different eras of the past...

Please count me in. If we're still taking nominations, what about the Airfix P-51D (either 1:72 or 1:48)? Hard to beat for sheer variety of markings that can go on a more or less OOB build...

Bit late, I know, but I suppose it's time to flag down @Enzo Matrix to let him know we're at 30 with at least two co-hosts (possibly three, depending on @SleeperService's schedule)...

Yes they are...please don't reconsider on my account though, given my track record and building pace it's highly unlikely I'll finish anything other than the Mustang. At this point, it's probably best if I don't start anything else for this GB until it's finished... Sorry for the slow reply!

I've only given it a quick look over, but based on those first impressions I'm very impressed with it. Thanks!

The Willys MB / Ford GPW Jeep may have been the most versatile vehicle of World War II, and along with the countless duties it performed for just about every Allied army, it also served as the U.S. Navy's first aircraft carrier flight deck tractor from 1942 onwards. With the increasing weight of carrier-based aircraft (for instance, the TBF Avenger), the Navy recognized that hand-moving aircraft on deck was no longer practical, and the simple, rugged Jeep proved ideally suited to the task. Carrier-based Jeeps were quite heavily stripped down, so this should be a straightforward build. References are fairly limited (the photos linked by Alex Suvorov in his writeup on his build here, along with the writeup itself, are about it for what I've got, though this one also appears in World War II Jeep in Action, which was the original inspiration for the build), but luckily flight deck Jeeps seem to have usually been pretty anonymous-looking, so in the finest armour modelling tradition this will likely be a "generic" vehicle... The starting point:

Here's my entry, the new Airfix B-25D out of the box with kit markings: It looks like a really great kit, and I'm definitely looking forward to getting started on it...

My primary build will be a 414 Squadron Mustang I from the Academy kit, converted with Special Hobby parts and maybe a few aftermarket bits. Secondary possibilities include a 418 Squadron Mosquito FB.VI, a 404 Squadron Beaufighter X and maybe a Spitfire IX...

Welcome aboard, thanks for joining in! As Dennis already said, both Gundam and Transformers would be eligible for either Sci-Fi or Movie and TV...both great choices (and there's always room for more Star Wars, of course).

Having signed up for the P-38 STGB, please count me in...

Welcome aboard, thanks for joining in!

Sorry to hear that, hope you recover soon! I'd be happy to co-host if you're okay with someone with no prior hosting experience (though I am co-hosting Pacific at War for trickyrich, so I will have co-host experience by next year). And I will definitely be building the AT-AT. That and the Space Shuttle are my top picks, though I'd like to try and fit in at least one fast jet as well. Question is which one...I also remembered that the Gulf of Sidra Incident engagement between Libyan Su-22s and U.S. Navy F-14s was in 1981, and I have the recent "VF-84 Jolly Rogers 1980" boxing of the Academy F-14A in my stash, which has the VF-41 Black Aces aircraft involved in the 1981 Su-22 shootdown as secondary decal options (I think I also have a WolfPak sheet with the appropriate markings).

I still plan on attempting the P-40 duo for this GB, and I would like to get in the MC.202 as well, but something struck me after my initial knee-jerk "default to aircraft" response: Both of my grandfathers served in Italy during World War II, one in the U.S. Army and one in the Canadian Army. Neither one of them was in a particularly vehicle-centric role (they were an Army Corps of Engineers mapmaker and a film projectionist in the YMCA entertainment division, respectively), but I happen to have Tamiya's 1:35 Willys Jeep and Universal Carrier Mk. II in my stash. I figure those were ubiquitous enough vehicles that their paths must have crossed with my grandfathers' at least a few times...

Thanks for the clarifications...hope all the "thinking aloud" I tend to do on what might be eligible for these open-ended group builds doesn't get too tedious. After all that, being an aircraft modeller first and foremost, I'm probably going to stick to planes for anything that goes in here: Recon: Spitfire PR XI or SR-71 Blackbird Night Fighters: P-61 Black Widow and/or PV-1 Ventura Tank Busters: A-10A "Warthog" Ship Killers: RNoAF F-16A with Penguins... And that's already way more than I can hope to finish in one GB, so I have some definite picking and choosing to do...

Excellent choice, glad to see one of the more unusual variants being suggested. Thanks for joining in!

One build I definitely want to include in this GB if it goes ahead is Bandai's 1:350 Millennium Falcon (the Vehicle Series mini-kit) built as a generic Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-1300 pushing a cargo train, like in this unused sketch from the Force Awakens Incredible Cross-Sections book (I think I heard somewhere that the concept had been suggested before in an early source in the old Star Wars Legends expanded universe, but had largely been forgotten). The sketch didn't make it in, but the idea was alluded to in the text and I remember when I first looked over the TFA cross-sections book when the movie came out in December 2015 I loved the idea: suddenly the Falcon's configuration made a lot more sense - not only the lack of significant cargo space on an interstellar freighter, but also its utility as a smuggling craft...overworked Imperial customs officers likely couldn't be bothered to inspect every "empty" tug passing through a system too closely...

Please count me in with a Challenger 1.

Sounds good to me! Though, would an aircraft have to have scored a victory in combat to qualify? I can think of a few very unusual possibilities that weren't actually used in combat...the Boeing YAL-1 airborne laser platform version of the 747 for a start...granted, its intended targets were missiles not aircraft, but it was still designed to destroy flying objects. Similarly, the original prototype of the Myasishchev M-17/M-55 series, Subject 34, was intended as an aerostat balloon interceptor. And of course there are the Sidewinder-toting Nimrods of the Falklands War and later... Conversely, among aircraft that did score victories in actual combat, although it was technically classed as a fighter, the U.S. Marine Corps night fighter version of the PV-1 Ventura is a subject I've been wanting to enter in a group build for some time primarily because it was, to the best of my knowledge, the only successful conversion of an airliner airframe into a fighter (for a certain value of "successful," of course, and rejecting out of hand the cover story that the Do.17 was "originally intended" as an "airliner...") In any case, I've got Dragon's 1:700 scale USS San Diego in my stash, hopefully someone will release an injection-moulded 1:72 ZSU-23-4 Shilka or 9K33 Osa (SA-8 "Gecko") before too long, and since I didn't have the chance to build a Skink in the Sherman STGB I might have to look into that possibility...

Great idea, please count me in. I've been waiting for an excuse to put a P-61 in a group build (though Battle of the Bulge 75th and Island Hopping would also work)...the other categories also have lots of potential (a Norwegian F-16 with Penguin missiles has a definite appeal...) Re: ships in the Recon category, I'd assume anything with a primary intelligence gathering tasking, such as Soviet AGI spy trawlers or a Stalwart-class T-AGOS would be eligible? Submarines might be a tough one in that it's a safe bet just about any post-World War II sub other than ballistic and guided missile boats has likely carried out intelligence gathering missions of some sort, but most of those missions are still highly classified... As for ship killers, would it work to take the same approach you're suggesting for AFVs in the tank buster category - anything with a primary ASuW tasking (i.e. all capital ships, most cruisers and some destroyers) is in, but anything with AAW or ASW as a primary role (e.g. Ticonderoga-class CG, Spruance-class DD) is out?

Really neat idea, please count me in. I've been reviewing what happened in 1981, and there are some definite possibilities: -First Space Shuttle Mission. -First full year of the Iran-Iraq War. -Israeli airstrike on the Osirak nuclear reactor. -First flights of the F-117 Nighthawk, Boeing 767, BAe 146, AV-8B Harrier II, Shorts 360, Dornier 228 and SIAI-Marchetti S.211. And at a bit of a stretch: -Longest game in professional baseball history between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings (Triple-A affiliates of the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles, respectively - future hall of famers Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken, Jr. played third base for the opposing teams). Admittedly, it would be hard to fit this one in, but part of me would really like to try... -Just one year off from initial operational capability of the M1 Abrams (1980) and MiG-29 "Fulcrum" (1982), so a very early service M1 or an operational test and evaluation early-series MiG-29 might work... All things considered, Columbia in STS-1 markings, the first prototype YF-117A and an Operation Opera F-16A Netz are probably my first choices... I haven't done too much research yet on which kits came out in 1981, but I have determined that MPC's The Empire Strikes Back AT-AT walker was first released that year, and I have an unstarted copy in my stash.

Great idea, please count me in!

One of the decal options in the Flyhawk 1:72 scale M1A2 is in the NATO three-tone scheme, the newest Academy 1:35 kit has an option for a vehicle in Germany last year that was mostly in the single-tone green scheme with some parts (lower hull, running gear, CROWS, etc.) in sand and both Trumpeter and Dragon have released kits with markings for National Training Center vehicles from the 1990s and early 2000s in sand with a bit of green over it in a camouflage pattern (the latter had a photo of the actual tank on the box...not sure if they were OPFOR vehicles or not).