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John Tapsell

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  1. I believe that the British Army used Jeeps as late as the mid-50s in decreasing numbers. The Paras were still using them in 1956 for the Operation Musketeer drops. It's not exactly the timeframe you are looking for though.
  2. I've seen photos of the units in Alsthom livery and it would make sense - ALE acquired the Alsthom fleet (mostly Fauns).
  3. Slighty off-topic - The two(?) Unipower M Series prototype tractor units ended up in civilian heavy haulage use with Abnormal Load Engineering (ALE), since bought out by Mammoet. Living where I do, it was quite common to have to dodge them as they came in and out of the local ALE depot. ALE eventually manufactured a small number of 8x8 tractors in-house, with a passing resemblance to the Unipower wagons.
  4. I think one of the boxings of the Italeri Series III also included the yellow stripe. Correction - I think it was the Revell reboxing that contained the RAF markings.
  5. Thanks Stuart - much appreciated. The Flail hamper is all scratchbuilt using some scaled-up plans from an old MAFVA Tankette magazine - Vol. 23 Issue 4 (1988) - 1/76 scale plans for the Scorpion Mk II.
  6. No - that's what you are doing. You are judging the quality of an entire range (100+ models) on the basis of a photo of one model in the range and one of Tamiya's earliest releases in 1/48 scale at that. I build 1/48 kits almost exclusively these days. About 10 years ago I dropped down from 1/35 scale to 1/48 scale and I have never regretted that decision. Here's a challenge - pick up one of Tamiya's more recent AFV kits and give it a go. I'd consider their M4A3E8, T-55, Abrams, Type 10, T34-85, Panzer IV Ausf H and Matilda to name a few, to be excellent kits, having built all of them (amongst many of the rest of the range). They can be built out of the box or detailed or converted as extensively as you might wish. Are they perfect? No they are not, but they are great fun to build.
  7. This is what the Charioteer looked like with Panzer tracks (not my model but the display example on Mike Belcher's stand at Telford a few years ago).
  8. Have you actually built any or are you basing you opinions on photos of models?
  9. I believe that Fat Frog are part of Hobby Easy. I can definitely recommend their resin wheels for the Tamiya K2 Ambulance. I did a Charioteer a few years ago, (a Belcher Bits conversion for the 1/48 Tamiya Cromwell) and used Tamiya Pz III tracks for that, plus some spare lengths of the short runs of stowed track that Tamiya include, to make up the difference in track length. It's not a perfect solution but it will survive a casual inspection.
  10. Never really had a problem getting to sleep and often sleep through the night, but I go through phases where I dream very clearly and it wakes me up - usually dreams where I'm struggling to explain myself or to sort out a problem. The subject/circumstances I dream about are generally irrelevant to the actual issue, but I've learnt over the years to take it as a warning that something is unsettling me more than I want it to (even if I haven't yet identified what it is) and that I need to find and address that 'something' before it becomes a larger matter.
  11. 1960s and 70s US serial numbers and markings were applied directly onto the base paint colour (OD in this case). There are some instances where a vehicle was repainted in a different colour, the marking might be masked off to avoid re-applying it. That would leave a rectangle of the old colour visible but would be very rare on a Vietnam era vehicle in OD. If you are building Vietnam-era US armour, the Olive Drab shade was much darker than the wartime shade. Tamiya's XF-74 JGSDF Olive Drab is considered a good match for this later colour, rather than their standard XF-62 Olive Drab..
  12. There is stuff available on Shapeways that may be of interest. Small selection of links below https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace/miniatures/vehicles?tag=m-atv&sort=&facet[pdcId][]=91&facet[price][min]=1&facet[price][max]=2500&facet[price][from]=1&facet[price][to]=2500 (1/16) https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace/miniatures/vehicles?tag=1%2F16&sort=&facet[pdcId][]=91&facet[pdcId][]=462&facet[price][min]=1&facet[price][max]=2500&facet[price][from]=1&facet[price][to]=2500 (all this is generic post-2000 stowage and components) https://www.shapeways.com/shops/mikesmodelshop?section=Military+1%2F35+and+1%2F16&s=0 (1/35 and 1/16) One tip for searching Shapeways - search on Google instead for what you are looking for (eg 1/16 fuel cans) but always include 'Shapeways' as part of the search string - eg 'shapeways 1/16 fuel cans' - as that gives better search results than using Shapeways' own search function
  13. Just finished 'War and Coffee' by Joshua Havill. It's a personal memoir of his time in Afghanistan as a UH-60 Blackhawk pilot. Not much for the adrenalin junkies in the book but a fascinating (to me) account of the day to day activities of an aviation company in a war zone and the various personalities within. It's given me a yen to re-read Chickenhawk by Robert Mason, a Huey pilot in Vietnam. The book charts his year 'in-country' and is packed with random technical detail about flying Hueys.
  14. Quarter-scale has never had the necessary traction amongst armour modellers to reach the threshold to tip over into a mainstream armour scale. As Troy says, it's been around for a long time but never as a headline grabbing scale. The Airfix vehicle kits (Op Herrick and Battle of Britain ranges) were never intended to be a stand-alone range. They were released to support ranges of new 1/48 aircraft (Lynx and Merlin helos plus the Hurricane and Spitfire kits). I'd be somewhat surprised if we ever see them re-released, All of the above might sound like I'm being disparaging about the scale. I'm not. I am a dedicated 1/48 scale armour modeller and have been for the past 10 years after down-sizing from 1/35. There are a lot of kits out there - mostly Tamiya - but several other manufacturers too. RFM have recently released a stunning M-ATV. Kittyhawk (now defunct) released a pair of Ural trucks t go with their aircraft. Hobbyboss have started releasing new kits again (Pz IV and Panther so far) and promised more in their catalogue (no guarantee they will ever be released though!). There are quite a few resin kits available and the 3d printed market is ballooned in the past 2-3 years with a lot of small manufacturers designing and producing a huge variety of vehicles in 1/48.
  15. Try Gaspatch - one of their .50 cals should be close enough for what you need? https://www.gaspatchmodels.com/machine-guns-148/?page=2 Outstanding casting and quality.
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