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Cromwell VI - 5th Royal Horse Artillery, 7th Armoured Division, British Army, Europe, 1944/45 This Cromwell was at this stage a while back but Ive only just got around to taking some photos of it that are suitable for showing here. I took some earlier in the year but they turned out a little dark. Its a lovely little kit and Ive made it OOB apart from the two stowage boxes which are scratch built from styrene. At some point Im going to add aerials and possibly a little more stowage but I figured, with the amount of builds Ive currently got going on, Im going to forget to show it here if I dont do it now. I decided to leave off the wading gear from the back. As usual the paints are all Humbrol and Revell applied with hairy sticks. The WIP progress can be found here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234972407-airfix-176-cromwell-iv-tank-update-310115/ And a couple showing how small this kit is: These two were taken before it was finished. Comments and suggestions welcome. Kind regards, Stix

In 1958 a new era started for Harrington when the Thor Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles were chosen as a nuclear deterrent. Bloodhound Mk.1 SAMs at separate sites provided protection. Construction at Harrington was completed in early 1960 and 218 Sqn took up residence. The allocation was short-lived as Harrington was de-activated 23 August 1963. The Thor Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile was an American design, operated by four R.A.F. Squadrons along the Eastern side of England. Each Thor complex was manned by approximately 1,000 R.A.F. personnel who had complete control of the weaponry except that American personnel had the final authorisation for the use of the nuclear warhead. Polebrook was the second Northamptonshire site to deploy Thor missiles.

I thought I should probably get a thread underway, I've decided to go with the Friendship Models 1/76 Landwasserschlepper.....It's a charming little kit of a fairly unique subject: http://eshop.friendshipmodels.org.uk/epages/BT3667.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/BT3667/Products/WV76021 (Having said that and going on past precedent, I expect a 1/72 injection moulded LWS to be announced imminently). Something of a place-marker post at the moment as we've had the kids round so things are even more chaotic than usual.....I'll be back with pics soon. Cheers to Mish & Rich for hosting the GB.

Hi all, My second attempt at anything not medium-scale aircraft so be gentle! I wasgiven this kit to complete for the up-and-coming D-Day diorama at the Hornby museum - my club is organising and preparing the hundreds of tanks, guns, aircraft, ships and figures which will feature. I have done a 1/76 Sherman for the same display. It is not muddied up yet as I don't know what shades will be used in the diorama so it would be silly to have it not matching - nonetheless I hope my feeble attempts at weathering pass muster here on the armour forum. I actually really enjoyed it - was lovely to leave the filler alone and just experiment with preshading/washes and chipping, and all done in a couple of days! Cheers, Chris

Went with this as an OOB build and had quite a few problems , Instructions were a bit on the vague side and had a nightmare cutting out the windows but not to unhappy with the end result

Thought it was about time I took the plunge and joined a Group Build. My subject is a Panzer IV L70 (v) the long-barrelled, L/70 75 mm upgrade to the Jagd Panzer IV "Guderian's Duck". This is the Matchbox 1/76 kit from the '70s - I already have two of these, one L/70, the other converted to a Jagd Panzer IV with the L/48 gun and slightly different skirts. One of the kit options is for a vehicle of the 228 Panzerjaeger Abteilung of 116 Panzer Division, AKA "Der Windhund" or Greyhound. This unit was re-equiped during September and October 1944 while based around Dusseldorf. In November 1944, the Division seized the city of Schmidt from the US 28th Infantry Division in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest. In December 1944 the Division was involved in the Ardennes campaign. By March 1945, they were trapped in the Wessel pocket and managed to withdraw over the Rhine. On 18 April 1945 the Division surrendered to the US 9th Army. The model will represent a unit of the 228 PzJg Abt in Western Germany in late 1944 in the three-colour "ambush" scheme. It will be built largely OOB, with a few minor modifications / additions to rectify some more obvious errors: mainly the skirts, which need slight modification and the tools on the rear-deck, which are hopelessly out of scale and will be replaced or disguised with "stuff". The parts are moulded in two shades of grey, as you expect from Matchbox: and: Apologies for the quality of the photos, I have not mastered the camera I am using to get better photos than my phone - that worked, not! The tracks are the usual poly mouldings that were considered good in their day, especially when compared to the "plastic-eaters" that came with contemporary Airfix. These days they can probably be replaced with better after-market and I will be investigating the options as I have found on my earlier kits that they are slightly too long when joined as instructed and need to be adjusted to fit. Started by constructing the hull, which goes together reasonably well with a bit of filing to get a good dry fit. I needed to peg the front of the hull to reduce the need to fill around the nose plates. This picture also shows the modifications required to the side-skirts: the front and rear ends are angled in, presumably to prevent charges getting between the skirts and the hull. The I slapped some Humbrol HP1 German Overall Sand on, as you do: Humbrol enamel paint does funny things after nearly thirty years sitting in a tin: it is drying several shades browner than the original and is so thick I would be better served with a palette knife than a hairy stick. Oh well, it will act as a primer. Off to my LMS to get something more acceptable. It does show up the gap in the rear deck join that will need to be filled. That's all for now, further updates to follow. Jerry

This is my first WiP, so apologies for layout, picture and build quality. I have always wanted an early production cast hull Sherman as used at El Alamein. Thought the Nitto M4A1 would do the trick, but the rather pathetic running gear was too obviously wrong. I decided to cannibalise an Airfix Lee/Grant from the stash to get the early running gear and front hull. I believe this is now called "kit bashing" - how the hobby has come along since I last built much. We start here: And here: These are the main reason for all this work: Crude or what? After a dry fit of the Airfix hull offered up to the Nitto body, a few judicious cuts were made to give this: Decided to keep the Airfix rear hull structure, which seems to be slightly "better" detailed: The Nitto road wheels are also being replaced as they appear to be nearer 1/87 than 1/76: Although I am inclined to use the Nitto Drive wheels. That's it for piccies this far and I apologise if they are too big - it has taken me four attempts to write this post, a steep learning curve. In parting for this post, both subject models leave a great deal to be desired by modern standards. The Airfix kit is '69 vintage and I remember the original releases being hailed as "state of the art", being crisply moulded and generally accurate, despite the horrendous attempt at the Grant turret. Not so my current subject: soft plastic lacking definition, a nasty case of ejector pin marks and definite softening of the moulds - hardly surprising for the age. The Nitto offering has a lovely hull and turret that is let down by under scale, crude running gear. In both cases the less said about the tracks, the better - standard issue post office rubber bands would probably be an improvement. I aim to get an update posted in a couple of days, so thanks for looking and see you soon. Jerry

Amera's S131 Airfix D-Day Coastal Defence Fort base alongside their S226 Coastal Assault with S228 D-Day Bunker and the Airfix A05702 D-Day Coastal Defence Fort. There is a Heller Pak-40 in the bunker. I can't recall where I got the beach obstacles from, but I scratched the long hedgehogs. There are a few Revell and Matchbox German figures mixed in with Airfix German Infantry, Paratroops and Mountain Troops, and Airfix British Infantry and Commandos.

This is a conversion from the Morris tractor in the Bofors set (02314). The wheelbase was shortened and an axle removed. I used a box from the Bomber Re-Supply Set.

Two Airfix 40mm Bofors guns (02314) and various Airfix figures on a Bellona (?) vac-formed base.

My effort: Airfix Bedford MW 15cwt Tender, painted to represent a home-based RAF vehicle from mid-1942. Using Mike Starmer's guides the colours are Khaki-Green No3 base colour, with Nobels Tarmac No4 disruptive pattern to MTP20. Tyres were painted with a mix of Humbrol no21 satin black and Revel no67 tank grey. After a coat of Microscale gloss to put the decals on, I finished with mattcote, then weathered, lightly, with artists pastels. I added wing mirrors using brass wire and plasticard.

Hi, I've started this thread a bit late in the process, but better late than never. A bit before Christmas I was told not to get the Airfix version, and to look at some other ones (Here is that thread). But this was a Christmas present, and I've enjoyed the build so far. I'm disagreeing a bit with the box though. I'd have expected them to use to Russian name, or rather, Stalin's Russian name (Iosif, rather than Joseph.) But it wasn't my choice, oh well. So far I've assembled it and have painted the base colour and the machine gun: I'm just waiting for my airbrush propellant and the white paint to arrive in the post (due in tomorrow) to begin applying a snow camouflage to it using the hairspray technique. Just a few questions: How (and where) would you apply rust to it? Should I add the decals now or after the camo? And, do you know of any references for a Soviet tank (preferably the IS-3) with a snow camouflage? Thanks

M4A2 Sherman 'Cecilia', 1st Platoon, C Company, 1st Marine Medium Tank Batallion, Tarawa, 20th November 1943: Kit - Airfix 1/76 Sherman (plus lots & lots of extras). Build thread here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234946947-airfix-176-usmc-m4a2-sherman-tarawa-finished/

A tiny tank made even smaller by the fact that it is 1/76. I had been a long time after this tank as it was one of the most important tanks I was missing in my collection. I refused to buy the JB Models for 13 €, and bought it eventually the Airfix reissue for just 6 GBP or so. More pics here; http://toysoldierchest.blogspot.com/2013/06/airfix-jb-models-vickers-light-tank-mk.html