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Two years ago in January, I had some hope that in 2021 I would be able to complete half a dozen aircraft carriers in 1:700, the construction of which I started in 2019-2020. Unfortunately - @desert falcon was right. I haven't finished a single one - neither in 2021 nor in 2022. COVID is supposedly behind us this year, so I missed a two-month vacation for a modeller like in 2020. But unfortunately, Putin revealed himself, whose ideas are cruelly affecting all of Ukraine, and slightly less so in Eastern Europe (i.e. that part of our continent that FDR - for the price of a free hand in Asia and Latin America - generously gave Stalin as a "Soviet sphere of influence"). Today we know that this free hand was a scam (Korea, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cuba), while the ominous shadow of the red Big Brother is still strongly felt in several European countries. Even in the worst assumptions, I was not even afraid that this invasion of February 24 would affect my hobby so much. And yet - I completely lost momentum and since March 1st I have not literally finished ANY model. Maybe because the majority of them are supposed to wear red stars and Cyrillic inscriptions? So on New Year's Eve 2023, the state of my work bench is as follows: started 6 aircraft carriers in 1:700 (4 American, 1 British and 1 Russian) and 16 tanks in 1:72 (7 Russian, 6 American plus one each English, French and Italian). The reason for not finishing is almost always the same - when something stopped me, I would reach for the next box from the stash. But in general - although BM is probably not the right place for such outpourings of a psychological nature - my problem concerns not only modeling. For years, I have always devoted the period from May to September to renovating my classic cars (full-size metal ones, of course). And this year, too, I pushed these topics VERY slightly forward. To sum up: the war brutally reminded me how fragile and frail our lives are, and the prospect of its sudden and unexpected end makes virtually any creative activity senseless, leaving only those activities that allow us to live from day to day. And the long-awaited retirement in May 2022 has not changed anything for the better. Well, the whole effect of my year-long (actually 8-week) fun in modelling is two tanks and one armoured personnel carrier. Half-jokingly and half-seriously, I can - a bit forcefully - add one rally-racing car to them. All in 1:72, of course. So in the first photo there are two tanks - a light (6-ton) Soviet T-60 fighting in the Caucasus in 1942 and the giant (50-ton) British Centurion heavy tank (I know, you call it MBT) from the Korean War. You can find more pictures in the RFI threads there: The second photo shows the AMX-PRI armoured personnel carrier of the Dutch army (in the manufacturer's country, France, it is called AMX-VTT) and the Fiat Abarth 1000TC, which is a completely rebuilt Fiat 600D, found by my daughter in the Ferrero Kinder surprise egg some 25 years ago. RFI is only for an AFV – the Fiat was made "just for fun" and is actually a copy of the car that I am slowly restoring in my garage. What will this year be like? Will we live to see another Christmas? Will there be any note of optimism and hope that will restore my desire to build more models? Will I build more of them than in the record-breaking 2021 or even less than in the monstrous 2022. I do not undertake divination - time will tell... Cheers Michael

A year ago in January, I had some hope that in 2021 I would be able to complete half a dozen aircraft carriers in 1:700, the construction of which I started in 2019-2020. Unfortunately - @desert falcon was right. I haven't finished a single one This year, COVID was kind to the Polish economy (although perhaps this immature government underestimated the threat and allowed 100,000 people to die in the name of saving the ever limping economy), so I missed a two-month vacation for a modeller like in 2020. Seven models started in 2020 I finished by the end of March, in April the eighth joined them. And then I decided to return to the aircraft carriers. Unfortunately - I was getting stuck more and more. July came and I still only had 8 tanks. I traditionally devoted summer to my classic cars in the 1:1 scale, but in October the AFV returned. By the end of December, I'd built half a dozen of them. Together, this gave an annual result of 14 - better than 12 a year ago, but far from what it was intended to do. In May 2022, I'm finally going to the long-awaited retirement and maybe then something will change. Hopefully not for the worse J So here are the results of my winter-spring session in 1:72 scale. First, two Yankee twins in a desert setting: (M3) Grant Mk.I (Mirage kit) in the colours of the British 7th Armoured Division from Libya in 1942 and his younger brother - M4 Sherman (Heller) in the colours of the US 4th Armoured Division in Normandy in 1944. You can find more pictures in the RFI threads there: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235086655-the-m3-grant-mk-i-by-mirage-hobby-172/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235088822-the-„normandy”-m4-sherman-by-heller-172/ In the next picture - in the scenery of the Russian snowy winter - we see two German tanks. One weighed 22 tons and the other 45 tons, but for the Germans both were considered mediums. Pz.Kpfw.IIIJ (Unimodels) is in the colours of the SS Wiking Panzer Division during the 1942 Caucascus expedition. Pz.Kpfw.VA (Dragon) from the same unit looked like this in the spring of 1944 in the area of Kovel in today's Ukraine. You can find more pictures in the RFI threads there: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235089786-the-sdkfz141-pzkpfw-iii-ausfj-by-unimodels-172/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235087306-the-sdkfz171-panther-pzkpfw-v-ausfa-by-dragon-172/ The third picture shows two heavy tanks - both British, but from a slightly different era. The Female Mark IV (Emhar) fought in the 3rd Battalion near Cambrai in 1917, and Churchill (coincidentally also the Mk.IV, Dragon) is in the colours of the 25th Tank Brigade, fighting in Tunisia in 1943. You can find more pictures in the RFI threads there: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235091058-the-emhar-172-mark-iv-„female”-from-cambrai/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235087981-infantry-heavy-tank-mkiv-a22-churchill-mk-iv-by-dragon-172/ The last "pre-holiday" pair are the Allied tanks taking part in the final defeat of Hitler. The British Cromwell Mk.IV (Revell) shows the colours of the 7th Armoured Division from France in June 1944, and the Yankee M24 Chaffee (Grigorov) is in the colours of US 117th Cavalry Recce Squadron from West Germany in 1945. You can find more pictures in the RFI threads there: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235087660-cruiser-tank-mkviii-a27m-cromwell-mk-iv-by-revell-172/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235090044-the-117th-crs-m24-chaffee-by-okb-grigorov-172/ The autumn session also had a total of eight 1:72 scale models, but two of them are still far from being finished. In this way, I can only include half a dozen AFVs from the photos below in the 2021 Yearbook. None of them (total lack of time due to the enormous amount of duties in my job) have yet to get their RFI, but I will make up for it soon. First, something from desert climates: the Soviet fast (light, but large as medium) BT-7 (Unimodels) tank from the 1941 invasion of Iran and the Italian (called light tank, but smaller than Fiat Panda) Fiat-Ansaldo L.3 "fast tank" from the 132nd Ariete division in Libya also in 1941. I have been hunting the Chinese S-Model kit without success for years, and finally, in desperation, I asked my son who printed this baby on a 3D printer for me. The next photo is a winter scenery again: the most numerous Soviet light tank T-26 (Mirage) from an unknown unit fighting in January 1943 some 500 km south of Moscow and the KV-1 main Russian heavy tank (Trumpeter) from an equally unknown unit, fighting in the same period some 200 km west of Moscow. And in the last picture: the last Soviet light tank T-70M (Unimodels) from the 1st Mechanized Corps fighting some 800 km south of Moscow in December 1942, and the ISU-152 (Zvezda) self-propelled howitzer from an unknown unit conquering Manchuria in August 1945. For my pre-1945 tracked AFV collection - consisting of 29 (11 Russian, 6 British, 5 German, 4 US, 2 French and 1 Italian) most numerous vehicles, I only need 3 Russian tanks. After building them, I'm going to move on to vehicles from the Cold War period (31 units). Will COVID allow me to do so? Keep your fingers crossed and time will tell… Cheers Michael

A relative quickie, the UNModels BT-7 in 1/72 An interesting little kit, some good detail and some poor fit in areas, particularly around the front glacis which was a difficult fit having no locating pins or lips, yet including some nice photoetch for the exhaust (and some tiny tow hooks which I didn't even attempt!). You probably can't see here, but I drilled out the exhausts and main gun barrel. The rear mounted turret machine gun was an early casualty of the carpet monster and was replaced with a little sprue. Painted with a dark Vallejo Air green (can't remember which one) Russian WW2 "green" was pretty variable at the best of times. Weathering with Vallejo washes and colours streaked using a "wet water" of Windsor and Newton Acrylic Flow Enhancer and tap water. Decals are from the kit and not too bad but the red stars aren't great having some traces of fringing on their edges. Photography using my scenic-ed base and an appropriate background on a computer monitor.

One way of another I haven’t been able to spend much time at the bench since May. Been absent from this site as well - just too much on. I have a few days off this week, and saw another of the excellent IBG Crusaders in the local hobby shop and knew what I was going to do. I’ve done the Mk I, the Mk III and now it’s time for the Mk III AA version. Familiar sprues, the only difference being the AA turret. Neat little decal sheet, and some photo etch. Won’t need the sand shields though, not applicable to the version I’m building (despite the box top image). I’m going to finish my model as Skyraker/The Princess. Nice straightforward paint scheme - SCC 15 all over.

Yes, those were the days ... In the 1970s, my annual standard was 25-30 models. Between my first trip to the UK in 1972 and my 1980 wedding, I built 220 1:72 aircraft. Some of them still stand (more or less proudly) in my cabinet, but most were sold either through eBay or at various modellers' meetings. Then, in the 1980s, I built several 1:32 (Airfix and Matchbox) vintage sports cars, such as the Blower Bentley, Mercedes SSKL, Alfa 8c, two Bugattis, a.s.o. This led me to collect a few classic cars, but the scale became ... 1: 1. First was Volvo Amazon, then Renault Gordinis (R5 and R12), three Abarth-Fiats (595SS, 1000OT and Gp4 16v Mirafiori) and the Oettinger Beetle 1.6. And so my modeling activity was weakening year by year. For many years, I only built one or two models a year, then the standard annual production was zero. In the meantime, my stash became close to the four-digit number and one day I realized that I would never have time to build even 10 per cent of this collection. So I first introduced thematic restrictions, leaving only three topics: 1912-2012 military aircraft in 1:72, 1917-2017 AFV in 1:72, and 1901-2000 large warships in 1: 700. Then I introduced quantitative limits for each collection - for 150, 60, and 30 models respectively. All the other kits have been sold, and now a pile of just 200 (or a little bit more) kits doesn't look that horrible. And finally I started building models again. In 2019, I started 3 aircraft carrier kits in 1: 700, but to this day none of them can be called "finished". The same thing happened again in 2020 and now I have six 1: 700 aircraft carriers at various stages of completion with some hope that ALL six will be completed in 2021. Sent home from my daily work (at an auto parts store) due to the COVID pandemic, I started building 1:72 AFVs in March. To date, I have started 19 of them, but only a dozen are completed. Four of the remaining seven are waiting for decals, one for aftermarket tracks (the original ones fell apart a week after assembly, while the kit waited for the varnish coat after fitting the decals), and two (started in December) just for some time to complete the work. Nevertheless, the first to appear (in March) was a trio of two French Renaults and the US M3 light tank. You can find more pictures in the RFI threads there: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235070219-the-bovington-renault-ue-chenillette-in-172/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235070355-the-compiegne-museum-renault-ft-in-172/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235085946-the-laenzlinger-collection-m3-stuart-in-172/ Then, in April, three German vehicles (a tank and two tank destroyers) were built. The other three WW2 tanks were started in May but are still not completed for the reasons mentioned above. You can find more pictures in the RFI threads there: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235070476-jagdpanzer-38t-hetzer-by-unimodels-172/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235071304-the-afrika-korps-sdkfz-1611-pzkpfw-iv-ausfg-by-zvezda-172/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235071637-the-sdkfz1421-sturmgeschutz-40-ausf-g-by-unimodels-172/ The long evenings in May, June, July and August are the perfect time to do some 1: 1 classic car workshop work (I still do have an Abarth TC, Steyr-Puch 650, Escort RS, Fiat 124ST and Burlington Morgan to restore) and in September I came back to modeling. My T-34 STGB fruits were 3 Soviet types: a tank, a tank destroyer and a tiny tankette. You can find more pictures in the RFI threads there: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235079413-the-t-3476-m1941-by-unimodels-172/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235080010-the-su-100-tank-destroyer-by-unimodels-172/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235085701-the-t-27-tankette-by-shapeways-172-3d-print/ Since then, I have started another 7 AFV kits, but only three of them (the MTO GB) are completed for the reasons explained above. The three British tanks from the Desert campaign are here: You can find more pictures in the GB threads there: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235082611-still-one-more-matilda/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235082707-the-20th-century-middle-eastern-crusader/ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235082860-my-funny-valentine-and-third-time-lucky-in-one/ And finally, let me take a quiz (though without prizes). In this blurry (misty?) photo, there are seven of my models waiting for completion in 2021. Try to guess what tanks they are 😉 Cheers Michael