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Dear fellow Britmodellers, here's my 1/72 Trumpeter M26A1 Pershing. Photos by Wolfgang Rabel. The model was painted with Mr.Hobby H304 Olive Drab and weathered with artist oils and pastel chalks. The Trumpeter kit is simple and easy to build but lacks the finesse and detail that other manufacturers (like Dragon or Vespid) provide in the box. The kit's track links suffer from nasty ejector marks on the inner side, so I replaced them with resin items from OKB Grigorov. Stowage is from Blackdog, the figure is from Milicast. The decal markings that come with the kit are minimal - just a couple of white stars and two turret numbers (for a Korean War tank). Thank you for your interest!

Dear fellow Britmodellers, this is the 1/72 Orange Hobby SdKfz 7 (early) with figures from Milicast and stowage from Blackdog & CMK. Photos by Wolfgang Rabel. I painted the model with Mr.Hobby acrylics (H32) and weathered with artist oils and pastels. The limiting rods are resin add-ons from JK resin - the kit only provides flat etched pieces which I didn't like. The figurines were brush-painted with Vallejo acyrlics and good old Humbrol enamels. Thank you for your interest!

Dear fellow Britmodellers, this is my 1/72 UM M32B1 TRV with resin tracks from OKB Grigorov, figure from Milicast, and towing cables from Eureka. Photos by Wolfgang Rabel. The M32B1 recovery vehicle is based on the rounded cast steel M4A1 Sherman body, with a hexagonal fixed turret. UM's offering is the only injection-molded kit of this interesting vehicle. In the box there's all basic contents, but for details like the towing cables, shackles and the rods on the A-frame you have to go the extra mile. I added a small chain at the rear. The model was painted with Mr.Hobby acrylics. # Thanks for your interest! Best greetings from Austria, Roman

Here is my rendition of my recently completed Guy Mk.1 Armoured Car as part of the Armoured Car & Halftrack GB here: The kit used was the Milicast 1/76 resin kit and although it had some nice detail, it also had a little damage, particularly the smaller parts. Thanks for looking.

Dear fellow Britmodellers, this is my 1/72 Academy Dodge WC-54 Ambulance, painted with Mr.Hobby acrylics. Photographs by Wolfgang Rabel. I added Rescue Models front grill from lasercut paper. The kit offers only basic interior, so I added Milicast stretchers. The windshield wipers are from stretched sprue. I did not trust the kit's red cross decals, instead I painted them using paper masks. Thank you for your interest!

Dear fellow Britmodellers, here's the next Sherman for my collection, the M4A3 built from the 1/72 Dragon kit. Painted with Mr.Hobby acrylics, photographs by Wolfgang Rabel. I added sandbag protection from Blackdog (https://blackdog-model.com/t72008-1-72-m4a3-sandbags-1/) . This finely cast resin upgrade comes in two sideparts plus an entire turret (except the gun), making assembly easy. The figure and stowage are from Milicast, the antenna is from stretched sprue. Thank you for your interest!

Hi all. While I'm flitting about with builds in another GB, I thought I'd start this as a 'slow burn' until the others are complete. I have a number of subjects that could fit into this GB, so I thought I'd start off with this Guy Armoured Car Mk. 1/1A by Milicast in their 1/76 scale. The obligatory stuff: The box. The resin parts...with breakages . The instructions. According to the above, the only difference between the Mk. 1 and the 1A is the weapons. Clean up time I guess. Stuart

HI viewers, Here is my latest after languishing on the shelf for 9 months, an AEC Matador (early) by Milicast in /76. Built mainly OOB, doors wee reworked as I wanted them to be posed open and glazing was also added. Painted using Tamiya and AK paints, decals from spares as Milicast kits don't come with any, go figure. Weathered slightly with a couple of washes. Conjured up a simple base and a couple of figures et voila. WiP here: Thanks for looking. Stuart

Before I even started this GB I warned that the relatively simple construction of these resin models from Milicast was likely to prove somewhat boring and I suspect that is indeed the case – I would probably have had more interest if I was building them on a different section of the Forum but this GB was perfect in that it gave me the incentive to get them built, whereas on the military modelling section my options would I think have been far more limited. Anyway, I am enjoying building and painting them (at least most of the time), and so I have decided to inflict one last batch on you! I will keep it brief. For several centuries prior to the start of WWI it was the “Cavalry” who were responsible for reconnaissance, and even during that war it was always hoped that the time would come when a breakthrough would be achieved and they would finally be able to get behind enemy lines and once more do that, together of course with harrying the enemy rear. However the combination of static trench warfare and the increasing use of artillery and machine guns meant that after a few months of the start, any attempt to use horse cavalry became virtually suicidal. Nonetheless, the idea lingered on long into the inter-war period, but finally it was accepted, however reluctantly, that recce units. needed to be mechanised and if possible armoured. This led to both armoured cars and also small light tanks, both of which had their relative merits. Armoured cars were fast on good going such as roads, and also quiet, which was important if you wanted to sneak up unobserved, but tracked vehicles coped better with soft ground, but were ruddy noisy! In the end all the combatants used a combination of both. This time I will again be building three vehicles in British use, two wheeled – the Daimler MkII armoured car and the US Staghound and one tracked – the US M5A1 improved version of the earlier M3 Stuart light tank and here they are. I have not shown all the small parts as knowing me I would probably end up losing some! During and after WWI a number of armoured cars were produced by firms such as Rolls Royce, Lanchester, Crossley and the like, often based on commercial car or lorry chassis -here are a couple of them in the Tank Museum. Rolls Royce. Crossley. More anon. Cheers Pete

And this will probably be my final entry. Three versions of the A 15 Cruiser Mk VI Crusader. Quite impressive on paper it was fast but already outdated and the reliability was pretty poor. Still, the Italians were impressed enough to try to copy it. Cheers Pete

If I have time I hope to build these. On the left the improvised British Archer with lots of bits, in the middle the US M-18 Hellcat and on the right the A 30 Challenger Tank which some will argue was not actually a tank destroyer but more on that later. As you may have guessed the Archer is from Milicast's Premiere range and could be quite a fiddle! Cheers Pete

My next entry will be this. Like @Mjwomack I can't think of a collective name for a group of Valentines and Dick Taylor has already used "Into the Vally" on his Mushroom Publications book which I will no doubt be referring to from time to time. Anywsay, as well as the 3 above, just before I became besotted with GB in June 2019 I was in the middle of refurbishing some existing tank kits and building some new ones - all of which went on hold! I thought this would be a good time to finish off my Fujimi Valentine Mk II though of course it is injection plastic so cannot be an official entry, hence the 3 and a bit!. Here it is stripped down and ready for painting. and here is the real thing in the Tank Museum in obligatory Deep Bronze Green paint the used back then. The Census number makes it a Vickers built Mk II. More once this GB starts, but for completeness I should say that the Milicasts kits cover a range of different Marks, the one on the left with 2 turrets can be built as a Mk II, Mk III and Mk V, the one in the middle is a Mk VIII (which incidentally was cancelled but more on that later) and the one on the right a Mk X or Mk XI depending on which gun I fit. Cheers Pete

I would like to say that my interest in tanks came from my late father and in a way it did as I knew he had something to do with them during WWII, but like many ex-servicemen he did not talk about it except to comment that he had “serviced them” when I showed him my Airfix Lee/Grant kit, and I did know he passed his driving test in India whilst driving either a Loyd or Universal carrier used as a battery charger for the tanks he worked on. In fact it was not until after he died that we managed to get hold of his service record and incidentally the 3 campaign medals he had not bothered to claim. It turned out he joined the mechanised 7th battalion of KOYLI and was shipped out to India in late 1941 in the same convoy that HMS Repulse escorted on her way to Singapore to meet her fate when Japan launched their attack. On arrival his unit became 149 Regiment RAC and I subsequently accessed their records from the Tank Museum. It seems they spent a couple of years in India where he managed to contract Malaria and ended up in the big hospital at Deolali which was immortalised in British Indian Army slang by the term “Doolally Tap” meaning mad as it used to house soldiers with mental problems! Then the Japanese attacked from Burma resulting in the horrific fighting at Imphal and Kohima – it seems his lot were amongst the relief forces who cleared the Japanese out and chased them back to Rangoon so I can quite see why he did not want to talk about it. Anyway, as I mentioned elsewhere I started building AFV's etc when Airfix issued their Sherman tank back in the early 1960's I think, and although I did build a few 1/35th scale ones I have concentrated on 1/76 with the odd 1/72 thrown in when nothing else was available – usually for post war tanks such as the Russian T-62 and T-54. Between Airfix, Fujimi, Hasgawa, Esci and Revell I have built up quite a collection but there were a few irritating gaps, such as the early British Cruisers for example. However about 10 years ago I belatedly came across the Milicast range of Resin 1/76 models which includes just about everything I ever wanted. I will start with the early Cruisers, and having built a batch in the colours and markings of the BEF, I will now start this GB with a repeat batch as in the Western Desert early in the war, which should be fun as I intend to use the complicated Caunter camo scheme, of which more later. These are the 3 tanks in question. This is the A9 Crusier Mk I This the A10 Cruiser MkII - I believe this is the Close Support version on the left, with an A12 Infantry Tank Mk II aka Matilda II on the right. And this is the A13 which was initially the Cruiser Mk III but this is a later version of which more anon. These pics were taken I think back in around 1987 at the RAC Tank Museum, That was when most of the exhibits were literally crammed into the old building making it difficult to take pics - since then they were able to expand the site with the help of sponsorship from British Steel, Tamiya, and the National Lottery. Last time I visited they had brought in a lot of their collection which had been in storage, and of course they has aquired quite a few other exhibts, so parts of the Museum are still tightly packed and hard to photograph. In the early days their colour schemes were a bit suspect in some cases and as the then Curator told me they used the nearest paint that came to hand - often Deep Bronze Green that was perhaps only correct between the wars - they have repainted many of them at least once since. In this GB I hope to build perhaps 12 tanks/tank destroyers and as mentioned in the chat previously the building should not take long, though the painting etc is another matter. I thought it would be a good idea to build them in groups of three simultaneously, accompanied by a bit of background on them, However, the GB on this section of BM tend to be mostly planes with the odd vehicle and ship thrown in, I suspect some of my potential "viewers" may have only limited knowledge of tanks and might find a bit of general development history interesting - if it becomes boring please tell me. These are short run mouldings and have some quite incredible detail such as masses of large rivets on the A9 - Milicast say 1200 but I am not going to count them – there are certainly an awful lot, so whoever made the master for them must have had almost infinite patience. They have two different ranges, the more detailed and expensive “Premier Series” which come with lots of often small and fragile parts to add yourself, and the more basic and cheaper “Battlefield Series” which have most of the parts already moulded on, probably making them a bit less accurate but a heck of a lot easier to build. Most of the ones I will hopefully build in this GB will be from the latter series, but there are one or two from the Premier Series as well. They are all resin, but I will be adding in most cases brass or Aluminium AM gun barrels, piano wire aerials, and in some cases injected plastic tubing to make smoke mortars and bits of spue for headlights and searchlights as above - I trust that is within the rules? For the record it is highly unlikely that Dad ever had to work on any of these 3 tanks in India but may well have come across then during his training with REME as a tank fitter.whilst still home based. Cheers Pete

I'm sure many reading this may remember the articles in Airfix Magazine by John Sanders in the 70's regarding the history and construction of his 1/76th mainly scratch built 8th Army models. I attempted over the years to have a go at doing a similar thing but never got round to it, but have kept the articles all these years, nostalgia and all that! One photo which always intrigued me was of a Scratch-built model of the Dodge WK 60 Gantry truck towing a CMP 3 tonner towing a Bofors AA gun by Barry Sharman, a name I remember from Military Modelling magazine. I even got drawings to do one but of course never got round to that either! So, after having a clear-out of kits this year and deciding that getting back into 1/35th vehicles wasn't for me (I have 3 on the SOD!) I thought I would try 1/76th scale, possibly getting away from having to add so much detail. Milicast models are very well detailed and this kit has a lot of parts so maybe not so good an idea! So, here we have Milicast's WK 60 Gantry in resin, complete with a Cranes 7.5 ton recovery trailer, and a Vickers Light AA Mk 1 to go on the back. A bit of a rarity, the Light AA was an attempt to use obsolete tank chassis for another use and a few were used in N.Africa later in the campaign. The Truck and Trailer are from the (expensive) Premiere range and are broken down into lots of parts and superbly detailed. The Vickers is from the 'Battle ready' range and has a complete chassis with running gear moulded on and turret, with a few detail parts to add. No drawing to show where these go though, some research will be needed! Unfortunately the Breda gun barrels have broken off in transit but that's the only broken pieces of the 3 kits. I also have an SHQ cast metal kit of the German SDKFZ 254, or Saurer RR-7, an Austrian company which developed wheel cum tracked light vehicles for agricultural and military use, this one equipped as an artillery observation vehicle with the prominent rail type aerial seen on a lot of German vehicles. It must have been unbearable in the cabin, more than most vehicles in the desert, as the engine was right next to the driver, not boxed in or anything! There is a great photo on the net of a WK 60 in the desert with 3 or 4 vehicles linked up to tow, must have been a good at it's job! What have I let myself in for! Davey.

Morning people. With the Challenger and Humber at home awaiting painting and accessories, I need another build for the lunchtimes while at work. I purchased this and loads of other afv's from a club member who wants to see this Matador built, so here goes. Nice sturdy box and a pic of what it should look like. What the heck am I supposed to do with this? It's got an inventory list if you know what things are. The pictures are very dark and not useful at all but I suppose I'll muddle through. The resin but whether it's all there... I'll only know when i check it against the inventory and/ or during build. I have started cleaning things up, a long, tedious and careful job indeed. Already thinking ahead with this as I want it presented slightly different. The idea is to have the tail gate open with the rear cargo tarp removed, so exposing the cargo within a loading/ unloading scene. Stuart

Hello All, My first ever Armour WIP! I attempted and failed to build and finish the Milicast A10 Cruiser for the BM 10 year GB here. Yesterday I had built the tank and got to an even green finish. Today I learned how brittle resin is, rebuilt the gun from Albion Alloys nested brass tube, painted the dark green blotches and weathered it a little: I still need to paint the tyres, tracks and details, add some markings and then weather it some more. Thanks for looking, Adrian

Hello All, Well I've just got back from a trip and I remembered that this finishes today and I bought a Milicast A10 to build here... Customer service is great - I got a hand written note with my order. The moulding is AMAZING. Short run but the detail, sharpness and level of integration is terrific - I certainly won't be gluing any link and length tracks together: The shackles have broken off in transit but they are relatively easy to repair. The front ones go under the turret so had to be shortened later: Bit of reconstruction required on the tracks and sprocket wheel: Didn't take long to assemble: Underccoated with Hu32 then painted in Hu86: It looked a bit dark and green for an early war tank. The Airfix 1/32 17 Pounder instructions call out Hu 253 for the green colour, so I tried that. I think I'm happy with the colour now: I still need to add the dark green splotches, paint the tyres, tracks and details, and weather it. When I started this morning I genuinely thought I might get it all done today - I'm sorry to not finish the build in what was a very interesting GB theme. I will post how I get on in the Armour section here. Thanks for looking, Adrian

First showing of this new kit from Milicast- I must say I'm very impressed, went together well, captures the look and character of the subject. I will have to buy more from Milicast! The Fordson WOT3 was a 30cwt (1.5t) class vehicle, and was one of Fordsons War Office designs You can see the family resemblance to the WOA1 & 2, WOT1 & 1A, and WOT2, in the bonnet and cab. Painted in the mid-war scheme of SCC2 (Brown) and SCC14 (Blue-black), this is depicted as a Coastal Command example based at RAF Aldergrove. I did my usual of a little, restrained weathering with pastels. I really like this kit; I think Milicast have captured the whole look and feel of the original, and the casting was superb.