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For those wondering why there has been little progress on Cisco the Green Nosed mustang (WIP elsewhere) and the glider thread (WIP elsewhere), my main modelling activities this summer have been geared towards AFV's largely due to my time at the Tank Museum as a volunteer modeller. Apart from finishing a 1/35 M24 Chaffee (RFI to come) and close to finishing two 1/35 M41 (Taiwanese and ARVN, RFI to come) I am now tackling the monster 1/35 M537G tractor plus semi-trailer from Trumpeter. I bought this kit back in 2011 at the War & Peace event, which Mrs T and I attended for a whole weekend. We actually camped at the event in our tent! Yours truly preparing a feast, note beer close to hand..... Karen getting to grips with an FV432 And there was an example of a slightly different variant, the MAZ 545 at the event, so I have plenty of reference pictures of my own. The main (only?) differences to the 537 are the side grills behind the cab and the cab front. I'm sure there are others. I made a start on the trailer back then, but life was very busy with work (I did that then), and planning for our wedding the following year. It then sat on the shelf for 13 long years (longer than the Vosper @Courageous), until the beginning of this summer, when I decided to take the bull by the horns and work on it again, during my summer shifts at the tank museum, where a number of other modellers and I display our models, and some of us actually make models for the entertainment of the general public. So this has been occupying me every week for 5 or 6 hours each shift, for the last six weeks. I think this is the first Trumpeter kit I have built. It has a huge parts count, and in 1/35 it is a beast of a model. The version I have is this one: No display of the sprues as much of those were put together during the summer! These two volumes have been very helpful as references. There are four etch brass frets in the kit, some of which has been made up and used (see pics later) but much of it still awaits construction, where I decide to use it. Trumpeter provide all the tyres (18 including two spares) as vinyl tyres, which IMHO do not look the part (even when painted) as they are two narrow in width and not chunky enough in appearance. So to the rescue came these ..... A great set, with size matching better to the Tankograd plans (excellent set in the book), although marred a little by air bubbles on small sections of the tread, where they were attached to the resin fill gates. More of that later. A comparison showing why I feel these are better. Progress so far has included work towards finishing the semi-trailer, plus making a start on the tractor unit. More of the tractor later. Two major sub components of the trailer completed and joined. The flat bed part and and the nose which hooks onto the fifth wheel on the tractor. Underside view. Topside Ramps constructed and in place Hoist constructed and fitted to the forward end of the trailer That small hole at the base of the hoist has a small plastic pin which needs to fit inside, part 15 thus: Cutting and cleaning that up was accompanied by much cursing of course, but we got it fitted in the end. It's the little things that make the difference! Latest parts for the trailer have included the hydraulic supports for the forward end, for when the trailer needs support once detached... These have some support arms that fit at the bottom by the pads, and thence to the trailer. Trumpeter provided each arm in two parts and the fit was pretty bad After filler and some cleanup And inside the feet of the hydraulic supports, I spotted those dreaded release marks that need dealing with. They will need dremeling out and cleaning up! Next job on the trailer will be to assemble and fit the guide rails for when loading AFV's. These fit like this..... ..... and the keen eyed will notice Trumpeter provide two options: 1. Plastic 2. Etch My plan is to see how the etch assembly goes ............... and revert to plastic if I'm too challenged by the etch! That's about as far as I've got on the semi-trailer. Next update will show all the work so far on the tractor unit, which has been quite complex to assemble due mostly to all the small transmission and suspension arms etc. Comments welcome! More soon. Terry

This is a pretty new subject for me, so I'll be quoting a lot of Wikipedia 😉 Aircraft Carriers were becoming all the rage in the 1930s, a new and exciting area of technology. Nations were converting ships to carriers, learning what works and what doesn't, then designing carriers from the ground up. In the rise of Germany military might and an attempt to improve political relations, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement allowed Germany nearly 40k tons for aircraft carriers. Germany designed 2 within that limitation, the lead ship, Flugzeugträger A, would be the Graf Zeppelin. The initial design was quite interesting. The thought was these carriers would need to be able to defend themselves against surface ships, with cruiser armor and 16 150mm guns for defense. This was common with a lot of early carrier design, with the belief that aircraft would not be fully effective as weapons. Lexington Class carriers had 203mm guns themselves. The successful carrier doctrine we know today was still years away. The launching of aircraft was to be from the two catapults on the flight deck, but not using the entire deck. This allowed for rapid takeoffs, as well as the ability to both launch and recover aircraft at the same time. The process to do this was complicated yet intriguing. Aircraft were loaded onto launch trollies on rails to the forward elevator, which would then go to the catapult on the flight deck, launching the aircraft via compressed air. In theory, 18 aircraft could be launched at 30 second intervals until the air ran out, requiring nearly an hour to fill up again. If additional aircraft needed to be launched in an emergency situation, they could use the entire flight deck like other carriers. Aircraft could be kept warm in the hangar deck, ready for immediate flight operations instead of a warming process on the flight deck. Graf Zeppelin was built with an upper and lower hangar, and was to be able to hold 43 aircraft, a mixture of Fi-167s, Ju-87s, and BF-109s. After studying carrier operations in the Pacific, this was changed to 30 BF-109Ts and 12 Ju-87Cs. Graf Zeppelin was laid down in late 1936 (once Gneisenau left the slipway), and was launched December 1938. The ship was scheduled to be complete in 1940, being an estimated 85% complete at the end of 1939, but the war and politics prevented this. At a Naval conference in April 1940, it was decided to halt work on the carrier in favor of strengthening coastal defense in Norway. She would be used as storage for timber for the next 2 years. By the time of the naval conference in April 1942, lessons from Taranto, Pearl Harbor, and the hunt for Bismarck showed the power of the aircraft carrier. Work was promptly resumed the following month. However, the world had changed in the 2 years she sat in port. Much of her equipment was in need of upgrades or complete replacement. The aircraft originally designated for her air wings were now obsolete, and the Luftwaffe refused to allocate the resources to design and produce new aircraft, requiring modifications to the current aircraft. The modified aircraft were noticeably heavier, which required further updates for aircraft handling. By January, due to the poor performance of the German surface ships, work was once again halted, with little changing by the time the Red Army approached in 1945. In an effort to prevent its capture, it was purposely sunk at port. Raised post war, the Soviets determined it would require too much cost and time to complete, and was instead sunk as a target ship. The Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier offers plenty of what-ifs, but in the end, too many issues probably would have prevented it from being a successful ship. Its complicated and outdated design was compromised by the time she would have been operational. Aircraft development would have been hampered without significant war progress for resources. Her crew would have limited knowledge of carrier operations, against an enemy that had years of built up experience. Odds are she would have been hunted and harassed as much as Tirpitz was. But had war been delayed to 1941, who knows? I hope to build this Graf Zeppelin much quicker that the real ship, though while the part count is massively less, it still appears somewhat intimidating.

It my first building in this GB. I began a bit to cut a model. It was in 2013.

Hi, I know, I still have one in progress build in South American GB. But since I'm coming from area depicted in this Group Build (hence the bad English... Sorry 🙇) , I already plan to join this GB since early this year.. and August is considered as "national month" here (our independence day is on August 17th). Yet then job and other worldy problem got in the way between me and the work bench... So today I propose this; I will be building 1/72 Su-30MK2 from 11th Fighter Squadron using the trumpeter kit.. Will add few PE (which I just realized I have). So... Permission to come aboard @Col.? Cheers, Mario Indonesia

My next warship to build, as I wait for upgrade kits to arrive, is SMS Szent Istvan, the fourth and final Tegetthoff class dreadnought built by Austria-Hungary in the 1910's. Szent Istvan was a product of the unique circumstances behind the dual-monarchy and the KuK Navy. The Tegetthoff class and Szent István is famous for being amongst other things: Designed by a nearly blind man who later got hit by a tram he didn't see or hear coming, The first triple gun turrets on the water, Possibly too light for their calibre of guns, Supposedly the only battleship class in history to have ventilation problems. Probably consuming too much of the military budget for a mostly land locked empire. Undoubtedly the most beautiful class of battleship ever created (albeit Szent Istvan may be the ugly daughter of the class), Szent Istvan being built at a yard which three years earlier had rejected even applying to build a theoretical ship the size of Szent Istvan. Szent Istvan being the first battleship to sink on video (one of maybe two in total? I think Barham being the other?), The kit is Trumpeters update of the Viribus Unitis - the first of the Tegetthoff class - both released in 2019 according to Scalemates. The first model I built was Viribus Unitis so it will be interesting to see how/if I have progressed technically. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/trumpeter-05365-sms-szent-istvan--1197838 I've got the Big-Ed upgrade kit for it, but a fair amount of PE comes included. Additionally I have a Wood Hunter deck for the Szent István, and a scale master mast upgrade set. The Trumpeter paint guide is probably incorrect and I have yet to find a KuK Navy paint set so some improvisation will be needed. Photos of the spurs will follow in the next post, but I'll leave this photo taken around 1915 of what I hope the end result will look like possibly with more colour.

Trumpeter is to release a 1/48th Fairey Battle Mk.I kit - ref. 05831 Source: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/8249037080 V.P.

This is a nice little kit, the only problems I had was finding good resources, as the instructions have no paint instructions! Most of the pictures I found online, besides it being hard to identify the actual flight number, seem to be exhibition versions. From the one or two in-space pics I found, it seems there was none of that fancy paint job and lettering that most of these exhibition pieces show. So the colors are a bit an educated guess. Same goes, btw, for the exact location of portholes etc. I choose to go more or less with the kit, hoping the Chinese manufacturer knows best 🧐 I had originally thought about seperating the solar panels into their individual pieces (also could depict it in the unfolöding stage). But I got cold feet, wondering if the whole thing would hold together, especially when hung up. So I took the easy way out and just painted the "holes" in black.... Back to the flight number, I assume its Shenzhou 5, the 1st manned flight, as some actual pictures of that flight are shown on the box. If the configuration of the craft for that flight is correct ... who knows. I did not use the provided stand, as I intend to hang the model in my showcase. The stand is rather big and, I guess, is supposed to be part of the globe with the outline of China engraved. If you are geograhically interested: it shows mainland China PLUS Taiwan and PLUS the South China Sea. So, if you use it, you are making also a political statement 🤔 As always, thanks for looking, any comments welcome Here are my other space related builds: https://photos.app.goo.gl/DLrnifbiBdBnwxfF7 Cheers

After the Zvezda's kits, Trumpeter pulled a hind out of his hat! Trumpeter is to release in late July 2021 a 1/48th Mil Mi-24D "Hind-D" kit - ref. 05812 We can just hope it'll be a new tool kit and not just a Mini-Hobby kit variant/re-edition under the Trumpeter label. Wait and see : https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235019038-148-mi-24v-hind-coming-from-trumpeter/ Source: http://www.trumpeter-china.com/index.php?g=home&m=article&a=show&id=207&l=en Box art Mi-24V "Hind-E" - ref.0??? https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10798299 V.P.

Release expected in late November by Trumpeter, a 1/35th - ref. 05116 - Bell AH-1W Super Cobra kit Source: http://www.trumpeter-china.com/index.php?g=home&m=article&a=show&id=289 Box art V.P.

Greetings fellow Britmodellers! Here's my summer holidays project - the Trumpeter 1/48 scale Focke-Wulf Fw-200C-4 Condor. I started this kit with the intention of it being some light relief and a relatively quick and simple build as a nice break from the more complex projects I have on the go. Unfortunately that didn't turn out to the case and it was far from straightforward - although it looked gorgeous in the box, I foolishly spent hours building and painting a very complex interior, 99% of which will never be seen again. The real issue was attaching the wings, however, as Trumpeter (in their wisdom) have the lower wing and central fuselage section molded in one, but with absolutely no locating points to ensure this structurally critical part of the model has any strength whatsoever - it's simply butt-joints which would obviously crack under any sort of load. Being the large model that it is, I therefore made an alloy spar and epoxied this in place to give the wings some strength, and then added thick plastic card tabs to the wing root joints as well as the lower fuselage joints: Unfortunately, this mod meant the wing to fuselage join needed a lot of filling, sanding and rescribing to come good... ...but it has given the model much-needed strength - although it still creaks and groans like an old piece of garden furniture when picked up! Anyway, despite not being the easy shake and bake I hoped it would be, I did enjoy it and it makes for a large and impressive model. I used my usual Xtracolor enamels and finished it off with some heavy exhaust staining as seen in references with Mig pastels. All the best, Tom Focke-Wulf Fw-200C-4 of 8./KG40, Summer 1943:

#16/2024 Dad finished the next one. The first of an upcoming Firefly trio. Trumpeter kit wih decals from the Special Hobby Firefly Foreign Post War Users kit. Used seats with molded on seatbelts from Quickboost, which seem slightly undersized. The kit exhaust tubes are angled straight but should look downward, replaced them with pieces from Quickboost too. The kit wheels are rather thick and primitive, replaced them with some from Barracuda Studios. The rear canopy lacks the dorsal frame strut, masked and painted it. The kit comes with no pitot tube, "stirrup", rearview mirror and t-shaped antennas? under the horizontal stabilizers. Used a British pitot tube from the sparesbox, the rest is scratchbuilt. The tailwheel broke off when the model had a maiden flight to the ground...the wheel wasn´t usable anymore afterwards, replaced it with one from the sparesbox. The Dutch Firefly had an antenna? under each wing and one on the left upperwing. Used some plastic pieces to simulate that. They also had four RP-3 rockets under each wing, always two mounted on a base plate. The Special Hobby Firefly kits include two base plates as PE parts. Used the PE stuff as template and did cut out four plates with plastic sheet, rockets came from Special Hobby kits. EZ Line was used for the antenna wires. Used a piece of plastic sprue to simulate the landing light. Could have added some more detail or correct other flaws but put a fork in it. Painted with AK RC Extra Dark Sea Grey and Dark Slate Grey, Tamiya Sky. Build thread here https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235141407-dutch-east-indies148-fairey-firefly-fr1-koninklijke-marine-luchtvaartdienst/page/2/ The Netherlands were the first foreign user of the Firefly FR.1. In January 1946, 860 Squadron received its first Firefly aircraft. They were stationed aboard the carrier Karel Doorman, former HMS Nairana. They soon saw combat action and were used for counter-insurgency and fighting the Indonesian nationalists who didn´t want the Dutch masters to return and who wanted an independent Indonesia. The final ceasefire was in August 1949. An accord was signed on December 22nd 1949 in which the Netherlands ceded independence to the nationalists. The Dutch Firefly Squadron 860 was disbanded in March 1950 and the surviving 11 Fireflies were shipped back to the Netherlands. DSC_0009 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0002 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0003 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0005 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0002 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0003 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0007 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0001 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0005 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0006 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0012 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0007 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0014 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0008 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0002 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0016 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0017 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0019 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0020 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0003 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0002 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0023 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0022 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0027 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0001 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr

My dad´s Thai theme continues, after Spitfire and the soon finished F-86F, here comes a Firefly... DSC_0001 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0002 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0003 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr

Trumpeter is to release 1/35th UH-1 Huey kits. - ref. 05111 - Bell UH-1B Huey - ref. 05112 - Bell UH-1B Huey - gunship Source: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/8249037080 V.P.

Another Apache this time by Trumpeter: 1/35th Boeing AH-64A Apache Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/400134982296666/posts/633284202315075/ V.P.

I picked this up second hand a few months ago, having built the larger 1/35 model a few years ago. I was impressed with the fit, mold and detail of these 1/72 kits. Box options are either Russian or Czech, but I chose to build something based on the Syrian systems, which had any number of brown over green camouflage patters, including miss matched camouflaged or white missiles. The most complete part was the painting as you can easily build this model in an hour or two. I glued it down to a simple base made from a coaster and some sandy looking grout. I might get a few more of these Trumpeter 1/72 armour kits in future now.

As the title says, my plan is to build one of the Cuban Sea Furies, from the timeframe of the Bay of Pigs invasion. The FAR (Fuerza Aerea Revolucionaria) operated several of these aircraft in this period. The Trumpeter kit looks pretty nice in the box. Besides the kit, I have collected a Pavla resin seat and 2 sets of decals. I may also swap the kit’s propeller for a Pavla item, as the propeller blades look a bit too narrow. My intention is to build one of the olive green / mottled light green camouflaged aircraft, which carried little markings as per the very few (only 2???) relevant black & white pictures of that period. Neither of these schemes is portrayed in the 2 decal sheets I have, so I will see what I will use. There is an interesting thread of an earlier BM build here, which discusses the markings and colours: I will use this as a reference, but seeing there is little photographic material from that period available, this gives quite a bit of potential for interpretation of the actual camouflage scheme. Cheers, Patrick

Thanks New Tool ! After the Albacore, Fulmar and Battle, Trumpeter is to release a 1/48th Fairey Barracuda Mk.II - ref. 05825 - and family of Fulmar ? Sources (Seen at Model World Live at the NEC) : https://postimg.cc/HchNBPws https://m.facebook.com/story.php?id=860166877731077&story_fbid=1986379885109765 V.P.

Hello all, I built this one for the current “South of the Rio Grande” GB: This Trumpeter kit looks quite nice in the box. Especially the cockpit, wheel bays/gears and external fuselage detail is pretty good. It did require a bit of effort though, to put together: overall fit was so-so with significant steps between main body parts. Quite a bit of filling, sanding and restoring panel lines was needed. Outer wings are clearly designed to be mounted in folded position, so showing them unfolded was a bit of a hassle. I replaced the seat and propeller with Pavla resin items, the gun barrels are brass tubes. A few smaller details and rows of rivet were added for interest. Painted with Tamiya and Gunze acrylics mainly. Final touch was a bit of weathering with oils and pigments. Credits background picture: designed by Freepik https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/beautiful-scenery-beach-full-different-kinds-green-plants-santa-catalina-panama_9283328.htm Thanks for looking! Cheers, Patrick

Greetings from Italy! It's a while since I posted some pictures, mainly due to some storage photo issues. Just finished the 1/48 Trumpeter Westland Wirlwind, not a great kit but unfortunately the only one now available to build this airplane in 1/48. I completely rebuilt the cockpit with a lot of scratch built details because it's plenty of mistakes in the kit design. I've also created the radiators discharge openings on wing's trailing edge looking at some pictures I found online. I finished it as a plane of 263 sq. with special markings used during Dieppe's operation thanks to some spare decals. There is a lot of room for improvements but I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the result. Please feel free to comment, any suggestion or feedback is more than welcome. Enjoy pictures. Cheers Andy

Hello all Finally got round to doing my 2nd ship and hopefully now that my hobby room has been restored post extension, it won't be that long before the next one is underway! May I present H.M.S Hood underway in the Denmark Straight, 24 May 1941. This is the Trumpeter 1/700 kit with a bit of spare photoetch thrown at it, along with some Starling Models crew figures and some metal barrels. Despite battling with the fit of the kit, i did enjoy it-even individually painting the deck planks and I definitely enjoyed making the sea again. I'm pleased with the way the bow spray came off. I'm thinking its going to be H.M.S Starling next, sitting pretty in Gladstone Dock. Anyway, on to the pics and thanks for looking. Graeme

Ok, I reached the point in Formidable construction that I have to make a base for her. And as making this base is basically watching Water Effect go transparent over multiple days before I can proceed to next stage, I decided to start a new ship. Something smaller this time, destroyer. And another one from Matapan battle - HMS Nubian. Page here suggest Nubian was reconstructed in Bombay during her year long repair following damage from May 41 so should I assume she was in her original "as build" config during 1st half of 1941? https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-10DD-34Tribal-HMS_Nubian.htm I am also looking for photos of her in first half of 1941. So far I have only a photo of her blown off stern showing she has wavy 2 color camo on stern. Should it be 507A and C or 507C plus darker grey like on, say, Hotspur? I was looking for Cossack Profile Morskie, but it seems this book is not available at the moment. But it seems there will be A LOT of work to turn trumpeter's model into somewhat reasonable reproduction of original so please point me to any inaccuracies and I'll try to work on them. Work so far, centered on repairing the bow:

This is my take on a captured T-72B1 in Ukrainian service. I tried to give this model a worn battlefront look without going overboard. It was a fun build. Not too complex but challenging enough to keep me on my modeling toes 😁 I can recommend this kit to anyone who wants to build modern AFV. All comments are appriciated. Thank you all for taking a look and a special thank you to all of you who tagged along with the build. In the next week this model is going to be sent to it's new owner and i'm starting my next project. As always: I'll keep you guys posted. Cheers!!! 👍👍👍

Hello friends, just finished build of this Ural truck from Trumpeter with Defmodel wheels and Balaton Modell dump enjoy

Just finished this trumpeter 1/35 Challenger 2, and it was nothing if not challenging! Maybe because I have recently been on a diet of Tamiya AFV's, but this one was a challenge. Poor mould quality and poor fit seemed to beset most of the parts on this one so glad to at least get it over the line and finished. Figures are from Miniart. Airbrushed with Tamiya acrylics

Following the 'comparison' thread - I have made a start on building the Trumpeter 1/72 scale Su-34..... I won't post pics of the sprues - they are available elsewhere and here - just progress photos of the build. The cockpit is quite comprehensive - with a separate door in the rear bulkhead..... but note those ejection pin marks in the structure behind the seats. Similarly, the nosewheel bay looks accurate - complete with two-parts for the sliding access hatch..... The K-36 ejection seats are quite simplified - I would replace them if the cockpit was open - but they are acceptable given the closed cockpit... Trumpeter even provide the rudder pedals and very nice control collums - decals are provided for the front and side instrument panels - although the starboard panel curled up on me and I couldn't get it straight... Note the rear door - which I have posed open. The nosewheel bay in place - although not mentioned in the instructions, the front access hatch can be clicked in place and made to slide open..... Open.... Closed.... View into the wheel bay.... note the sliding front hatch. Top and bottom fuselage halves glued together..... I have made an attempt at re-profiling the nose to make it sharper - with moderate success...... It isn't 100% - but it looks much better - I might shave a bit more off to make the 'beak' sharper - but without going through the plastic!!... Re-shaped Trumpeter nose compared to the Italeri nose.... More later... Ken