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Some 61 years after its first release, Airfix's venerable 'OO/HO' scale Panther is still available, and busy blowing up ambulances in North Africa! I decided to add one to my expanding Vintage Classics (or 'tanks I built as a lad') collection. This time round I added some side skirts to hide the stapled track join and drilled out the barrel. The decals are excellent and are the best bit of the kit - along with the box art of course! 😀 Cheers, Ian

As I mentioned in the intro to my Sd Kfz 222 build, back in the early 1970's I bought a couple of Fujimi 251 kits and here they are in Afrika Korps and late war colours together with what I think is the Fujimi ex Nitto Sd Kfz 250 released somewhat later. A few years back I bought another 251 intending to finish it in grey, but only got as far as priming it and painting/joining the tracks. The Germans probably built more different types of half track than anybody else using them as artillery tractors, recovery vehicles, mobile AA guns, personnel carriers etc. and it is the latter use I am interested in here. Back in around 1935 they decided that an armoured infantry carrier would be a good idea to support their planned armoured divisions and Hanomag were asked to design one based on the Sd Kfz 11 chassis with a body designed by Bussing-Nag. The result was initially called the Mittlere Gepanzerte Mannschaftskraftwagen though later this was changed to Mittlere Schutzenpanzerwagen Sd Kfz 251. It was eventually built in around 25 different variants depending on the purpose - personnel carrier, ambulance engineers vehicle etc, each type designated in the form Sd Kfz 251/1, Sd Kfz /10 etc, and with 4 different body variants ranging from the initial Ausfuhrung (Ausf) A to the late and simplified Ausf D which made up most of the production. As an infantry carrier the "medium" 251 could carry up to 12 men but a need was seen for a lighter version and the smaller "light" Sd Kfz 250 which was introduced in 1941 held 6 men. Although we tend to think of the Wehrmacht as being highly motorized that was far from the case and in fact most of the infantry had to walk or if they were lucky were carried in trucks - only 15250 Sd Kfz 251 and 4250 Sd Kfz 250 of all types were built by the end of the war and many did not carry infantry. Initially the 251 was issued to the "Panzer Grenadier" regiments so they could hopefully keep up with the tanks but in the battles both in France and later in Russia there were many instances of the tanks having to wait hours if not days for the bulk of the infantry and support to catch up thus rather spoiling the effect of the Blitzkreig tactics. This compares with about 15000 basic M3 carriers and another 38000 variants built if I am reading Wiki correctly, or 57000 Universal (Bren Gun) carriers of all types by 1945. The Fujimi kit appears to have the bodywork of the Ausf B, production of which ended in 1940, and comes with the option of the normal 251/1 with 12 crew and 2 MG 34, later MG 42, and the 251/10 which was issued to platoon leaders and replaced the forward MG with a 37mm Pak 35/36 (L45) A/T gun and a reduced crew of 5. I suppose it was intended to provide a degree of support if they ran into anything heavy without their tanks close to hand. 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.