Imperial War Museum Cold War Films

Whilst trying to find something else (of course) I recently stumbled across a cache of British films in the Imperial War Museum video archive that is worth sharing.

The majority of the films are unedited and come from Exercise Iron Hammer held in West Germany in 1988.

Previously I had a selection of links here but I have decided to reduce it to one as all the videos running at once made my site unstable:


I suggest you have a decent look around here or elsewhere on the Imperial War Museum's Collections for more excellent videos.

Have fun...

Richard

BAOR Chieftains and more...

Sticking with BAOR armour, I thought I'd show you the two "Combat Tank Collection" or Altaya Chieftains I also recently finished.

The scheme the AFVs come in is actually very good:

 However, they didn't look like the rest of my stuff so a repaint was in order.  I also decided to have a crack at camming them up a bit to give them that 'operational' look...

So here they are:

I'm reasonably happy with how they turned out.

So finally - here's some pics of all my BAOR armour.  Note - the two Chieftains on bases were not done by me - I bought them that way.

That's all for now - I'll have some more "interesting" vehicles coming soon.

Have fun

Richard

BAOR Challenger Tanks

Over the weekend I managed to finish and photograph some tanks I completed as Task 2 of the 2012 Group Build on The Guild This consisted of a few Challengers and Chieftains. As I've already shown a Britannia Chieftain of mine previously - I thought I'd start out with the Challengers When the "Combat Tank Collection" magazine first started coming out - I guess a couple of years ago - I picked up 3 of their Challenger 1 tanks. They looked like this:
Reasonable models of the Challenger 1 - but UGLY! Deciding it was time to finally crack on with these I got myself a nifty special screwdriver from Spain that was supposed to fit the ridiculous triangular screws Altaya uses on its tanks - it of course didn't and I had to file it down. But once apart I was able to remove the tracks and spray the models black so I could start them afresh. I also added cam nets to all the storage bins on the models and changed the crappy commnader's MG with a Liberation Miniatures MG. I had in the meantime completed a Revell Challenger 1 (before they kindly reissued it) and was able to paint this at the same time.

So here they are: The 3 Tank Collection/Altaya models repainted
A side on shot of the Revell kit

The revell Challenger is in front
Thanks for looking

Have fun...

Richard

MMS BRDM-2 Variants

This week we are back into the Cold War with a couple of MMS BRDM-2 variants.

Firstly some good news on MMS. From what I understand a long time ago (in a galaxy far away) MMS used to make a pretty impresive array of Cold War vehicles. Some time ago they stopped. It seems they must have decided to concentrate on WW2 vehicles.

Luckily for me I have a friend who has a little stock of Cold War MMS vehicles that I am slowly buying off him. Some appear every now and again on ebay as well.

Now the good news: The Hobbyden has recently announced that they are taking over the MMS modern Range. It looks like , their main emphasis will be the Cold War and in particular their first releases will be focussed on the Soviets. Unlike the original MMS (at least what I have seen of it) all the stuff done by The Hobbyden will be produced in resin and metal - which means it will weigh a lot less for postage.

So that is really good news - The Hobbyden also has a range of stuff made by them that suits the Cold War - go check them out.

Okay - so onto my MMS BRDM-2 variants. Here's a wikipedia link with more information on the BRDM-2:

BRDM 2

Review

I can't really say too much here as i got both of these vehicles completely made up. Recently however, I did get a MMS BTRD in its original box - still in peices so I'll give a proper review of that one later. These are very heavy models and basically all I can say is that they look pretty damn good to me!

Painting

I simply painted these as I pretty much paint every Soviet bit of kit I have - so nothing new there.

So - on with the show. First up is a BRDM-2UM Command Vehicle



Its a pretty boring model - hence just the one photo - but it does the job I think.

Next up is a 9P148 Konkurs. I really like this one:





Again - pretty standard stuff but a lovely detailed little model.

Bottom line - keep an eye out for MMS releases from the Hobbyden and watch out on ebay - well worth it.







Have fun

Richard

Prisoner

This is not exactly (well anything like) what I had intended on posting up this week....

Over the Easter long weekend The Guild hosted a speed build with the theme being "Prisoner". There were basically no limitations but it had to have at least 2 figures in it.

I looked through all my stuff, and the only "Prisoner" related stuff I could come up with came from this Revell soft plastic infantry box:



Three figures really suited what I had in mind - which was a prisoner (obviously) being lead by an armed soldier -

- to an officer like figure for questioning

(PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE EXCELLENT PLASTIC SOLDIER REVIEW WEBSITE)

Due to the nature of the German figures I decided to title my entry as "Person of Interest" - somewhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

So without further stalling - this is how it turned out:























That's all for now - hope you all had a great Easter break

Have fun...

Richard

Cromwell Tracked Rapier

Well it's been yonks and last night I finally got around to taking some pictures so now I can actually update the blog. I even took photos for next week too!

So - onto the Tracked Rapier. Since I was very young I was pretty fasinated with the Rapier. I guess I had seen loads of pics of them being deployed in the Falklands and thought the look pretty mean. Later when the British Army deployed a mobile version (the Tracked Rapier - obviously) I thought it had a real sci-fi look to it, and it took mean to a hole new level.

Anyway - if you want to find out more info on the Rapier Missile and the Tracked Rapier - you can look here

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be given a completed Cromwell Tracked Rapier. It was a little worn, and had some odd decals and so I cleaned those off and re-undercoated the vehicle. I then masked it up and sprayed it with Battlefront Warpaint British Armour Spray. A few dry-brushed coats and a little detail painting and here is the finished product.













Here's a couple of youtube clips about the Tracked Rapier:








Old school Rapier battery - like the first one I saw in real life...


Finally - when it all goes wrong!

Have fun

Richard

Plastic Soldier Company German Infantry

Just a quick post today.

Recently I painted a KGN platoons worth of PSC German figures. I'm not a real fan of plastic 20mm (1/72nd scale) figures, but for the price I thought they were probably worth getting - even if just to bulk out forces centred around metal figures.

Anyway - I was more than just pleasantly surprised. Apart from a couple of chaps with horrid poses (which I simply ignored) I was basically impressed with the figures and some of the poses are excellent.

I also loved the ability with plastic to make some basic conversions such as changing arms or heads.

Moreover they were very easy to paint and I think came up pretty nicely.

The only other thing I think is a bit questionable about the figures is for some reason the gas mask cannister on each chap is wrapped in some kind of blanket or something. I've never seen this on another figure or can remember seeing it in pictures. Well, I'm not expert but this just struck me as being a bit odd.

So here are the pics









Thanks and have fun...

Richard