1990-1991 Gulf War 25th Anniversary Group Build

Castel, that tank is looking good.

I hope some of you guys building armor (and vehicles) here will take many pics when you're detail painting and weathering.

Thanks again for that site link Stik! Builds are looking great everybody!

Well I have broken sprue on my dirt dobber! With much deliberation I have chosen the Italeri kit over Hobbyboss. In doing so have inherited some work ahead of me, but the italeri's accuracy in details outweigh hobbyboss's simplicity. In saying that, A 3 PIECE BANG SEAT IN 1/72!!?? Honestly? Hehehehe they do look much better than HB's seats though.

The major drawback to the Italeri kit is the woeful mouldings. Mold lines abound, pinholes in one spot, and some waves almost like wood grain. I would venture to say that the plastic wasn't hot enough to flow properly during injection. Oh, did I mention the ejector pin marks on the side of all three wheels! Despite the shortfalls, it was more pleasing to the eyes of this ex-eaglekeeper. Will try and have a few pics up tomorrow, 0130 now, night all. 

castelnuovo

B1, that Puma looks super , the drooping blades are a great touch.

Here is some progres on my Piranha, she is more army like now.

 

 

 

CASTELNUOVO are you planning on "Blending" the camo into the tire hubs? That is a tell with my armor builds, whether warwheels or tracks. i am looking at an OTS BTR-80 with sand and dark green. i think the "blending" works well with medium and dark colors but light colors stand out too much, more of as beacon than hidden. but it does look cool and i will continue to do it. 

"You have to know the rulles before you can break the rules."

Bish

Greg, is there anything specific your interested in, such as track assembly, painting and weathering etc. or just the armour builds in general.

Mostly painting and weathering I think, Bish. I do remember tracks driving me half-crazy decades back, but I'll cross that bridge later.

No problem Greg. Tracks can be a pain depending on the kit, or if the builder decides to bring it on themselves, , i imagine the ones today could be better or worse, depending on your view, than the ones you had before.

Everyones builds are looking pretty sweet. Thanks all for the compliments on the Puma. I am gonna stick it out with the ESCI Tornado. I am still trying to figure out a plan of attack on building her, Plus I need to somehow build a canopy since the framing for the two piece canopy is pretty much destroyed.

Waynec, thanks for the idea . I haven't thought of it but it certaily looks good and ads continuity/ good flow to the colours.

Cheers...

Ok here are a few pics as promised. First the proverbial.

This is the parts tag I have of 88-1683, the stamping machine the base had at the time only had 3 places after the dash so they left the 1 out.

Thirdly, the progress so far and the comparison to the HB offerings. Hope to get the bang seats painted and some pilot keepers on them tonight. Italeri bits are on the right.

Clipping that first part off and settling to clean them all up and gluing after a long dry spell is almost like.....well I won't go that far but felt good.

A tough week in paradise. Another heat wave on the way. Yay. The lower hull is pretty much ready to go now. I won't add the side armor blocks until painting, and the running gear and tracks are on. 

Other than that, just need to clean up my messes and get to assembling the turret parts, maybe over the holiday weekend. A few more weeks and the paint spraying should start.

I think I am finally turning the corner here.

Activity in the ship yard:

And over in Airframes:

MJ, great progress on your Enigma! Very nice!

GM, you're turning into a smale scale military industrial complex 

Liking these builds guys!!! Awesome work!!! Didn't get to the bench last night, hopefully tonight.

Stik looked through my parts tags last night and looked on that site, worked on at least six of them. 83-017 the only bird from Langley to get a kill was one of them :)

Bish

Looks good James, how is this going together.

I'd say it's about what you would expect from Tamiya - pretty much as good as it gets. The base kit T-55A was acclaimed in its time for detail and assembly, and the extra parts added here are of similar quality. 

So far I have had no issues just being careful cutting and trimming. Only thing to really watch for is that you're using the right parts. All armor has a lot of parts, but since this includes all the old T-55A parts + the Enigma ones, it pays to keep a close eye on the directions.

One thing that I can say about Tamiya is I don't remember the last error or mislabel I found in one of their direction sets. Kits I've gotten from Dragon over the years would be more appropriate to say 'How many errors am I going to find...' 

Had some bench time last night and got a bit of painting done. This build is going to be OOB so just trying to work with what the kit offers. Pics are of the office panels and one of the bang seats. Going to add harnesses and belts to both as well as paint the firing handle locations.

Youre off to a great start there Sim 

Thanks guys!  Didn't get to the bench last night but stopped long enough to put front panel in place to find out that the hole for the stick is to far forward and behind the bottom of the panel, which goes to the floor.  Easy enough to fix but sigh. Sure more issues will arise.

Right, and now the seat won't fit!

I have enough coats of Haze Gray on this thing. Boot stripe.

Flight deck base color of Gunship Gray, before Future, decals, more Future. I am going to weather and exhaust stain the hell out of it.

While the airwing is drying, got a start on the yellow critters. The kit gives you six (6) forklifts, two WW2 era crash cranes and nada else.

A liitle work on three of the f/l's and ready for paint.

In the spirit of full reconciliation, I just bought a deck equipment kit on eBay to get tugs, fire trucks, and etc. We have a little gator navy over in "Ships" and are sharing this kind of stuff back and forth.

Nice work GM! Those forklifts must be tiny!!!

Airwing with their first coat of Light Ghost Gray. CH-46s got new gear, Stallions are stock, SeaCobras have PE skids. Harriers are Trumpeter.

Yup. In the deck-on picture, you can see the equipment park on a razor blade.

GMorrison

Yup. In the deck-on picture, you can see the equipment park on a razor blade.

 

You're a madman!

I guess. Getting into this Persian Gulf thing.

My first and only was born in 1990. Needless to say I was distracted during this whole war, although i really do follow the news.

Stikpusher is the example, you all, of a good GB leader. I put him in the same ranks of the greats, Darren, Frank.

I will go full speed ahead here.

The Nimrod looks good too. More soon on her.

Thanks GM, I do appreciate that. But you are far too kind. There was a LOT going on in my life at that time as well. My oldest was born a few weeks after the Iraqi invasion in August, and I had just joined a Guard SF unit, transferring out of a Rifle Company. The typical paperwork lag and Snafus led to some serious upheaval a few months later, but all ended well enough for me... I was actually flat on my back with a back injury by the time of the ground war so I watched it all unfold from my bed on CNN... 

I havent gotten far on my M2 build, due to working alot of OT. I have mangaed to get some progress on the interior, mainly masking and spraying the interior anti-slip, and ramp anti-slip, as  well as scatchbuilding the armor over the drivers periscopes... I have some more painting and initail interior weathering to do. I did manged to make the sign that greeting us as we crossed them berm into Iraq on G-Day. I will use it the mini-diorama that is in the preliminary planning stage. I have a 5 day weekend starting Thursday so I hope to get a good bit done on the M2.