N is for Not So Free French Forces!

I allowed myself a couple of small purchases on evilBay after all the maths was done last month, and this was one of those buys, I felt a bit guilty as the underbidder had been winning for days, when I spotted the lot went slightly over with my bid, and won it, but to be fair, or honest, he dodged a bullet . . . 

 . . . as they arrived stuffed in a tube with a bit of packing rammed-in at one end, and in more pieces than I had bid on! Now, I haven't negatively fed-back, there's no point, the chap (or chapess)'s other listing revealed they didn't know what they had, its relative age or likelihood of damage, equally, neutral feedback wouldn't be fair either, so no feedback means if they ever ask, I can try and explain politely, I leave the lecturing to less salubrious characters! "Wel done on ebay “corrector” " chimes-in the lick-spittle phuq-monkey!

 

Anyway, a bit of superglue (the front bumper on this was hanging-together) got them presentable enough for this post, and now I know they exist I'll look out for better ones. They are - of course - if you recognised the truck in the previous post, the Noreda 'readymades' from France, already an eclectic mix last time we looked at them, although not as eclectic as the Injectaplastic set.

Actually quite a nice M3 half-track for a simple pocket-money toy, possibly a little bigger than the Blue Box one, and it's soft-plastic clones, but certainly a further source of them and ten-times more accurate than Marx's effort!

 

This is interesting, as there was already a jeep in the line, we've looked at it here already, while this is part Dodge 'Beep' and part Willy's Jeep, longer than the real jeep I think it is the Dodge 'weapons carrier' that is being attempted.

 

Seems to be missing a pintle-mounted MG behind the seats, and while the other holes could be for passengers, so far I've only found the strips of four, and they are two long, and would need another hole at the other end? The figures in this post are two strips of four who have been separated.

This is also interesting, as I think what we have here is an attempt at a Conqueror, the heavy tank designed to face-off against JS III's, and it would make it the fifth ready-to-run Conqueror after the Lipkin, Lucky, Rocco and Triang ones. Albeit, this one having certain elements of Centurion - as the real Conqueror did - and even, in the turret (and probably more accidental), shades of early M60's.

Before and after cleaning!

And then it gets even better, with a slightly crude King Tiger II! Added to the Atlantic and Airfix Tiger I's and Airfix's Elephant/Ferdinand, and that family is wrapped up, as far as wargaming readymade's goes, not to forget the Tiger I and Stürmtiger which some Chinese rack-toy maker gave us in the last few years . . . it's all on the Blog, just got to use those Tags!

They were filthy, this was a cursory cleaning of the Tiger II, and I wondered if one of the factors in brittleness of polyethylene might be connected to cigarette- or other-smoke deposits? It's worth the museum curators looking into, as there may be a chemical process happening at the surface of the polymer which causes, or triggers the leaching of the free-radicals?