M is for More Mini Military Machines

I only posted Bren Gun/Universal carriers the other day, but I was also posting them elsewhere, then a Lone Star one turned-up, and I had a separate shot of the Tudor Rose one, to which I've added a couple of comparison shots to give the post some originality!

So, the new member of the team first, it's not a particularly fine example, and it could have done with a clean before I shot it! But as a sample it does what is needed.

 

Lone Star, die-cast mazac/zamak early version, also came in sand paint, often with German markings, not inaccurate as the Germans captured a fair few during the run to Dunkirk, and would also press them into service when they captured them in the Western Desert. [Oooh! Just avoided a 'dessert' typo there; I wonder how many of them there are on the blog, Doh!]

Some more shots of the recently seen here, Marx Battery operated late version carrier, not much to add to whatever waffle I appointed it with last time, needs comparing to the Timpo one, I think they are a similar size - biggish?

 

The Tudor Rose version on the right, also a late pattern, with the Dibro tinplate novelty push-and-go tank to the left, the both, trundling down a French country lane, lined with Lombardy Poplars, still on the Cofalu card - possibly aimed at the Tour De France line, or the farm?

 

The trees are hard polystyrene, the tank is quite common and must have been very popular at one point, probably due to its cheapness, maybe one of the first, affordable toys, mass-available after the war? The carrier has both Bren-guns intact, which is uncommon for this model, they are both easily damaged.

Comparing Marx, French composition, Lone Star and Tudor Rose mini military machines! I still need a Britain's slush-cast one to compare with the TAT's, and when that happens I'll try to remember to dig-out the Timpo one!

F is for Follow-up - C is for Carrier Convoy!

Well, computer problems seem ongoing; “Unexpected black-screen in the new laptop area”! Hotmail is kicking-off with a data limit they made no previous mention of and which seems connected to my rejecting and uninstalling of 'Teams', '365' and other online/cloud stuff, which will be another battle. A quick notification of a change in the terms and conditions actual or implied with some penalty charges usually results in a change of corporate mind!

But, suffice to say the mojo is well off-track and the Blog is probably the last/least of my worries. However I have cobbled this together, although it's mostly appeared briefly elsewhere in the last month or two - easier to post minimal text stuff on a Faceplant group!

I had the luck to receive 'first dibs' on this from a mate the other week, we have seen the TAT Bren-gun carrier before, but now I have one with box, which is nice! And it's a clean one with the RAF-roundel sticker still in place.

Just a quick reminder of the light-tank version which turned-up under EM branding and which we also looked at last time;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2022/07/c-is-for-cool-colonial-carriers.html

In the meantime I had grabbed this in passing, larger and the later 'Universal Carrier' mark with full amour-plate down both sides, it is a Marx battery-operated toy with more similarities to the Timpo or Dinky 'boxes', both in size and - with the former - unrealistic wheel arrangement!

 

The Marx Hong Kong mark, I haven't seen the packaging, but presumably it was a late addition to the B/O Patton Tank which ran for years under Marx and other brand-marks, and as various copies.

 

Various views; the battery has actually been disabled and the gear-box removed, allowing full carpet-wheel, hand-action! It doesn't seem to have had a Bren-gun, but I'm pretty sure I have a spare of the Bren which clips to the frame of the old Britains long-wheel-base Land Rover, which will fit nicely on the lip of this carrier's firing -hole?

 

And then, my life was forced to accept an on-going theme situation, when this came in last week, a French composition Renault UE Chenilette carrier, although when I say 'composition' it seems to be a bisque like china/porcelain.

 

Above are before and after cleaning . . .

 

. . . which from the yellowish shade of brown was a few decades of Gitanes or Gauloises!

 

I use clean, cold water and wipes, with a gentle action on something like this, no rubbing or scrubbing. And no, I haven't been buying plastic-shafted Q-tips for several years, but there are a few kicking about and I happened upon some the other day; so thought I'd better get them off to landfill before someone else flushed them illegally - well; you never know!

Maker is unknown, but could be Domage et Cie (who became Aludo (aluminium) or Acedo (plastic)), or SFJB who are known for Bisque items includeing dolls heads? But Elie Tarroux is also known as an issuer of 'general figures and novelties' in composition, from around 1900 to the 1930's (A connection with Starlux is fleshed out in the Thomas/Guillot books); could he/they have survived the war and knocked this out with its Free French flag?

 

Boysie-Boy has no interest in this junk, unlike his late mother, but is looking very pleased with himself for having baggsied my fleece-jacket in the seconds it took to fetch the camera! While I'm very pleased to have picked this up.

 

All three recent additions, off to search for fanatical Hitler-Youth stragglers in the Tory Front Bench! First you demonize them as migrants, when most are subsequently found to be genuine asylum seekers, or refugees, then you call them names (“illegalls”, when they aren't, until they've been found to be, which over 70% aren't), then you switch to calling them “Boats” rather than people, then you deport them (or those who haven't drowned) without judicial process . . . sounds like fascism to me? Go Gary Liniker!

Returning to the TAT's as a final point, I remembered this post, which has a whole TAT gunner who can replace the broken one which I seem to recall one of my (three now I think?) Bren-gun carriers has.

M is for Maisto's Military Mystery - Cubeville Cary Cases

Fun one this, but a bit mysterious, I picked it up from a dealer in the market area at the Hop Farm, Beltring's big week-long combat-wombat shindig 'Trucks & Tracks' back in 2008, he only had these, but he had a mountain of them, like half a van-load, still in the outer, manila cartons.

The box shows three sets, but two of them come with the same truck, either tilted or tiltless! And I wouldn't exactly describe any of them as particularly inspiring? The feeling being that 'Military Cubeville' was a live market-test which sank with little trace!

The one I bought; Cubeville Outpost, there are elements of the much older (1970's) Monogram Pocet Force & Battle Link sets about this, but where they had a PVC or latex scenic base which squidges-up and folds away into a smaller case, the Maisto sets are larger due to the rigidity of the scenic diorama/vignette contained within.

Which - the scenic item - is a reasonable ruined dwelling with watch-tower, sandbag piles and a rather formal stack of bright-silver 'jerry' cans! I think the access ramp also has a secondary role of joining multiple units together but I might be wrong on that one?

This was placed above the carry case with a top/side right-angled window in the other side of the box (I didn't shoot it; I'll scan it sometime) and you get two quite nice figures in the 25/28mm bracket and a M2/M3 (I still don't know which is which; I think the difference is mostly on the inside?) Bradley IFV, and it's the early, pre-Gulf Wars upgrades version.

Close-up's of the two figures (it's a figure Blog!), the box isn't clear, but there seem to be six to collect, possibly seven, but it may only be four or five? ATGM looks like it might be an M41A7 Saber (improved BGM-71 TOW system), while the squad-commander with radio is pretty stanndard, post-Cold War fodder.

The mystery is they are hard to find on the Internet and there are none currently on evilBay, although other Maisto military are easier to locate, all small ranges (G.I. Joe, Military Force (upper shot), All Stars and Kid Connection), along with odd  military finished vehicles in the normal 'Matchbox' style range, most of the bottom row above.

Some, like the 'Electronic Warfare' truck above (or was it a fire appliance first!?) reappear in the other brand-marked ranges, in the truck's case as a fully camouflaged version in the G.I.Joe series . . .

. . . or even as Jurrasic Park knock-offs in the Dino Adventure line! Maisto also do military vehicles in other scales, including 1:35th and 1:16th, I think I saw a 1:48th one as well. But as to Cubeville, pulled quickly from the market I fear?

C is for Cool Colonial Carriers!

Those of you who follow the shenanigans of WWII, will be aware as the conflict gathered momentum through the early belligerence's of the 1930's, through the 1940 invasion of France/The Low Countries campaign and into the Japanese attacks of 1941, that many nations around the world were equipped with variants of three staples . . .  

. . . the US 'Christie Suspension' fast 'cruiser' tanks, with designs from America, Russia and the Czechs, secondly, many variations and developments of the old French WWI Renault F17 infantry support tank, and thirdly; so many variations, versions and derivatives; commercial, limited-run and volume production, with one-offs/prototypes and locally produced conversions of the Vickers/Carden-Lloyd Light armoured vehicle range/s, it's impossible to count them all.

And it's two of the latter we're having a quick look at now, we've actually visited the TAT branded early version Bren-Gun carrier before here, more than once, and the TAT tag will provide with additional civilian models, and I think in the transferring of everything over the last year I saw another in the collection, so we may return to these one day, maybe as a posed 'wargame' post in the garden/environment, a carrier 'squad attack' type thing!

The real development, both from the vehicles point of view, and in the researching of old plastic toys, is a turreted version of the TAT carrier, this one branded to EM, previously thought of as another brand, but as evidenced here, it must now be considered to be connected to TAT whether as supplied-to, subsidiary of or phantom-brand from- remains the mystery.

Although looking the same with a turret glued on (firmly, although it may have been meant to rotate?), it is actually a reworking of, or duplicate tool with all new features and a new rear-deck.

Other differences reveal the base-plate has been redesigned to accommodate the new superstructure, the rubber tyres are a new-tread design and the marking is for the same EM (Empire Made?) similar to some of those micro-ship Minic copies (which are marked 'E' only, for Empire Toys (?) and seem to be connected to Lucky) - these carriers being based on the old Britains slush-cast lead one. But the crew-figures, push-and-go kinetic-motor (and housing) and plastic colours tie both models firmly together.

The actual turreted versions of these light-tanks didn't have open compartments at the front and usually had an extra, forth road-wheel, so it retains its fictional toy heritage, and the turret is a common re-reappearing from Hong Kong (in various sizes) on other toys and is taken from the Lone Star AFV series I think?

But if you're garden-gaming the fall of Belgium or the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies, finding a couple of these will definitely enhance the defenders forces . . . more quality TAT from Small Scale World!

H is for How They Come In - Chris - May - 4

Vehicular 'Access All Areas' with this post on Chris's recent package to Small Scale World's Central Control Room, with a look at flying, floating and free-wheeling types - can you tell this first paragraph is sometimes the hardest to fill? If the muse has turned-in for the night, then she's turned-in for the night and that's it!

From the cake decorations and premiums pile; two Festival candle-holder trains, particularly pleased to get the yellow one as previously I though only Hong Kong had done it! Teeny-tiny coach with its father (a Hong Kong copy of a Manurba one) behind and a cereal premium 'Transport of the World' Chinese Junk.

Actually, there seem to be several iterations of the set, both either side of the Channel (La Manche) and either side of the pond, with cereal premiums claimed (UK/USA), margarine and coffee premiums (Germany and France respectively) and others, and different issues having different line-ups, there are also soft plastic copies from the colonies and bagged sets in opalescent pastel-colours which probably came via beach-side vendors at the sea-side, consequently (like the athletes) every example adds to the whole picture . . . one day we will look in depth at all of them together, this Chinese vessel is a subtle pink-white.

Hong Kong sports car on the left, odd body-shell on the right which might be Triang Minic or Jouef-Playcraft, they both had similar lines as rail-drive/new vehicle delivery items on their model railway flats/low-loaders/transporters? They were also both Lines Brothers!

Also a civilian car I suspect, probably from a bagful of rack-toys, but in a military green which makes it a staff-car! It actually looks quite like the Zephyr Dad had sometimes when he was 2IC in Hereford, or commandant in Brecon? Or was it a Zodiak? Big bench seat and wallowy suspension like American Cars, my brother and I thought it was better than a Rolls!

Another which is shadowing the verge between civil and military, both Chris and I have Googled all the likely movies with no luck and haven't found anything like it so it would appear to be from a  minor cartoon/movie or even small scene-specific? It's marked Disney so should be a shoe-in to ID, but so far no banana!

If you know, put us out of our misery! The driver slides back as the other [same] guy pops up to man the 'Gatling Gun'! We both suspect McDonald's, but the lack of any other mark beyond the 'DISNEY' (not even a date) rather rules that out as their Kid's Meal toys are usually covered in consumer information and licensing marks?

It's bloody cool though? Very Indiana Jones, or WWI'ish, and would [will!] go well with the Disney Store Indy' stuff - I wondered at Incredibles II which I haven't seen, or the latest 101 Dalmatians?

Actual Military now, with a Micro-Machines Frog/Scud divorced from its 'TEL' (transporter/erector/launcher), and a current twin-gun rack-toy tank, which we may have seen or not, there are a few out there!

Now . . . this is brilliant, a traditional, 1970's style, rack-toy BRDM, in four-part clip-together polyethylene, with the standard (for the era) US roundel from early-war aircraft! But . . . clearly a copy of the Play Art die-cast model of the same vehicle, most unusual, and a very gratefully received present!

Mini and Micro 'planes, I rather like the Iwako style eraser helicopter (plastic skid landing-gear and prop'), and again the rack-toy 'ethylene AWAC is fun. The teeny one on the middle is a Fairy Fulmar from Airfix's 1:600 Ark Royal - I ruined one when I was a kid!

The silver trainer type jet has a plug underneath and may be from a larger scale Carrier toy, while the mosquito is an MPC copy.

One the right two from cheepie sets, one camouflaged, one more colourful and a nice bronzed/weathered pencil-sharpener which will join the rest of the 'mocherette' accessories, for that still-in-the-pipeline page! All die-cast alloy.

W...T...F...? Gotta'be a wing-walking team, but who? Galloob? Corgi? 'China'? And why do only two have their goggles painted in (making them look like extra's on The Fly!) . . . that's the pilot, in brown, by the way - on his back . . . four ladies dancing on an aeroplane's wing . . . Mono- or Bi-? Answers on a postcard, or just let us know in the comments!

Naval elements include two Chris had previously sent me images of for a follow-up which never sort of happened, but it was also conversational in that emails were exchanged, they being the outside two.

Nearest the camera and the aircraft carrier are Hong Kong copies of TriAng Minic Waterline ships, while the coloured one is Galoob Micromachines. Which leaves the one I had question-marked against the WHW vessels and possibly also being WHW, but I fear it's looking more likely they are a lesser HK thing? Jury's still out on that one.

Ahh, yes . . . Royal Fail and Parcel Farce, conspiring to carnage! The Marx 'miniature Masterpiece' medieval horse will glue, as will the rather fine terracotta Santon with fish-baskets on a yolk-carrier, but the fixed-turret, twin-barreled, rack-toy tank has been well and truly unfixed!

I can't complain because thanks to Chris Smith they were all free! And it'll be the military figures next.

B is for Breaking News - Toy Fair Latest!

Latest announcement on the toy 'wire' is a range of topical kits from Revell . . .

The first in the series is reportedly going to be followed by a Belarus-1522 dragging a T-80BVM MBT with damaged 'cope cage', an Agromash-180TK towing a 9K33 Osa/SA-8 'Gecko' and a Western John Deer pulling a BTR-82A IFV, all common-enough sights around Ukraine these days.

A is for Ackerman

I bought the first two of these four sets (both contract manufactured by Pioneer) from the same shop at different times, when passing, but they had both spent some time in direct sunlight so suffer bleaching on the faces, I've tried to adjust the colour in Picasa but with limited success! The card backs, however, are true colour.

The first is the nicer play-value wise, if you consider three simplified sandbag walls an improvement over none! And you'll recognise the 'airport fire tender' VAB with twin foam-generators and 6x6 truck from the big overview I did on these back in RTM 2017, which was when it became clear how many of these cheapie die-casts are out of Pioneer's factory/ies.

Again we've seen various paint-schemes on the Hummer and like the previous set this is branded to Ackerman Group here in the UK (previously seen importing Supreme output) but will have been other brands or brand marks (phantom brands) elsewhere, such as Realtoy - all three of these models are to be seen in their sets.

A few more shots, again (thinking back over past musings on this subject) the little walls are a useful clue (like the street furniture) as to who was being supplied by Pioneer and who was ripping them off!

The 6x6 truck has a less common short tilt, no troop-carrier this one; cargo-carrying in inclement weather! The Hummer's markings have it looking a bit Chinese . . . have they copied it? Oh yes! The Dongfeng EQ2050!

Another set which I shot as one before breaking them down into the thematic tubs this stuff goes to now and probably from a minor maker rather than Pioneer; one of their copyists! King Tiger has banana-barrel; a line you probably never thought you'd read here or anywhere else!

Again, these came 'clean' from a charity shop in the last year or two and are clearly painted to type and belong together, actually quite nice; scale's not so shot-to bits, as it often is with these 'matchox' scaled sets, coming-in at around 1:90th? But an interesting choice of subjects which include a Sherman Firefly (or even an Israeli 'Super-Sherman?), late war German SWS (Schwerer Wehrmachtschlepper - Heavy Military Tractor) 3.7cm 'flak-wagon' and an American M20 scout-car.

S is for Soviet Space Tanks!

You know I like the odd space tank and you know we often see early Soviet toy AFV's here, so let's combine the two!

These are clearly trying to represent the old air-mobile Russian BMP (or at a stretch the regular-force's BMD) and the ASU mini assault gun, but by using running-gear more reminiscent of an MT-LB's or the BTR50 (fully-tracked cargo trucks)'s and using identical superstructure, what we've ended up with is a 'new' family of space tanks . . . bargain!

Waiting for the 'Off'

Crewed by gum-ball copies of Giant Aliens (shades of 2000AD's Invasion and Bill Savage fighting the Sov's to liberate Scotland!), the BMP-alike is in the foreground, the ASU-alike behind, you can see that both have too many road-wheels for either real life vehicle, while the identical superstructure is clear.

Airborne Infantry;
'Seek & Destroy' missions

The fact that they are bright blue (Soviet 'Airborne' blue?) helps with the off-world theme and here supported by Giant originals (note the better quality of the mouldings).

Construction is a simple clip-together and the hard polystyrene equivalent of Airfix 'readymades', but with less accuracy! I don't have a maker for these yet, they are unmarked, but I haven't looked for them on the two main forums yet, so that will probably come with time.

'Bivouac'

I love them, clearly recognisable as Soviet armour, they are also and undeniably 'Space Tanks'; yeay! I've marked them up as 28mm, but their fictionalisation makes them what you want them to be.

Some Wiki-pages so you can make up your own minds;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMD-1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASU-57
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MT-LB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTR-50

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP-1

MC is for My Chap's . . . Geddit!

I know, I know, I'd shoot myself, myself, if I wasn't having so much fun spouting nonsense in the general direction of the Internet! Just a quickie following up on several previous visits to these Chap Mai modern combat, small scale types.

I was going to put this on the 'But is it Giant' Blog, but feel as new/newish-production it should be here, that Blog (which hasn't had a post for a while . . . ?) is really for pre-2000 or even pre-1990 'vintage' stuff.

We've seen the green set before, on the runner, but Peter Evans sent a whole bunch of them loose in a parcel six-or-more months ago, and they included a whole set of the same poses in black, so here they all are together from both sides. I hadn't previously encountered them, but Chap Mai have issued various big-box sets over the years, including some store-branded generics, maybe one had 'goodies & baddies'; their own sets tend to have a single un-clipped runner?

We can then . . . now (?) run through all the charity-shop purchases of vehicles, with the new figures . . . for the hell of it! The M1 Abrahms type is a bit on the small side for the 25mm-odd figures, but the five kneeling poses look better.

The M2/3 Bradley/A-Cav MICV is also a bit small, but looks better with standing figures although the one on the left is more helicopter- than AFV-crew?

Hummers stop for a nosey-about, but they aren't paying attention to the Shat-al-Arap waterway where the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's frogmen have a bone to pick with Uncle Sam! Topical humour there, unless you're on the end a Trump-triggered, state-sponsored terrorism 'incident'! The language is lovely these days isn't it? The Coca-cola Games - The Iranian Maimings, The KGB Slow Painful Death Incidents!

Lannies also park-up in 'all round defence', but the spanner's come out - How very 'British Army Procurement'!

The Land Rover and the Hummers are the only ones with the clip-receiving protrusions on the underside (see posts passim under Chap Mai) for parachuting, on a little pallet, out of the big Hercules/Transall/Galaxy transport aircraft play-sets. I guess the others must be from more recent sets involving less parachutes? Although I'm guessing, they will all be on the old Index and Argos catalogues I keep meaning to go though!

The 'Rambo-squad' pulls-up! Jeep Wrangler 'technical' and rather odd-shaped/sized 6x6 truck of vague WWII vintage (which despite the looks actually holds-up well against the Airfix readymade) who are my latest two procurements (in the course of last year) and must also be from more recent/less common sets, as they definitely weren't in the old adverts, but they have the same wheels as the other soft-skins.

I still need to do the same paint-removal job on the jeep bonnet (hood)'s 'SOLDIER' artwork - leaving the allied air-recognition star - as I did on the 6x6 'deuce-and-a-half'. In point of fact - that these two are both 'new' to turn-up and in a new colour and have the same bonnet-markings strengthens the case that they are from a newer set, possibly the source of the equally 'new' (to me) black figures?

APC is for A Plastic Crate!

This came in from Peter Evans the other day, in fact I think he gave me the other ('Japanese') one as well!

Rack Toy accessory or my name's Keith! The running gear is a standard moulding you may know from cheapo 4th or 5th generation piracies of Centurion or M60, with the one-piece superstructure clipping over the upper track-ends.

The body is vaguely M113, but, like both Airfix APC's equally not quite any APC, which is not to say it may not be based on a modern Asian machine, but is of a scale where it's going to be a bit make-believe whoever you use it with.

Compared with the Japanese-stickered one (see here back in January) above, and with a tatty example of the Airfix first-version beast below. It is the biggest 'readymade' APC (we looked at a bunch many years ago) and consequently while it would prove useful in any 'old school' war gaming army, could also provide a cheap source of battle-taxi for 28mm space marine types.

Andy Warhol may be dead, but he lives-on in Picasa!