A is for Autumn Assortment - Gift Fair

Peter Evans, roving reporter in London, roved to Birmingham for the Autumn Gift fair, which I had hoped to attend, but Space, Time and Nathaniel waits for no man, and it wasn't going to happen, still, we do have these from Peter;

 

Possibly a bit big for war gaming, but in the garden the rules can change, they're only counters, when all's said and done! No figures though!

Variation on a theme, I don't think we've seen the packaging before, but we have seen the figures now, the ones with 'vignette' bases.

 

Kawong is a new name, so a new Tag! The stuff looks similar to the New Ray stuff (next shot), so fans of modern farm equipemnt can have a field day . . . field? Geddit? I'll get me coat . . . 

 

Just mentioned.

 

Dinosaurs, it seems you get a window-visible realistic dinosaur, and a dig-for-it skeleton, to match whichever Dino' is in the specific bag?

 

I think we've seen these before, but you can't have too many images of things!

All the above look to be from Padgett Brothers (A-to-Z) 

 

Definitely seen these before, I think several times, Tobar, House of Marbles and others, but we like a bit of paratrooper action here at Small Scale World!

 

Gotta get me one of these, preferably a Hugh? You don't always find a Hugh in these pre-personalised sets, but any company which does Anna and Annabelle, Ben and Benjamin, must surely do a Hugh? Also, note one of each colour are supplied with a blank lable (top of display), so you can write what you like - "Kiss my shiny metal arse"!

 

A Japanese merchandise store had a full range of Gashapon, including those which can be presented as Christmas baubles for placing on a tree (lower shot), although Peter noted "unfortunately, no Samurai". And many thanks to Peter for sending these over to the Blog.

T is for Tiger

So, to the second of two posts on the new Airfix 1:35th (nominally) Quickbuild kits, and we have the mighty - and flawed ('IRL') - German Tiger. Like the Firefly we looked at a few days ago, this definitely looks the part, and while having some problems, is not as poor as the Sherman. Possibly less blurb as most of the points carry-over.

 

As the Firefly was a game-changer, so the problems associated with the production of these slow, heavy behemoths could be argued to have contributed to a shorter war, and the fact that combat-wombats all over Europe are digging them up to restore, shows how difficult they were to deal with once the engine stopped, and even after the war, people had a tendency to dig a hole next to them and push them in rather than recover them!

 

Big bag o'bits, for a big bugger!

 

The same Lego style instruction sheet and simple sticker card, the most obvious flaw with this model, is two pairs of little 'nipples' either side of the turret, with an additional mould-line running through them, which render the placing of the relatively stiff vinyl turret-numbers almost impossible, so I placed mine on the rear of the superstructure - I believe there is evidence of this having happened, in real life, especially where turrets were changed-out in the field.

 

Small parts, note the identical (with the Sherman kit) accessory runner in the centre of the shot. Track-links are, again, a softer, harder-wearing polymer, like a hybrid ethylene, a nylon or polypropylene?

 

The rest of the gubbins, again, not much compatibility with Lego, or other leading bricks (Cobi have a large 1:12th Tiger out with over 8,000 pieces!), although you get the same direction changing block, which may have a more general application with other bricks/projects, and if the axles are the same diameter as Lego technic, you may have a whole bunch of wheels to use on other things?

 

You can clearly see the crap on the turret side which results in a lifted sticker and air-pocket, if you apply the turret number as instructed, and to do it justice, you'd have to remove both (all four) nipples and the lines connecting them, and then professionally polish the scraped/sanded plastic to take the cheap sticker. And, if you were minded/qualified to do all that, you'd have bought the Dragon, Nichimo or Tamiya (et al) kit, in the first place!

 

There are spare track sections with this kit too, and to be fair, the main difference between this and the Sherman, is that while the connecting nubs are the same design, once you've got the tracks on, they do stay on and together, under slow, measured progress, but rough play on an uneven surface, would still shed both in seconds!

Also, is it me, or should the tracks be wider? Maybe that extending beyond the wheels was on the later variants only, this being the early one, with the higher cupola . . . it's been a long time since I read-up on such things!? All in all, a marginally better effort than the Firefly, with slightly better track-action! Full 8 out of 10!

F is for Firefly

An unprepossessing name for a vicious little critter which did a lot to help win the war, and yes, lots of things make that claim, SOE, SAS, Bletchley/Ultra, Bomber Command, Fighter Command, Trinity, Boeing, Hobart and his Funnies, Rolls Royce and their wizard, and to be fair, they all played their part, but this was one of the balance-tippers!

 

Back during a more combative phase of the Blog's past, a lot was made of, and opined, about the announcement by Airfix of new 1:35th stuff, which in fact took forever to get to market, were finally released a couple of years ago, weren't model kits, nor full ready-mades', but rather clip-together, and only appeared - locally - earlier this year, in Hobby Craft, where I shelfied them.. But I thought I ought to actually get them, which I recently did, and this is the first of two posts on the subject.

 

The Airfix 'QuickBuild' Sherman Firefly, a clip-together model which uses the Lego (Hestair-Kiddycraft) mechanism, for that constructive element, even to being compatible with 'other leading bricks', but an addition to your Lego tub it ain't.

 

Everything comes in one bag, with separate instructions and a small, basic sticker sheet, the grey block to the far left is the only piece which might be useful to a Lego fan, being a large, five-way, stud direction changer.

 

My first criticism, and it's far truer for the Sherman than the Tiger, is that the track-links are a bit wank. They go together OK, until you try putting them on the vehicle, at which point they reveal weaknesses which totally destroy the 'playability' of the 'toy', as the slightest carpet-move produces breaks in the tracks?

 

The most Lego-likey element is the instruction sheet, which has full colour stages, each of which involves only three or four parts, highlighted by not being greyed-out, and tracks aside, there aren't many parts, (around twenty-five/twenty-six?), and most of them are chunky bits!

 

Second - obvious - criticism; I had a large spigot of [failed release-pin?] plastic on one of my hull sides, which prevented the construction, until removed, although it resulted in a useful piece of 'styrene rod for the spares box, so "Every cloud . . . "!

 

Turret components, result in a reasonably robust turret, with revolving action utilising the twin-lug system from Tamiya, rather than Airfix's traditional central spigot, for a firmer attachment. Frankly though it's a simplified and toy-like rendition, but that's a criticism for the whole model, and it is meant to be a toy first, and a Sherman second!

 

A small accessory runner in a different colour, this is identical for the Tiger Tank, and contans the turret-interior retaining-piece for the gun-barrel, a jerry can, two ammo-boxes and a pointed entrenching shovel.

 

Running gear; quite simple and straightforward, it took me a minute or so to work-out how the two halves of the drive-sprocket went together, but that might have been more about the need for proper glasses than any failure of my mental faculties, or errors in the instructions!

 

In the end, three useful looking pieces of waste plastic joined the greeble stash! There were a couple more on the track runners, but the tracks are definitely a different polymer, probably polypropylene, which is as much of a nightmare to glue as polyethylene, so they both went to recycling!

 

It definitely looks the part, and, in real life, must have come as quite a surprise to the big cats of Nazi Germany, but it's not terribly accurate, nor that detailed, and certainly not as detailed as it could have been, in this scale. It states 1:35, but seems closer to 1:32nd, but that might just be me, and I'm notoriously bad at judging scale.

 

Although, conversely, the underside has quite a bit of detail, compared to other Sherman models over the years! Also, you can see in this shot, how the drive sprockets don't actually engage the tracks and have been made ridiculously wide as a result, just to keep their teeth away from the track rod ends!

 

The two 'spare' track links don't clip in, and keep falling off, but there are actually quite a few spare links, so you can field 'appliqué' your tank with extra frontal armour!

 

 

 

All-in-all though, a disappointing effort, with track issues that render it unplayable once built, the simple construction is a plus, not including the tracks (and my sprockets!) it can be assembled in about eight-minutes, no more than twenty with track-faff, but simple detailing and stickers, leave it as a toy you can't push anywhere, for fear the tracks will part like the red-sea. I think 7-out-of-10 is a generous score?

V is for Various Venerable Vehicles

Not as many vehicles as some shows, but then Sandown has always been the show for vehicular stuff, while PW really is about figures, although there were enough in the end to split them into two posts, land stuff this time!!

 

I'd like to think this might be Tri-Ang Minic, but I can't find it described as such anywhere, among all the other Minic-branded tanks in at least three size groups, so it may well be a knock-off, or rival, trying to look like Minic?

 

The 'Centurion' turret in particular has a lot in common with several Minic efforts, but the whole machine is a soft polyethylene, against the early phenolic, or less stable 'styrene, which gives us the mostly - these days - warped, Minic originals?

 

Around 1:48th and almost impossible to decide which end is the front, I went with the end having more rivets as possibly being the back, with inspection hatches, and the motor under it! And the wheels reveal it got some serious play, probably over some time and was somebody's much-loved toy.

 

Seen before here at Small Scale World, many years ago, as I have a loose one, and put it on a transporter for a photo-shoot, this one is pristine, and generic-boxed, although the box has seen better days and will get a damp ironing at some point to restore its shape a tad!

 

Based reasonably accurately on a French Panhard EBR of the early Cold War, probably taken-off the Dinky die-cast, the barrel is a plug-in to allow for a smaller box, a common trope with these Hong Kong tanks, as we saw with the Blue Box one, the other day.

 

Hong Kong smallies and the remnants of a die-cast artillery piece, all grist to the mill, with the Humber truck being the version I called Type 1B, the Hong Kong marked second-generation copies of the Kleeware originals, with the solid windows and steel axles.

 

Navy or Air Force? There were civilian sets of these, and with signs of reinforcing of the tool, on the bed-underside, I'm suspecting, without checking, second generation copy of the Kamley (

Simon & Rivollet) 

thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for everything they did at the show.

T is for Two - Tanks!

Hard to believe, but we don't seem to have had that title before! I managed to pick up two rather nice tanks at Sandown Park's last show, nice for different reasons, and a possible 'sublime to ridiculous' scenario, but which is which, depends upon the personal loyalties of the viewer!

 

This would be an antique toy enthusiast's ridiculous, but the sublime of a 'plastic warrior', being the large scale donor for a whole generation of pretty inaccurate US 'Patton' tanks (sometimes wearing German stickers), in various scales, materials and finishes. We looked at its own little brother here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/07/b-is-for-back-to-blue-box.html

 

Where it's found with three different muzzle-breaks, I don't know if the same will prove true for the larger one, but it's a nice box-ticking of a near-mint, boxed example, with friction motor!

 

While the antique guy thinks this is sublime, while a plastic warrior thinks it's a ridiculous novelty 'what tank IS that?' I think they both have their merits, and the beauty of this is it still has both tracks! A bit saggy and perished, and there is one break, out of sight, but getting these with tracks is hard, you see many examples of both Japanese and German tanks with their shiny, or surface-rusty wheels, but tracks are rarer, and while you do find modern replacement tracks, they are too new!

 

I guess it wants to be a Renault F17 or similar, and Japan took various early tank designs to China, before the World War was a 'world' war, so given the yellow-dun shade, I'm also guessing that's where this particular "Foreign" import came from, rather than Germany, where grey or 3-colour camouflage were the norm.