O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Miliflats AVF's

Google AI, is not happy, not only is it not happy, it tries to hide the frustration that's angered it, by bullshitting for England! Just because everyone's talking about AI, just because the stocks are high (Larry Ellison has just knocked Elon Fuckwit off the top spot of the who-can-solve-most-of-the-world's-problems-with-their-small-change-but-isn't-going-to list), don't for one moment think it's any better than it was when I was getting fuck-all useful, out of ChatGPT a while ago!

 

The question was - Miliflats Plastic Flat Military Vehicle Models?

 

The Answer was -

 

" "Miliflats" is not a known type of military vehicle or a widely recognized term in the context of military vehicles; however, it may be a misspelling or misunderstanding, as the results instead point to well-known manufacturers of military vehicle model kits, such as Trumpeter, Italeri, Takom, Airfix, Zvezda, and Revell. These companies produce scale model kits of various military vehicles, including tanks, trucks, armored personnel carriers, and more.

 

If you are looking for specific military vehicles, you may want to search for the types listed by these manufacturers, such as: 

• Tanks: M1A2 Abrams, M4A3E8 Sherman Tank
• Trucks: GAZ-66, Oshkosh JLTV, Airfix WWII British Army 30-cwt 4x2 GS Truck
• Armored Vehicles: Sd.Kfz. 251/22 Pakwagen, M2A3 Bradley
• Other: BAE Systems Amphibious Combat Vehicle, Universal Carrier Mk.I"

Absolute garbage, 'Takom'? BAESystems? Heeheehee! And - in fact - there ARE a few mentions of Miliflats on a couple of forums, but Google doesn't care, because with or without AI, Google is shit now, and it has been for quite a while! Anyway, the few mentions I could find were basically asking the same question and not getting much in response!

 

So, rather new to Blog and Internet, but shouldn't be new to Hobby, as they were advertised and reviewed in the modelling press when they were issued (1979/80/81'ish?), by Inkpen Art Productions (MIke Conniford), who also produced the independent rivals to the Bellona and Profile AFV drawings, for modellers, converters and scratch-builders in 1:76th, but I can't remember what they were called.

 

If I recall correctly, he made a few poured-resin, or whitemetal (?) solids - 3D models -  as 'Inkpen', which presumably didn't do that well, then announced Miliflats, the flat alternative to army building for war gamers. It's all in the archives, so it'll be right on the A-Z pages, if nobody puts us right here! But, for those looking, here at least is an illustrated guide to Miliflats Flats!

 

 *****     ****    ***   **  *  **   ***    ****     *****

 

Among my first acquisitions on the day (Plastic Warrior magazine's toy soldier show in June), because Adrian had kept them to one side for me, were these, and after the rant against the machine and potted-history (which may be inaccurate) above, I'll keep the blurb light!

 

Poorest image first, but I think this is a Canadian Ram Tank, and the only Canadian subject seen in this lot, which is probably not complete, but other than a Skink tracked AA vehicle (?) what other Canadian stuff might be there? There are a few CMP types further down under WWII/Commonwealth!

 

American subjects (there's another 6x6 further down!) include an M8 Armoured Car, what is probably a Studebaker 6x6 Truck and a Priest (which might be a defrocked British Sexton!).

 

The Germans get a Panther and a Kubelwagen!

 

Allied transport, I'll try not to make a fool of myself trying to ID these, but CMP type cab, front-left, while back-left may be a post war/Cold War Guy or AEC (Militant?), Bedford Q-something front-right, and back right is a mystery, I'd expect a Bedford O-bonnet, or a Diamond-T, not that stumpy thing . . . is it American, FWD? Gantry-crane I think, field-engineering!

 

Smaller soft-skins, mostly painted for the Western Desert, and two more possible Canadian patterns. Clockwise; Austin Ambulance, one of the Quad artillery tractor designs, Bedford MW and a question-mark!

 

Commonwealth Recce vehicles, with an AEC A/Car, a Home Guard 'Beverette' of some kind and something South African, I think?

 

Post-war Panhard is the only French subject?

 

While West Germany gets two Unimogs, 

but the British Berlin Brigade can have them too!

 

Instrument of Genocide

It fires down at women & children, farmers and olive-trees.

 

The Soviets get three - BTR60, or 60BP, the tank may be the T72, or relatively unsuccessful T80? While the other one is a BTR-50 variant, I think?

 

Bedford MK's, office, GS and GS with water bowser.

The bowser tanks weren't painted and should be all-over black.

 

The earlier Bedford RL's, from the front Wreaker/Tow Truck, Office, Radio-shack, GS, GS with trailer and GS with water bowser.

 

US, Cold War, M151 'Mutt' at the front, M113 APCs in the middle, GS, M106 Mortar Carrier and M577 Command Post, with a truck behind which could be one of several WWII or post war 'Duce-and-a-half' trucks, I have no idea which, but suspect it should be up with the WWII stuff as a GMC or Chevrolet?

 

The models are a simple sheet of poured-resin, probably pulled/smoothed into a rubber mould, the resin seems to be undercoated a basic charcoal colour, and military paint is then applied to the sculptural side. Most of the labels have fallen off, as the glue dries out, and while some are obvious, and others have catalogue codes, some, like this one are more cryptic!

 

Land Rovers, Series 3 LWB's; ambulance, GS soft-top and hard-top and Lightwieght's, soft and hard, with and without trailers. several models were broken, but this was the only one I couldn't encourage to stand up, and the Bedford RL pick-up truck, was being held-together with saliva!

 

Seems to be an early Challenger (or Shir I/II?) and BARV

 

Missing are Spartan APC, Scorpion and Scimitar CVR-T's, which should leave . . . anti-clockwise - Samaritan ambulance, Striker ATGW's, Samson (recovery/engineering) and Sultan (command)?

 

Clockwise from front-right - Saracen, Humber 'Pig', Ferret, turreted Ferret and Fox

 

This is interesting, as I think it's a short-lived gap-filler between the Bedford MK's and today's 'NATO' MAN trucks, and could be a militarised late Bedford, Iveco or LDV? Answers on a postcard - or in the comments!

 

Like the people looking for info' on the forums, I had been after these for years, even decades, and it's nice to now have such an eclectic sample, many thanks to Adrian Little for thinking of me when he saw them.

 

And the real annoyance - in a few years time, maybe in only months, despite my keeping the text down, Google AI will have a full, and reasonably accurate answer to the original question, without crediting me or the Blog, or paying for the lifted data. If anyone happens to have a bookmarked site with decent info' on these, let us know, and I'll put the links here.

E is for Eye Candy - Accoutrements, et al, 'Colorform' Aliens

Here's a daft thing . . . I posted these about a year and a half ago, while living in the previous flat, and it was cobbled together from Internet images and a couple of catalogue scans, when I had this image in Picasa all along, of my set, which I took in 2021!

So, to be viewed in context, here's the post to which they should have been included;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/04/c-is-for-colorforms-not.html

W is for We Buy This Shit - Magazines

It's been a while since we saw what's on the news-stands, which these days include precious little news, beyond the downright depressing, I mean, who had World War Three on their card, for before the end of the year?! So, here's three which caught my eye, to the point of purchasing them?!

 

Horrible Histories usually have complete tat-shite on their covers, but are worth watching for the odd occasion when there is something that fall within the collector's frames of reference, and for me, this was one such issue!

 

There's a side collection of skeletons, and a bag of generic rats/mice somewhere, so that was good-enough, but then there were two maggots for the insect pile! Skeleton key-rings used to be a standard fairgrown prize for the lower scores on sideshows, like the duck fishing, hoopla or shooting booths.

 

A frighteningly realistic tongue and faker soft eye were the other novelties, but I wonder if the ring-jointed skeleton isn't actually an old tool from the 1960's or '70's? It looks very similar to others I have in the collection, of greater vintage than a few months ago!

 

This is last year's mag, yet it still took him more than six weeks to scrape one off of that there The Internet . . . outstanding, Bushey! Keep it up!

 

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2025/10/horrible-histories-freebie-skeletons.html 

 

I have no idea about PJ Masks; I've not seen it, not Googled it,

but I know it's one of the 'new generation', alongside Paw Parol!

 

I bought these to pose with small scale space stuff in the future!

Shades of batman movies in these! 

 

BBC Swashbuckle magazine.

 

A bit too cartoony, but they're here now!

Take the faces off with spirits and they'd be better. 

 

All the toy cards were supplied by Kennedy Enterprises, presumably a wholeseller, as you often find similar stuff on other magazines a few months apart, or slight variations on the same magazine as we've seen here with the Dino'mags/Dino' offers. And I've covered the fact that there are donation bins about the place for moving these cards if the kids aren't interested - Libraries, charity shops and some supermarkets carry them.

M is for Marx Space - Silver Astronauts

Also in my box, and definitely from the Moonbase and other 'Luna-themed' sets, was a near complete set of the Silver Astronauts, larger than the other sets we've looked at recently, they are closer to 54mm/1:32nd scale, but were often issued with the 45mm green Moon Men., and to be fair, are 'small' for 54mm, especially the two guys wearing dustbins, who are closer to 50mm figures.

 

Year-book photo', the upright poses are the ones which were used for both the 25mm Miniature Masterpiece window-box sets' figures, and some of the 30mm human poses in the Mystery Spaceship centrifugal wind-up UFO set, the seated figure is the same one as the chap riding the Mercury capsule, while we will look at the two 'bin men' in a few minutes.

 

Close-ups of the simple figures, I'm missing the pointing guy, found in other sets, and a couple of duplicates for the full 'mould shot', not that I worry so much about things like that, I just want one of each, before I die! The four sculpts to the right were in the Mystery Spaceship, all of them appear in the window-boxes, painted or unpainted, in polystyrene or polyethylene.

 

 

 

Speaking of not seeking duplicates (unnecessarily), I've gone from none to three, I think, on the Mercury capsules, in less than three years! With the one we looked at separately (with the part-work Ad's), then another came in with the Cape Kennedy set, only for a third, in the same leery-orange to accompany this silver chap!

 

The 'bin men' are actually both wearing suits which were serious propositions back in the 1960's, with a NASA procurement competition being sent out and two designs taken seriously enough for many trials, new versions, press-junkets leading to colour-supplement articles, public exhibitions/displays, and the like, leaving a fair bit of info., on the Internet.

 

This was the Grumman-developed rigid or semi-rigid prototype S-100 Space 'Moon Suit', tested in 1965, plenty of reading on-line, so I won't bore you with the minute, but suffice to say I think of the two suits you find pictures of, the Marx model is slightly closer to the number 8-suit, than the number-3, with the more rounded skirt? Matt Mason's was better!

 

But they got the more acute angle of both suit-body versions wrong, as with the [reversed] helmet window angle, so the plastic figure is only an approximation. Also, while constantly presented as a Grumman product, it was almost exclusively the work of an Allyn B. Hazard of Space General Corporation.

 

Marx did much better with this, the 1961, Republic Aviation prototype Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) Suit. Apart from not fully-modelling the fold out rest-break tripod arms, it's a pretty faithful reproduction. And in both you can see where the Kaled Survival Suits (Daleks) came from!

 

I had this figure, sans suit, for years, as his 50mm made him part of the small-scale collection, where I thought he was a Frankenstein's Monster sculpt - basic overalls, beseeching arms, starey face!

 

Scale is a moot point here, with both the Rex Mars and astronaut figures being of similar size, Marx liked their 'floating' astronauts/spacemen, and there is a third sculpting out there, in the '60mm' set, although when I posted them here, I thought they were closer to 54mm, so I'll have to check them!

 

The only accessories with this photoshoot, the errant legs of an MPC space station!

F is for Flying Jeep, H is for Hafner, M is for Malcom, R is for Rotabuggy

Brian Berke, roving reporter in NY, sent me these a month or so ago, and they got put on hold because of Rack Toy Month (and everything else he'd sent the blog), and the fact that I needed to play a bit of catch-up with the queue, but it's a fascinating thing, which nearly 'happened', and was performing well in tests, when it was pulled, purely due to advancements in Allied glider capacity/abilities.

 

The R. Malcom & Co's., M. L. 10/42 'Hafner' Rotachute-Rotabuggy, Flying Jeep, it's a Jeep . . . wot flu!

 

Utilising the New Ray Jeep, itself a nice model I haven't tracked down yet (well, I'm miles behind with larger scale vehicles, and they aren't a priority!), Brian has built a model of the Hafner Jeep for his troops, and above is the work-in-progress shot, showing how he went about it.

 

Basically Brian seems to have used a stiff paper or card, over a plastic frame, and when I was a modeller, I often used tissue paper for vehicle tilts/canopies - after a couple of coats of Humbrol they became quite robust, if you use a stiffer paper - a bit of Basildon Bond or something - you're laughing, it's as good as plastic sheet. Also, some people now wash the paper with super-glue to get even more plastic-like rigidity.

 

Finished and posed with the Lone Star paratroopers, who seem perfectly suited to the task, it really looks the part, for more on this machine, there's always Wikipedia:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafner_Rotabuggy

 

Strangely I have a memory of seeing this in the Airborne Forces Museum, at Browning Barracks in Aldershot as a kid, but if the only one (at Middle Wallop) is a 1980's mock-up, I must be imagining it, because I'm thinking of '71/72? There was a long series of cabinets along the window side of the museum as you entered, which contained models made by the modelling club of Depot Para', and it's likely there was a model of this there maybe? But I have a - presumably false - memory of one, out on the parade ground with the air-portable Land Rover on Hercules pallet, and the similarly bound Humber Hornet with Malkara missiles, which were parked near the main-road past the barracks.

 

Fiddler's Green, a name we've seen here before, also offer an all card model:

 

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/aircraft/Flying-Jeep.html

 

It looks more like a mini-moke, but it's a bit of fun. And, to be honest, their page (scroll down) is better than Wikipedia's for imagery and history! And it didn't fail, it wasn't unsuccessful, it was working, when it was pulled, because it was easier to land a jeep with its gun, from a glider, without a big hollow tail attached!

 

Funny how people get all excited about things like the German Maus, a monumental waste of time, money and material, while we were towing people down the runway in these! I hope all that window area was plexiglass, not real glass, you wouldn't want to fly hot into a war-zone with all that glass, 12-inches from your face?

Many thanks to Brian for the shots of this fascinating scratch-build.

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Introduction

So, slowly catching up, and because this year's show was later, the reports are not as late as last year . . . Bargain! The Plastic Warrior show plunder reports for 2025, a year I couldn't image getting to when I was a kid!

 

Everything got a bit muddled-up this year, and some things seemingly didn't get shot (none of Isaac's bits are in this shot), so as per the last couple of years I'll add a thanks list at the end of each post, but the pink box was a donation from Peter Evans, the box middle-right was a similar lot from Brian Carrick, I think, the single red figure was a freebie 'test shot' from Michael Mordant-Smith, while top right looks like a mix of purchases and Adrian Little loot, although I can't see the Replicants buys, or big pink bag anywhere?

 

Trevor Redkin will have been responsible for some of the small scale (bottom left, or centre?), Barney Brown brought something over during the show, and I think someone else (Steve Vickers or Graham Apperley?) brought over the bench and table (bottom centre), which still leaves several things to attribute, and several names missing, so apologies if I've not mentioned you here (eMail me!), and I'll add all the likely 'feeders' to the posts' thanks-list!

 

This is the plunder, broken down by subject-matter, which is how we will look at them again this year, I'd say it wasn't a vintage year for rarities, but there were still some very interesting things, and the posts all have something engaging in them!

 

You see, for instance, this was given to me by someone, and I've forgotten who, and while it could have gone in the Civilian-Sports post, it's so daft, with pre-walkers on a mobile see-saw, I thought it should go here as an example of the weirder-end of Hong Kong novelty tat! And having seen this year's HKTDC catalogue, you just don't get this genre of push-and-go polymer nonsense, any-more.

 

So whoever gave it to me (eMail!), it's much appreciated, for the sample of it's time, that it is, and as an enhancer of the babies-box 'master collection', mentioned in a Sandown Park post the other day! Literally priceless! And while the box needs work, the . . . err . . . Machine . . . Device . . . Siege-engine . . . is a minter!

 

Also outside the themes of the rest of the posts was this little goldmine of early Plastic Warriors, there were more, about 15 in total, but here's 9 out of the first 10 (missing No.2, which I think I already have), and overall I think I'm only missing about two or three issues now, all in the teens/early-twenties? It's also interesting to see how Peter's header graphic developed over the early issues.

 

I think there's ten posts to come, and it was technically the 40th birthday show, as the next issue will be the 40th anniversary mag', I think? But with a year lost to Covid ('22) and a couple of years of two-show experiments, I'm not 100% sure what show it actually was, and it didn't make a claim for itself, but maybe the 41st actual event?

 

All hats raised to Brian, Paul, Peter and others no longer here, for putting it on, every year, a shout-out to Steve Weston for helping find the new venue (so 'new' we've all been meeting there for about 14 years now?) along with a self-administered pat-on-the-back, to all those who've helped with tables and/or chairs over the years, our best show ever, every year!

H is for Highland Sentries!

In addition to the aircraft we looked at last week, I had another Zang purchase back in the Spring, the Highland infantry boxed set. We did look at one I think back in the early days of the blog, but to see how they came, and probably how the guardsmen we saw a couple of years ago were issued too, is nice.

 

Unbranded lid

 

Full set

 

Close up

 

No sign of a gummed Timpo label, so I guess these were Zang's own retail idea, but as a generic for small stores? Like my existing loose fella', two of these are snapped-off at the ankle, but composition figurines in approximately HO-gauge, of men with bare legs were always going to be a long-shot!

M is for Marx Space - Moon Men & "Aliens'

So, to the aliens, known in the later (1970/80's) sets as Moon Men, and six of a possible seven poses. I've only ever seen the crawling alien in the gray PVC, and we've seen him, so he got left out!

 

The set of six, in a softish 'Airfix' polyethylene, a bit bright, but not as bright as the orange-red of some of the space stuff, and it's the whole slime-monster lagoon-radioactive-neon lighting trope of a lot of sci-fi - this colour was common on comic art and pulp-paperback jackets, spilling, radiating, blasting or dripping! Even the 'lobby-cards' and posters for black & white movies would have plenty of florescent green, lime green or yellow-green!

 

Compared with the Rex Mars set's versions, and as we'll see in a second, they are 'versions', all six were found in the Rex Mars set, with one or two also found in Tom Corbett or Space Patrol sets.

 

'Big Ears', the only one found in all four sets, and the similarities between this sculpt and the Fireball XL5 character 'Zooney the Lazoon' is almost certainly not a coincidence, as the Anderson's raided the entire 1950/60's toy oeuvre for their various TV series', the fact that they ended up with a character in a 1962 production, which resembles a 1950's space toy from the other side of the pond, is beyond accidental!

 

Note also, all the bases (and feet) are quite different, these are variants, not the same tool . . . with each being re-cut/finished as it was included in whatever set, the six 'ethylene Moon Men having their own tool, leaving the crawling guy in the Tom Corbett set, as the outlier, not included here.

 

I've seen a Tom Corbett Space Academy set, with all three PVC sets, so you got three Big Ears, but helmets for the Rex Mars sculpts only, it had pale-blue 'office furniture' and was dated 1952, ten years before Fireball XL5!! 

 

Likewise, the 'Frogman Assassin'; 

completely different bases on each of my three samples.

 

I already had four of them in a different shade of green, whom I had shot for the archive, and actually found the bag first, whilst putting the others away, then remembered I had shot them, and you can see in the lower image a clear colour variation between them! No accessories in this post; I'd run out of things to pose the figures with by the time I got to these chaps/chapesses/whatever's!

F is for Follow-ups - Various, Old & New

A few follow-ups which have been accruing over the last few years, and an eclectic mix of bits enhancing older posts and a couple of more recent ones.

 

 

A couple more KUM pencil sharpeners, these being a small pistol, and a revolver with a drum magazine! We looked at KUM, with more relevance to the Blog's interests here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/search/label/KUM

 

While this is an advert for pre-printed bookplates, with an emphasis on Sci-Fi / Fantasy, there's also a more traditional, even 'monkish' design. Found on the Internet and credited to David O. Knuttunen, it's the back cover ad from IF (not Galaxy), October 1966, and enhances this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/04/b-is-for-bookplates-1-overview.html

 

BEM - Bug Eyed Monster, an acronym which has faded from favour!  

 

Meanwhile as a backup to the recent posts on Holly, Lik Be (LB) and the 'Gygax' monsters, on the left here is the copy of the Monster Manual, which I was using along with the later lever-arch file.

 

The other two, which came in at roughly the same time, are a fascinating book on the Tommy Gun rival to Action Man, made by Pedigree Toys, and it's surprising how much Tommy Gun stuff my brother and I had, thinking it was Palitoy-Hasbro, because most of our stuff tended to come from the Church fêtes and Jumble Sales of Heckfield and the surrounding environs, or the local tip (dump)!

 

While the other book is a useful history of Marx, an updated volume, I still don't have Vol.I in any version . . . it will turn-up, everything does! 

 

The Mechanoid bits in the smaller inset, came in a while back, and the two ladders are the real treasure, as none of mine had them, now two will be completed, and the radar disc will finish the green one, while a near complete one came-in recently, with nice turquoise legs - also needing a ladder!

 

Looking at them, I think I may have a couple more spares in the 'unknown ladder' drawer of my old multi-drawer cabinet! So when it all comes together I should have three complete, another one with two-each different coloured legs and the gold-accessories one still needing a ladder, along with a few bits - that's a fleet!

 

 

A couple of rather poor images of a set of the Marx copies, and a generic set of the same copies of Cherilea astronauts/spacemen, I actually managed to buy the foot-pump set, twice from the same seller, because I'd forgotten I'd bought the first one (generics from Italy), so we will look at them properly another day, but all three above adding to this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/03/e-is-for-expelling-few-myths.html

 

While this will add a bit to this post from two years ago

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/05/e-is-for-eggcellent-effigies.html

 

He's a Humpty I shot at Sandown Park this weekend just gone, is a lead-solid from Sacul, and has had the base repaired/replaced.