The Kit

Remember these? This kit is from the dawn of armor modeling in the 50's. Aurora had a series

of 1/48 tank kits that included the Stalin III, Chi Ha, M-109, Swedish “S” tank, Centurion, M-70, and Churchill, none of which would be modeled in any scale for literally decades. This is the Atlantis re-release of the M-46 Patton.

There are 127 parts, including four crewmen. The tracks are of the rubber band type, but have decent detail, especially given the age of the kit, join together and fit well. The overall kit detail is on the sparse/simplified side and the turret MG is cartoonish, but over all it does look like a Patton. The lifting eyes are given as rings that you fit into slots in the turret and hull whereas in real life they are more inverted “U” shaped, but this is easily fixed by just nipping off one end. The main gun muzzle brake is decently done, but the barrel end needs to be drilled out. There are no brush guards for the lights.

The develop of the iconic Jeep in 1940 lead to the production version known as the Willys MB Military Vehicle. Over 640,000 vehicles were produced by Willys and Ford during World War II. Meng’s new tooled kit follows their flame thrower version released a few months ago.

This issue of the weathering magazine is devoted to the color green. I found this extremely interesting because so many military vehicles are green as well as many other interesting subjects to model. The problem I have always noticed with models that are green or any other single color for that matter is they can be very monochromatic or otherwise kind of boring. But with the technics in this magazine you can transform your monochromatic subject into an interest and spectacular build to look at that will be anything but boring.

There are several different types of articles in the book from various authors showing there weathering technics on green vehicles and are as follows:

Background

A variant of the iconic M3 series of half-track vehicles originally fielded in World War II, the M16 was fitted with 4 each .50 caliber machine guns in an electrically-drive rotating turret adapted from aircraft use. Used primarily as an anti-aircraft platform, the M16 also held great utility in suppressing enemy infantry. First seeing service in 1944, replacing the twin-gunned M13, the M16 proved a valuable asset for the remainder of the war and following, namely in service with US and South Korean forces during the Korean War.

The Publication

This softbound volume sports 24 pages consisting of a brief 1-page introduction, with the remainder of the book devoted to black-and-white line drawings with descriptive captions in English and Polish and 3 loose, large, folded sheets with vehicle and detail drawings in 1/72, 1/48, 1/35, 1/16 scales.

Towards the end of World War 2 some of the most vicious tank battles were being fought on the Eastern Front as Russian forces pushed their way into the back door of the Third Reich. Although not on the scale of the Kursk campaign earlier in the war, these slugfests involved some of the heaviest, most sophisticated armored units the world had seen up to that point, and most engagements were hammered out between the opposing forces with no quarter given or taken. The atrocities that these two countries had inflicted on each other during the previous five years ensured that.

My father was a professor of history, and he wrote a number of books relying on primary sources. Igor Nebolsin’s book on the subject of these brutal encounters likewise draws on a plethora of first-hand information, from battle reports to statistical data from both sides, to first-hand reminiscences of combatants. Ultimately, this becomes a virtual day-to-day study of this period in history.