M4A3E8 by Josef Raulston

Josef built Tamiya's M4A3E8 (ex-Akusa mold) out-of-the-box with the addition of Fruilmodel metal tracks. He painted it with AMMO by Mig acrylics and also weathered it with products from the AMMO line.     

    

 

M48A5 AVLB Bridge Layer by Brad Raulston

Brad built Dragon's M48A5 AVLB out-of-the-box painting it with Tamiya paints and weathering it with AMMO by Mig Jimenez products. He says there were no issues with the kit and the fit was generally good. But make sure you have plenty of workbench space when you begin the the bridge assembly.

  

 

Israeli Merkava by Chan Jackson

 Chan rescued Tamiya's 1/35th Merkava from his "Shelf Queen" storage area and decided to try out a  recently obtained  Mig IDF paint set on it. He also had an old Verlinden "Streets of Beirut"  building set that had been sitting in a closet after being tossed around for years.  The plaster was in bad shape... cracked and sorely in need of repair. He also stumbled across an old Dragon Israeli infantry kit and decided to combine everything into a diorama.  The pop machine is a Meng offering and the tank crew are VLS Warriors; AK Interactive's new Asphalt product was used on the road surface.

FCM 36 by Chan Jackson

This is the new ICM FCM 36. Chan feels it's a nice little kit and chose the box art to be his guide for the vignette.  He likes the different camo schemes of the early war French vehicles and feels they are a little bit of a challenge but fun to try and replicate. The FCM was a promising design but still suffered from the same problems of French light tanks...small, short-barreled main guns and thin armor. Plus French armor doctrine was a problem as well. The building is a Reality in Scale offering which are very nice and Chan only wishes he had more of them. The figures are Miniart. Chan feels they are getting better but the heads are fair at best.

Vietnam Gun Truck by Chan Jackson

 

Chan's Vietnam Gun truck is a kit bash of the AFV club 5 ton truck and the old Tamiya M113 ACAV  kit. He thought it was going to be an easy project but was wrong. The AFV kit is a nice kit but the frame is in individual pieces and he had a tough time keeping it properly aligned. Plus, the instructions were unclear and he had to redo a lot of the frame and suspension. Chan also had to repaint the M113's interior. He first painted it white and then found out that it was a Sea Green color. It was a minor setback. Also, he couldn't find his Vietnam era figures or equipment stash, having a bad habit of putting things in a "safe place" and then can't forgetting where that safe place was. Because of his failure to find his figures, Chan used the kit's figures with resin heads.  Rather than his usual oil painting technique on the figure's faces,  he tried acrylic paint instead.  He feels they look okay but isn't not real happy with the way they turned out.

Belgian T-15 by Chan Jackson

This is the ADV/Azimut T-15. The Belgians tried to stop the German 1940 Blitzkreig with these light vehicles of British Vickers design. They had few medium or heavy tanks for fear of antagonizing Germany. That really worked. The T-15 was fast but poorly armed and armored.  Also, they had no radio equipment.  The Belgian armored groups were considered elite units and fought valiantly but were overrun by the German onslaught. The kit is a typical resin kit form the 1990s. Chan gave up on the kit's resin tracks so "borrowed" track from a Tamiya Universal carrier kit.

 

 

 

VW Type 93 Ambulance by David Blankenship

This is the 1/35th scale Special Armour (CMK)  VW Type 93 Ambulance built out-of-the-box and painted with Tamiya acrylics.  It was a quick, simple build and is another entry in Dave's German medical evacuation vehicle collection.