From: Think Tank Subject: Think Tank Vol. 0028 25/03/2000 Think.tank@tesco.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS' INDEX 1: Battlefield Visiting in Europe 2: Australia visit report 3: West German Army colour 4: Tamiya spare parts 5: Web site updated -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD INDEX 1: Duxford military vehicle show 2000 2: Beatties -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: nickbalmer [nickbalmer@ukonline.co.uk] Subject: Battlefield Visiting in Europe Over many recent years I have to cross Europe to get to Hungary, on family visits. This seems to involve passing a very convenient (or an awful lot, as my children would say) number of battlefields. I tend to leave overnight and it is easy to get from London to the coast in less than two hours. >From Calais to Verdun is about 3.5 to 4 hours by the motorway. The Tolls are not excessive, and free up time for visiting sites. Last summer I arrived in Douamont the famous Verdun fortress about 7.30am and had it all to myself. Indeed as I left I met the Keeper turning up for duty! I believe a German Sergeant used a similar method in 1916. It is very interesting, and nearby is an excellent museum. I was, as Bob was in Normandy, very struck by how small the battlefield was. In literally a few hours I was able to walk right across the ridges and hills which make up the battlefield of Verdun. It is extremely well signposted and I found a very tough day and extremely emotional day, you cannot but be moved by the human suffering that took place there. The extreme violence of war is brought home by the destruction wrought on those immense concrete and steel forts. Quite how so many men could be killed in such a small area, and quite how awful it all most have been really comes home to one. I cannot really understand why the Germans didn't just attack around ether flank of the position and bypass it for despite it's incredible observation over the surrounding area, the artillery of the period was very limited in its ability to reach out from the hills. Using the Route Nationals not the motorway it was a pleasant drive over about 5 hours including stops at Sedan and Metz etc to the Strasbourg area. Obviously Franco Prussian and First World War sites are most obvious, but north of Strasbourg you can see many sites associated with the 1940 and 1944-45 battles. Between Reims and Metz you cross the immense chalk plains, and it is easy imagine how hard it must have been for the poor infantry footslogging across these long rolling hills in the sun and dust of the summers of 1914 and 1940, and how amazingly fast it must have seemed to people at the time when the Panzer divisions in 1940 were making 40- 70 mile per day. Further north in the Ardennes area there are many museums around Bastogne. Between Maastericht and Leige we found remains of the Belgium pre WWII fortifications which still carry signs of their destruction. From Luxemburg to Brussels is only 2 to 3 hours on the motorway. However Brussels itself is an absolute nightmare to drive in once you get there. The ring road is an old urban ring road, and is very badly signposted. Parking is also not easy to find. You can get into the city relatively easily, but getting out is another matter altogether in my experience. The battlefields of Wavre and Waterloo immediately south of Brussels are very interesting. Although they are very much altered by modern roads and housing. Again as you make your way along the march routes you are stuck by how close everything is. To have got so many men into the area of Waterloo, and to imagine the noise and slaughter is truly awful. Especially if you have ever fired a Brown Bess as I had only a short while before. From Brussels to Mons is only an hour or so if you don't stop to often. The route is through many small towns, very reminiscent to me of coal mining towns in the English Midlands. We found it extremely difficult to get anywhere to stay in Belgium south of Brussels. Not until Mons did we find a very good but expensive motel. You find that you have to stay in a big town or on the coast. A lot of people visit the battlefields, so you would expect it to be much easier than it is to find places to stay. The area around Mons and Le Cateau was very interesting. Sorry but there were Tanks there in 1944, going the other way! From Mons to the coast at Boulogne takes about 5 or 6 hours off the motorway on the very good local roads. The big if , is however how many times are you likely to stop. It is an incredibly interesting area, and if like me you are interested in many different periods, you can find yourself following Edward III at Cambrai as he burns his way around the area, with John Duke of Marlborough, the Tank Corps and with the Guards Armoured in their incredible dash to Brussels in September 1944. The Pas de Calais is very interesting with many many sites worth visiting. A surprisingly large amount of the Atlantic wall survives. It is well worth doing your research first. Everyone of us must have some connection with some part of this area. In my case I was able to locate the very lanes, and sunken ditches that my Great Uncle had lead his troops into on the 4 November 1918 as he liberated the village of Sebourg. As the afternoon drew on they ran into a German rearguard which ambushed them in a series of sunken lanes. Causing many casualties. It really comes home to you to make your way up a lane, not being able to see more than a few yards ahead, to be able to realise how terrifying it must have been for those men, then to be able to see scars of bullets at head height, on the walls of the church and barns etc, and to realise how lucky most of us are not to have had to go to war. I have his letter written eleven days later, describing how very lucky he was to have survived and how sick with emotion, and flat they felt at the ending of the war, the effect of the relief that it was all over. For me perhaps the most heartrending thing is the enormous numbers of World War I graveyards. Literally every mile or so, in many areas around Arras, and Vimy Ridge. There are far less tangible relics of World War II as the action was so much more wide spread. Further afield in Hungary you can see evidence at almost every road junction of the enormous numbers of Russians who died in overcoming the desperate rearguard actions of the Germans. Russian graveyards have Red Stars in serried rows. In the last few years the relatives have started to come to find the graves. Greying photos of very young men are being stuck to the stones. The German graves are unmarked and in largely unknown locations. In places damage is still very apparent in many towns, unlike western Europe. It must have been a terrible moment when the officer told you that you were to drive at the head of the column that morning in your T34 up that raised road towards the next town or wood. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: Listmaster Subject: Australia visit report Well, just got back to the UK after a whistle stop tour of Australian military museums and model shows and some very generous hospitality from the Aussie modelling fraternity. I started off at the Melbourne Model Expo, which made me appreciate how lucky those of us in the UK are with regard to shows as retail opportunities, as events on the scale of Euromilitaire, Trucks and Tracks and the IPMS Nationals are pretty much unheard of there. Nevertheless, the quality of the modelling on display was every bit as good as that in the class that I co-judged at Trucks and Tracks last month and several entries would have won gold medals by the standards we were applying. Interestingly, the judges are allowed to pick up entries, which led to at least one case of a very obvious fingerprint appearing on a decal, but the provision of some reference material to show what data was used in construction is widespread. This seemed like a sensible idea, given the difficulty for judges to keep up with the rapid explosion in kits and accessories and consequently with knowing what work has been done. One hero had even produced a very nice Tiger II which at first glance appeared to be a competent rendering of the new Tamiya kit but which turned out to be the 1971 version with many corrections and alterations. He deservedly won an award but without the information provided, it would have been very easy to dismiss it as representing less work than it evidently did. The show also presented me with the opportunity to examine Anvil's range of click together resin tracklinks and other accessories, contributing to a weight transfer from wallet to luggage by the end of the show. I will report in more detail on the tracks themselves in a later issue - however, they appear every bit as good as the working Kasten or Friul track, without the constructional difficulties or weight problems. A subsequent tour of the military bookshops and hobby shops of Melbourne yielded some Gunze Sangyo "Mr Surfacer" and Tamiya putty, about which there is much enthusiasm locally but which I have yet to see in the UK. From there several of us went up to Puckapunyal, where I stayed on for a couple of days to measure dozens of Centurion and M113 components for future projects and tried unsuccessfully to connect to my email, due no doubt to my inability to grasp the finer points of dial-up networking from overseas. Next stop was Canberra for a couple of days in the (free entry) Australian War Memorial, a highly impressive building with some equally impressive dioramas (despite the apparent efforts of the hierarchy to turn it from a museum into an "experience" ;) and an excellent research centre in which it is possible to view and copy various video tapes including some interesting footage of Viet Nam operations. I also managed to meet a few other Think Tankies and it was good to put names to faces. Finally off to Perth to see Jon and Alistair and take advantage of their rash offer to visit them from when they were last in the UK a couple of years ago. Spent the morning of my last day at the Freemantle museum, which has several vehicle exhibits outside, including an M3 Hybrid with several mods on the hull and a Mk.2 or Mk.3 Bofors platform with outriggers stowed, so the tape measure was out again ;-). Also picked up some hex section Plastruct rod, which I have not seen before and which should be useful for boltheads, given that I am too mean to buy a hex punch and die set. Many thanks to (alphabetical order) Alistair, Chris, James, Jon, Les, Michael, Paul, Ray, Sam, Shane, Shane and any others that I missed for their hospitality, their efforts in getting me around and finding things to keep me busy over there. Also to their families for putting up with unreasonably large amounts of tank talk for hours at a time. To all those for whom I offered to do things, please email me what they were to remind me, or I will inevitably forget ;-)). Robert -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From: Malcolm N. Waite [mw99@rapid.co.uk] Subject: West German Army colour Does anybody out there have any information about what basic colour was used by the West German Army for AFVs in the late 70's and early 80's, prior to the introduction of the 3 colour scheme? Malcolm Waite Going from photographs and the Marder MICV prototype that was at Duxford last year, it was a greyish green. Although I cannot offer a direct match, I would probably veer towards Humbrol's USMC Green (don't know what it is called now, but I have a substantial stock of the old "Authentic" colour). Robert -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From: Listmaster Subject: Tamiya spare parts I understand that it is possible to purchase separate sprues for Tamiya (and other?) kits from an internet concern called Rainbow Ten in Japan, but also that the same can be done in the UK from Richard Kohnstam, the importers. Can anyone confirm the veracity of this latter option and give any idea of costs? I have a need for a couple of 37mm gun sprues from the recent M8 for my M3 light tank variant projects and this sounds like a better option than buying several M8 kits. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From: John Harris [john@ukmilmod.force9.co.uk] Subject: Web site updated I've updated my web site, added a few pictures of UAZ-469 and GAZ-66 vehicles, plus reviews. Thanks for your support John John Harris john@ukmilmod.force9.co.uk UK Military Modelling http://www.ukmilmod.force9.co.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: Listmaster Subject: Duxford military vehicle show 2000 This year's show has been cancelled due to the ongoing construction work at the site. Anyone in need of a tank fix in early August may therefore wish to try out Bovington's offering on the same date. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: Listmaster Subject: Beatties UK subscribers may be interested to learn that according to an uncomfirmed report, the Beatties chain is going into liquidation. There have been some substantial discounts on several lines (including recent releases) for some time and now may be a good opportunity for those of us with vulture tendencies to seek out some bargains there. I have heard rumours of Tamiya Sdkfz 9s at £30 and M25s at £50. Wonder if I should actually go and buy that M25 now that I know which British unit had that one in NW Europe…… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Lockie (Think Tank Listmaster) Visit the Miniature AFV Association website at http://homepages.go.com/~mafva/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of Volume