I started adding laces to the flak vests. I’m not sure the juice is worth the squeeze. The arms may cover most of it. Either way it’ll take some dry brushing to even make them noticeable.
I may use sprue to fill the gaps in the torso - I’ll have to see how much gets hidden by kit first.
I eliminated that weird hump underneath his pistol belt. As I suspected, all the work on the flak vest laces is unseen. But overall all I’m digging the direction this one is taking:
Still fiddling with the poster in the above photo. When finished I can scale it down and put in on an advertisement column on the sidewalk near the wall.
As mentioned before, I life next the former border. As a kid, my parents took frequently to the border. The was a spot called “Eisfelder Blick” with the obligatory Streckmetallzaun and a Wachturm in the background. Before the fence, were posts painted white with “bavarian” blue tips. The posts marks the border, not the fence behind. DDR Grenzanlagen, especially in Berlin, were very deep, with a wide Niemandsland, to prevent “Grenzdurchbrüche.”
Rob, which unit you were serving with when in Berlin?
LOL! I still have my 25km run certificate somewhere in my “papers”! My CSC, 2-6 INF Scout Platoon Sergeant, SFC “Wild Bill” Guest, made us all register and run in the race. Hadn’t thought about that for decades!
Great project!
“fun run” I remember being volunteered for one or two of those!
Two words that in my opinion never belong in the same sentence! 
Right up there with “military intelligence”! 
Been there, had to do that !
Like the top photo?
There were areas on the outskirts of Berlin that had exactly that as well. Still had the death strip in between to walls though.
4/502 Inf
I’d love to see a copy of that. I still have my Wall Run Certificate.
Just surfed into this YouTube. You might have seen it already, but I thought it was pretty interesting:
As Rob mentioned: the demarkation line was right before the fence. So better DON´T get past the blue/white poles.
This of course only goes for border OUTSIDE Berlin
Were you near Fulda?
Time to move on to the gun trucks. The best review I’ve seen is that from Vodnik, written back in 2004. That guy is sorely missed in this site. But as good as his review was, he missed some things - one of which is the horrible way the seats are mounted. I’ll tackle those later. I’ve corrected them in the past but you know how it is - skills diminish over time. Another is the pedestal mount for the gun. While in the article he goes about making it better, he neglects to model the two-piece riser that was fairly standard for the pedestals. Anything is better than what you get in the kits, however. But today I’ll start but attempting to show a detail I’ve only seen in his build - and he neglects to tell us in his article it’s actually part of a Verlinden upgrade, which I had never seen until tonight. And that would be the reinforcing ribs seen on the wheel wells in my photo:
You can actually see the back side of these ribs behind the wheels, which you can replicate with half round. But for the inside they’re much harder to reproduce. Verlinden did it with PE plates with the grooves - not a bad solution.
I tried first just seeing how fine I could scoop them out. Not very. You can also see from this photo there’s also a dished out portion in each wheel well toward the front. No kit replicates this. (yet) The dished out portion looks horrible right now, but will smooth out with some creative sanding - I’ve done it before. But I was not happy with the results of the ribs, so it looks like I’ll have to resort to using brass. I can cover up my mistakes with it as well, so I wasn’t too worried.
First thing is a paper model template, which I’ve suggested in a few posts over the years. Then you only have to cut the brass once to get the correct size and shape.
The second order of business was making sure I could cut the shallow grooves in the brass. It’s not much, but it’ll show up - I hope.
I’ve seen that one and several others on Youtube. The one you posted talks about having to exchange twenty five Deutsch Marks for East Marks at the border at a 1:1 ratio. Which I did as a civilian and was no longer in uniform. But it was a rip off. I could get eleven East Marks for each Deutsch Mark at Berliner Bank - and I did. I’d roll them up and hide them in my pants cuffs of other locations. Little did I know all they had to do was wand you, as the currency had metal strips in it. I never got caught, but I lived like a king over there. I even had an East German girlfriend who studied at Humboldt. Those were great times. The cool thing is, I’m looking at doing a semester at Humboldt myself.
It was a great time to be stationed in West Germany in the ‘80’s! We had a company trip to Yugoslavia in early ‘88 and man the dollar was strong there!
Balkan grills in Berlin were always my favorite - with a couple of bottles of Jelen Pivo.
So - all of my M151 builds have featured drill out wheels. The results speak for themselves:
Using this photo again for reference:
One of the things none of the kits by Academy of Tamiya give you is these larger rectangular mirrors. They were often used on A1s and A2s.
Fortunately the faceted version (as shown) is easy to find - I’ve got at least ten Tamiya HMMWVs languishing on the shelf with the correct mirrors.
After a little cleanup - I’ve left flat portion of the mount in the center where they actually attach with the bolt. Then I’ll just use brass wire and flatten it to blend in:
Keep at it; this is an important slice of history! All too easily forgotten.
