Hey gang,
The doors to the skunkworks open tomorrow, so start lining up your builds! Not sure what I’ll start with - the Raytheon DIVAD (Gepard turret on M48 hull) is calling, but so is the T31 Demolition tank… 
Not missing this one, this time. I started my IDF build entry last night, but this is next cab off the rank after that:
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Ah, another overcomplicated war-winning uberweapon from Der Fuhrer! Got a soft spot for those Swiss-Army-Knife SP guns where they couldn’t decide - tank or pillbox? 
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Campaign active - commence building!
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I have so many choices as I generally like the oddball stuff and we are blessed with many of those from the 3d kit makers. What a great time to be a modeler!
Paul
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Yeah, but why did they wait til I was in the autumn years to start putting out such riches? 
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Yes, and some of us are nearly in the depths of our winter years…
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Yes, the winter years are upon me too.
I ordered a 3D kit of the Vickers A1E1 Independent from China. When it eventually arrives I’ll take a look at it to see if it is suitable to build for this campaign. Its certainly very cool, a tank I have lusted after for years. A nice thing about it is that the only one ever built has been preserved in a museum and there should be plenty of pictures available to help with the details.
Paul
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Ooh - a tank designed by a turret salesman! What’s not to like? I’d love to see you build it here!
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I can hardly wait for it to arrive. Some years ago I led a campaign called Landships for these large multi turreted vehicles. I built a Soviet T-35 five turreted tank for that one and it was based on this Vickers. In a tale reminiscent of Doyle’s Bruce Partington Plans, the Sherlock Holmes story the real plans for this Vickers were stolen away and wound up in German & Soviet hands. The British abandoned the Vickers but the Soviets built their T-35 which was a tremendous waste of their time & money.
Paul
The Vickers A1E1 landship arrived today, less than three weeks after ordering it from China. I just had time for a quick look and saw some damage to one of the rear fenders and most of the parts loose and banging into each other. I can see also a bit of track busted off and not present in the bag. I’ll survey everything more carefully over the weekend.
Paul
Bummer. A bit of care in packaging does not take a lot of time, or much common sense to work how to do it.
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Yes. This mess was due to the parts being weakly attached to the sprues and dashing themselves loose in transit. The bags were well padded with foam and the box was wrapped in bubble wrap. None of that helped when the parts busted loose and charged around against each other. So far, nothing I have seen is fatal to the build.
Paul
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Glad to see it looks recoverable!
I spoke too quickly. Saturday morning I had a long sit-down with the kit and found much damage. The outer shipping box was fine as was the inner kit box. The parts were well packed with foam. The problem was that the “sprues” connecting the base to the parts was WAY under strength and had broken allowing the parts to bash against each other or the sprues themselves.
This did not need to happen, I have many of the Vargas kits and never seen this. Vargas has found a way to make the “sprues” strong enough to hold the parts OR he just removes them & packages them separately.
I sent a message to the eBay seller:
I was very excited to receive this kit so quickly. Thank you for getting it out so quickly.
Sadly, there was much damage to the kit parts. This was NOT due to the carrier, the shipping box was fine with no damage. What happened was that the heavy castings had broken loose from the sprues inside the bags and battered each other. In other cases, the “sprues” themselves had done the damage. All of the parts shown in the pictures were damaged. Some of them I can repair, others are beyond help. The little bottom skirts on the bottom of the 4 small turrets are beyond repair.
Can you please send out replacement parts or even another complete kit?
We will see what they have to say about this. The seller is in China & I hope they have a good translator!
I can build the existing model with what I have but it will not be as good as it should be.
Paul
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Wow. That track damage looks more like pre-packaging dropping the part than damage in transit.
How deep are the scratches?
Seriously, these parts should have been grouped and packaged in plastic bags. That prevents movement as well as giving some shock prevention. Grouping delicate parts in different bags and wrapping in bubble wrap would have overcome all of this.
As to the turret skits, maybe trim and sand them flat and replace with styrene strip?
The maker did package the sprue/parts assemblies in separate bags. The problem was that the sprues were not strong enough to hold the heavy castings in place. When they broke, the parts & the sprues themselves acted like battering rams. Even where parts are not broken, the detail is roughed up, rivets, bolt heads, grab handles and other mysterious parts look battered as if this poor tank had seen a lot of action.
There were hundreds of bits to sort through trying to find model parts in amongst the debris.
I do want to build this model, either from this kit or a replacement one. I think the real extent of the damage will only become apparent when it gets cleaned up and sees a coat of primer.
Paul
If the last two pics are how it was packed, with several parts per bag, then it’s a no-brainer that it will get damaged in transit. Sorry to see it, but hope you can still get a result with it! (There’s always mud, for those difficult flaws…)
A real pity with the damage, Paul. Hope the seller comes through and sends replacement parts. Although it looks like it would be half the kit that needs to be replaced.
Hope it works out - either with replacement or the trusted old mud 
PS. You can see my emergency pull of the “Mud solution” on my T-34/85 build in this tread:
T-34/85 campaign