Looks like a honey of a kit.
Ahem…
Looks like a honey of a kit.
Ahem…
A book I’ve wanted for years to complete the set, but which I could never find for a reasonable price:
Until last week, that is And the seller threw in some old DCS catalogues (DCS being the predecessor of Verlinden Productions) as well as two Dutch modelling magazines (not pictured), one from 1985 and the other from 2023.
I still have that Verlinden Way Diorama magazine.
According to the author of the book Brazen Chariots, it was called Honey because it drove like a dear. It was nigh to impossible to shred a track, which was the opposite to the British tanks:
"As soon as I could, I got my crew into one of the Stuarts and headed out of
Heliopolis for the first patch of open, sandy desert—not always
as easy to find as you might think. We tested her for speed first,
and found that on good going we could get up to 40 m.p.h. It was a
comforting thought, in the circumstances, to know that the German
Marks III and IV could manage only 20 or so.
Then I told my
driver, Whaley, to make a few fast turns, and waited with some
foreboding for the inevitable bang-clatter and swerving halt that
meant a broken track. Nothing happened. It was wonderful. That tank
handled like a well-trained cow-pony.
"Let’s see
just what it will take," I said down the intercom. "Try and
shed one of these tracks."
Whaley put her
through a variety of turns and manœuvres that made the sandy
floor of the desert look like an ice-rink after a hockey match,
spurting up great fountains of sand and dust behind the tracks.
“That’ll do,” I shouted to the driver at last. "We’re beginning to
wear out the desert."
Back at the camp
the CO. and a small crowd were waiting for us. We climbed out, all
grinning happily.
“Well, Whaley,” I asked my driver, “what do you think of it?”
He, plainly under the influence of the nearby Texan, beamed and said simply: "It’s
a honey, sir."
Hi , ’ Oh Lucky One ’
This was one that I had on my ‘Santa List’ but I must have been a bad boy , because it never came . Oh well , I’ll put it on my Birthday and Christmas List for 2025 and see if I’m lucky .
Fingers crossed?
Well in an earlier post I did say I could see T-54/55’s in my future and as a Christmas present to myself some landed today. Technically the last one is not a T-54 as it’s the Chinese copy.
… and very important
Another book for me:
This was rather hard to get hold of. It came out in May last year, and I ordered a copy on Amazon, per the author’s advice to me. That order almost immediately said it would be delivered in early December …! And by early December, the seller cancelled it for an undisclosed reason. So, I tried again, and that order too was cancelled within about a week. I decided to look elsewhere, and found it on bol.com here in the Netherlands, who delivered a copy to my door today in a bit under three weeks.
Also, separately I bought:
Cold-War Dutch soldiers from Sylly’s Mini Models. One of them will go into the Piranha PWI I’ve been building, the second is for another Dutch vehicle I intend to build in future.
I have this kit in my stash. I’ve built miniart T-55s and they are a bit of work but nice kits. This one in particular captures my imagination just from the box art!
After I ordered these, it occurred to me I’d probably never need to use both of them at the same time.
The machining on these is pretty impressive.
Well with my collection of T-54 & T-55’s building I thought it best to get some background information on them so I got some reading material.
Excellent books.
For a number of years I’ve been wanting to build a model of the well-known Panther Cuckoo, and I’ve now bought some stuff to do just that:
I’ve also wanted the Bandai Star Wars B-Wing fighter for some time, but I think the normal price is much too high (70+ euros around here). When I found it for a bit over half that, I decided to add it to the Panther order:
And also some figures and heads for other 1:35 scale projects.