Hello everybody!
After 2.5 years of ”all work and no play” I have picked up the hobby again, and I thought that it would be nice to return to the forum that I used to post on.
Lots of new faces and a couple of (really) old ones! (Hello Doog, Tigerman, Manstein etc!) I’m happy to see the forum alive and kicking! [:D]
My first little contribution is a Landsverk model 180, a Swedish manufactured armored car from the late 30’s that was exported in small quantities to Irland, Lithuania, Netherlands and Denmark.
This one is the Dutch version, named the m/38. I thought it appropriate, since these armored cars actually saw some action during WW2. For example six of them were crucial in the battle of Yperburg airfield that took place on May 10th 1940, when the Dutch forces managed to repell the German paratroopers that had landed there the same day (to a great cost for the Germans; the total casualities amounted to 1350 fallschrirmsjägers, including 130 KIA). Here is a good link on the subject by the way.
Regarding the kit. When I first started to look for a Landsverk kit I learned that the only one that was available on the market was a high quality resin kit from Scale-line, that was manufactured in a limited edition (100 kits, according to one source) some 10-15 years ago. These kits went on E-bay for $150, that is to say if you managed to find one! That discouraged me badly. Then, when I had given up all hope of ever building one of these kits, I found out that a German fellow, from Munich I think, actually had made his own Vacuform kit of the Landsverk 180 back in the 90’s. After a while I even managed to get my hand on one of these, but it was a very simple kit with crude resin and white metal parts, so I pretty much only used the chassi, the superstucture and the wheels. The smaller details I added on my own. The kit was painted using Vallejo acrylics and oils, with some MIG pigments. The decals was actually picked from a Matchbox kit, a dutch Brewster Buffalo, even though I later found out that Black Lion sells a decal set with dutch national markings.
Well this is how the kit turned out in the end…
(The great lesson learned – stay away from Vacuform kits!)[:@]
/Bultenibo aka Tony
