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Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Repair Broken Tanks




























On a recent trip to Pegasus Hobbies in Montclair, CA, I picked up a set of the Pegasus German Tank Crew set in 1/72nd scale. This is an old set, from 1996, but still very nice. Plastic is styrene, like model kits, and flash free. Most of the figures are torso, and two arms, some with separate heads. There are no bases, so I made some out of Evergreen Plastics sheet styrene.























World War Two German heavy tanks were state of the art high technology weapons systems. They were extremely heavy and that puts tremendous wear and tear on the tracks, engines and transmissions. These vehicles required constant maintenance and repair. These figures are performing some of those functions.























Warfare is not all constant combat. Much of the time is spend waiting for an attack, waiting to move, waiting for chow, hurrying up and waiting. While waiting, troops often spend their time playing cards. A deck of cards takes up almost no space, there are many different card games, and so are very popular with troops. This set has two groups playing cards. The tables and chairs are highly detailed and very nice.






















Off to the left you can see a seated accordion player. Musical instruments are popular modes of entertainment with troops. Two of them come in this set.






















I added a few diorama elements to the Preiser figures and it makes an instant diorama. In this case a few Imex Alamo Accessories trees, JR Miniatures Ruin, a Roco Tiger I and an Roco Panzer III converted to an ammo resupply vehicle.

2 comments:

Jim. said...

You're including the accordion player just to vex me, aren't you?
I got two of these sets and considered them a large waste of money for my purposes. The figures are well done, but are more for dioramas than argaming.
Jim.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek said...

COL JIM is a great friend of mine, we have known each other for over 20 years. And yes, Jim, I feature the accordian players just to vex you. I suspect every unit I have will include at least one. Perhaps whole battalions of accordian players...you betcha.