Welcome to The Amphibious Warfare blog, the place for you who can't decide whether you prefer mud to salty seas or vice versa. Here you'll find books, films, model kits and a few other things that are related to the world of amphibious warfare, many times from a modellers point of view. Do not hesitate to comment or give me a hint if you miss something here. Please do not expect this blog to get updated every day.
The US Marine Shermans just keep on coming, like the Alvis Stalwart did before! This is an amazing build including a number of different kits and scratch built details. I had never heard about Iron Division (sorry!) who have made the upper hull for this conversion but googled it and found a number of Sherman products via Toadman's site.
No, you will not have me count the parts in this box, they're way too many! But the sprue shots are there for you to do it, if you care. The absolute massive number of parts includes a full interior and I somehow doubt there are many things missing if you want it totally complete. The PE fret is rather small for a model this well detailed but have at least the nettings for the vents and radiators. The decals are very nice and in register. Markings comes for three different countries: an all green machine from Italy, a tri colour camouflaged Argentine vehicle and a four colour camouflaged Korean crawler. The latter have lots of nice bright decals and a fearsome looking mouth with lots of sharp teeth. Somehow I doubt the latter's camouflage colours. I think this is a modified MERDC in Korean colours. Green and black should be all right, but yellow and white I think not. Possibly brown and cream should be the deal.
I guess many people have what to call their "own" war, the ones that made a visual and historical impact on them. One of mine is the Falkland conflict that ended 30 years ago, on this day. Of course, I did not participate in it but just like the first Gulf war this one was real, it happened right there and then, it wasn't just old history from way back.
I will not get into the politics or the history of the conflict, you can read about it on the internet and in books and make up your own mind about it. The Wikipedia article on the topic seems to be extensive although I can not say for sure if there are any omissions, faults or the like. Wikipedia also have a couple of extensive articles on the British naval forces as well as the Argentine naval forces in the conflict.
Well, what amph models are there if one wants to have a piece of Falkland history? In my collection I haven't got much from the conflict but Airfix' HMS Fearless in 1/600 can be found, as can Hobby Boss' LVTP-7 in 1/35. So at least I have one model from each nation directly involved in the war.
The Fearless model is a bit basic and heavy but can be fixed with some TLC. Check out this one that Andy Mullen did, or Frank Spahr's. There are a few small landing crafts included in the kit just screaming to be painted in tiger stripes just as they were in 1982, and Frank did that! Typical camouflage painting can be seen here. Some one should make a British LCVP in 1/72 or 1/35 and a box full of Royal Marines to go with it! Or are there already one out there...?
Two LCUs and four LCVPs are included in the box.
The Hobby Boss LVTP-7 is complete from head to toe, no more scratching if you want an interior for your Tuna Boat. Missing Lynx has a nice review on the Hobby Boss AVVP7-A1. Basically it should be the same model as the LVTP-7 but with some exrta details to bring it up to AVVP7-A1 standard. The Osprey New Vanguard #30 on Amtracs has a colour profile and a short explaining text to it, this profile can also be found at the Malvinas Online site together with some nice photos of the real vehicles. The Hobby Boss kit have small anchor and flag decals one should be able to use, the vehicle number should be found in the decal spares box or masked and airbrushed on. Add a bit of dark green paint and you're done (I think...).
I haven't compared the Hobby Boss and Academy LVTP-7 kits but I guess it should be possible to use the latter as well.
In this footage from the invasion one can spot some small landing crafts of the Argentine Navy, looking like good old LCVP of Higgins type. Anyone having any information on them, like colours and markings? A few sequences also confirms the very few markings the LVTPs had. A blurry sequence shows some LARC-V from the ARA Cabo San Antonio driving up the beach. After having seen this film we may add LCVP, LARC-V and LST to the list of things to model from the conflict. Also in use during the conflict were the Centurion BARVs brought to shore by the LCUs attached to the HMS Fearless and her sistership, HMS Intrepid. Check out this
restored one, it's by the way same as at the Centurion BARV page. At
the Model Shipwrights page you may find a nice semi-scrached model,
click here and here.
