Fine Molds Messerschmitt Me 410B-1 Hornisse of Leutnant Rudolf Abrahamczik in 1/72 Scale

Rudolf Abrahamczik flew this Me 410B-1 while serving as Staffelkapitän of 14./KG 2 in late 1943. He completed 233 bombing missions during WWII and was credited with three aerial victories. He survived the war.

Armored Trains Book Review

Armored Trains

By Steven Zaloga

Series: Osprey New Vanguard #140

Softcover, 48 pages, bibliography, and index

Published by Osprey Publishing, January 2008

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1846032423

ISBN-13: 978-1846032424

Dimensions: 7.2 x 9.5 x 0.2 inches

Railroads revolutionized land travel in the 1800s, journeys which previously took weeks now could be completed in days. The obvious utility of moving troops and military supplies was not lost upon planners. During the American Civil War more direct applications of rail power were developed, with trains being employed in patrol duties, transporting raiding parties, or as mobile artillery platforms. During the Boar War in 1899, armored trains became widely known to the public due to the newspaper articles detailing the ambush of a British train authored by a young reported named Winston Churchill.

During the First World War armored trains were utilized by almost all the antagonists in one form or another, and eventually became standardized. Both factions made extensive use of them during the Russian Revolution, where they frequently played prominent roles in operations. The Second World War saw the ultimate development of the technology and was used by both the Germans and the Soviets, but was ultimately made obsolete by airpower.

This is a fascinating subject, but one which has received comparatively little attention from the military press. This book is an interesting and welcome overview of the development and evolution of armored trains specifically, but it does not attempt to cover the large railroad guns nor the Luftwaffe flak trains seen during the last years of the war. Any of these would make for an unusual modeling project, but one which would be constrained by size limitations for many subjects. A nice addition to the Osprey New Vanguard series, recommended.

Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-21 Walk Around Part VII – Cockpit

Photographed by Jeff “Mongo” Cramer at the Cavenaugh Flight Museum, Dallas, Texas

Part I here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2020/02/09/mig-21pf-walk-around/

Women Warriors 267

Soviet Ace Lidya Litvyak with herYak-1b, 12victories

Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician 1st Class Petty Officer Nichole Robinette

Col. Kristin E. Goodwin, 2nd Bomb Wing commander, in front of of a B-52H Stratofortress on Barksdale Air Force Base, La

Navy LT Stacey R. Black stands against a CH-53E Super Stallion after prepping it for flight Aug. 20, at Al Asad, Iraq. Black is a flight surgeon for Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361

ww465b_HannaBohmanKurdishYPG — **Canadian Hanna Bohman, Kurdish YPJ Volunteer**

ww465f_Syrian — **YPJ sniper team in Syria**

Seen here - Private (Pte) Chelsea Herberts — **British Army Private Chelsea Herberts in Afghanistan**

Beautiful Women in Ukraine Army - Ukrainian Military Girls — **Ukraine**

ww468_AirTransportAuxiliary — **ATA pilots with Spitfire**

ww268 — **ATA pilot Mary Ellis with Fairey Barracuda**

ww068 — **Australian Women’s Army Service with sound location equipment**

To see more Women Warriors, click on the tags below:

Bf 109G Comparison Build – Hasegawa, Fine Molds, Tamiya, Eduard Kits – Part II

Hasegawa kits often feature a lack of detail in the wheelwells and very minimalist cockpits, their 1994 Bf 109 kits are no exception. Fortunately, there are some very good aftermarket options to enhance the kits, this is the resin set from Aeries which does the job nicely. The complete lack of any sidewall detail makes installing the resin set easier.

This is the Fine Molds cockpit with several added bits of Evergreen strip. The fuel line is made from solder, and the PE seatbelts are Eduard.

The Tamiya cockpit looks great right out of the box, I added a seat cushion made from masking tape and Eduard belts.

Many of the colored PE bits go into the Eduard’s cockpit. I added a seat cushion from masking tape. Eduard includes a fuel transfer tube on their clear sprue, but the diameter of this part is too great so I replaced it with solder.

Here are the fuselages all closed up, from the top Hasegawa, Fine Molds, Tamiya, and Eduard. The shapes of these are pretty close, but you can see the older kits are a little less “beefy” in the nose. I added hinges to the cowling panels of the Hasegawa and Fine Molds kits by pressing round stock in pliers with finely serrated faces to make the hinge detail.

All the kits except Eduard’s will require cutting loose the slats and flaps if you would like to pose these dropped, Eduard molds them as separate pieces. Here is the Tamiya wing with the slats and flaps sawed off.

The Tamiya kit requires the landing gear legs to be installed during construction, the extensions used for alignment are trapped behind a separate panel in the center of the wing. Many modelers would prefer to attach the legs after painting. I wanted to model my Tamiya G-6 with the R6 gun packs, the parts for those are not included in the Tamiya kit so I robbed a pair from unused Eduard sprues.

The Hasegawa kit has absolutely no wheelwell detail. Another area where this kit shows its age is the oil cooler and wing radiator flaps. Both are swept up to meet the surfaces above them instead of having openings at the rear. In both cases the surfaces were cut out with a razor saw and new flaps constructed with sheet styrene. The drop tank and rack will also be replaced with spare from the Eduard kit.

The Tamiya kit has excellent surface detail and builds up nicely. The only real issue is the slats and flaps are molded into the wings and must be cut loose to be posed naturally.

The only kit with separate slats and flaps is the Eduard molding. The kit also features a positionable canopy to better show off all that interior detail as well as a mask set. There are several extra parts on the sprues, which is quite handy when building Messerschmitts as many times the airframes were repaired or rebuilt and displayed variations in details.

Part III here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2024/05/03/bf-109g-comparison-build-hasegawa-fine-molds-tamiya-eduard-kits-part-iii/

Picture of the Week 17

A beautiful photograph of the new battleship USS Connecticut (BB-18) on her builder’s trials off the Maine coast, 1906. Connecticut carried twelve coal-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers for a maximum speed of 18 knots, impressive for the time. Photographed by Enrique Muller.

Project S68 – The Manned Turret B-29 Superfortress

Project S68 was an effort to evaluate the operation of manned turrets on the Boeing B-29 Superfortress in the event of difficulties with the General Electric remote turret system.

A single airframe, B-29-25-BW serial number 42-2441, was modified in October 1944. Nose armament was a unique pair of Emerson Model 136 barbettes, each mounting a single .50 caliber gun.

Upper remote turrets were replaced with Martin manned turrets, while the lowers were fitted with a Sperry Model A-2 ball turret forward and a semi-retractable A-13 aft.

The sighting blisters on the fuselage sides were replaced with single .50 caliber guns on flexible mounts, similar to other USAAF heavy bombers. Tail armament remained unchanged.

The General Electric remote system proved to be excellent in operational service and there was no need for the manned turret installation to proceed beyond the evaluation phase. Still, this is an interesting variation and the model would make for a unique conversion project.

Italeri Henschel Hs 129 of 4.(Pz)/Sch.G. 1 in 1/72 Scale

This Henschel Hs 129 of 4.(Pz)/Sch.G. 1 with an impressive scoreboard was photographed in Russia during the Summer of 1943. Italeri kit, Excito decals.

Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-21 Walk Around Part VI

Photographed by Don Gilman at Cavenaugh Flight Museum, Dallas

Part VII Cockpit here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2024/04/28/mikoyan-gurevich-mig-21-walk-around-part-vii-cockpit/

Model Con 419 IPMS Model Show

Model Con 419 was held yesterday at the Quality Inn in Perrysburg, Ohio. The show was a collaboration between the IPMS Fremont KitBashers and the Toledo Plastic Modelers. This was the first show in the Toledo area since 2018, for those wondering 419 is the local telephone area code and the show was part of a series of events in the greater Toledo area. Being the first show in a while it was on the smaller side. Big Burel’s BBQ food truck was on hand. Everything wrapped up early, with many venders packing up around lunch time, and judging was completed by 3:00.