More Russian vaporware

Story here.  As usual, I don’t believe we will ever see this, thought I do ultimately think this is the wave of the future.  I also think robotic vehicles, UAVs and soldiers will make war more likely, not less likely.

Bad British Tanks

I quite enjoyed this.

Tank upgrade

Looks like the US Army is getting its tanks upgraded a bit quicker.  I, for one, am happy to see that the U.S. armed forces are not ignoring conventional war-fighting.  Given our experiences with non-traditional combat (terrorism and insurgency) it would be easy to lose focus on conventional warfare.  I am glad we are not.

An amazing story

I’ve seen the footage that is referred to in this story.  I suspect many WWII history buffs will recognize it.  Amazing to know the history behind it.  I look forward to the book.

Army’s future APC

An interesting article on the Army’s attempt to procure a next generation APC.  Drones?  Hmmmm.

Improvised fighting vehicles

This is amazing.

72nd scale armor releases

I will admit that I’d like to get all three of these kits, but especially the Japanese truck.

Russia’s drone AFV

I was unaware that Russia was fielding one of these.  Syria looks more and more like 1936-1939 Spain to me, with Russia using it as an opportunity to test their new weapons in combat.

Magazine review: RT Volume 40 #1

In past reviews I’ve said just about all I can say about RT.  It is, IMHO, the best non-commercial modeling magazine out there, and in fact is one of the best magazines period.  It is the only modeling magazine that I read all of the articles regardless of subject or scale.

This issue is no different.  In addition to an excellent article on building the 72^nd scale Airfix Spitfire PR.XIX, there is an article on building and improving the Italeri Italian manned torpedo from WWII.  There is also build article on a 1/144^th 727 airliner.  Finally there are two articles on the RG-31 Nyala, MRAP/ wheeled APC.  The first is a history of the vehicle, with a focus on its use by the Canadian armed forces, while the second is a construction article using the Kenetic kit as the starting point.  Both are excellent reads, even for a non-armor guy like myself.

Highly recommended.

2018 Modeling #23

Date: 3/23/2018

Time 9:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. (1.0 hrs actual modeling time.)

2018 Total time: 26.63 hrs.

Managed to get a little time in at the bench.  March isn’t looking much better than February so far.  Worked on the Trumpeter T-34/85.  Work has slowed to a crawl as I am trying to improve the kit a little.

I have noticed that, in general, when I model solo, I can only get about an hour’s worth of work in before my eyes start to give into the strain and my back starts to hurt. Old age sucks.