Berttt

The figures are 1/72 scale German Panzergrenadiers. There was supposed to be a Marder APC in the building as well, but I got a little carried away with the groundwork, it will go back in with take 2.

The kit itself I am quite happy with. Mind you this is the second kit in four weeks, as the first one was ruined by a clear coat in the final stages.

That little guy on the corner of the building is actually built up on some rubble. You can see it clearer in this pic. [edited for spelling]

The base is something I slapped together as practice as I had never built ruined buildings before. I am not entirely happy and wil build a better one at a later date. [edited for spelling]

Here are some pics of my VF-1A in "Cannon Fodder" livery. The photos were taken by a friend of mine at a local hobby show, the "Our Town Model Show." Inside of the entertainment centre was quite dark so the pics really didn't turn out fantastic, but beggars can't be choosers.

Start selling these dude, I've been looking for 1/72 scale kill marks for ages. Cheers, Brett

A little off topic but has anyone else noticed how huge the booster is on the shuttle in the top right of the last screencap? Holy crap! Cheers, Brett T

Tony, No wonder you liked my idea A lot of people say that about Foxy, it's too bad what happened. I haven't been to a Hornet SQN yet, at the moment I'm at FACDU on PC-9's. I'll probably be posted accross next year. I might even do a FAC VF yet Before that I was on J-Model Hercs at Richmond. In fact you probably know some of the guys here if you were at Edinburgh/ARDU. Yeah I know what you mean aboout Saudi, I spoke to some the guys that came back after working for BAe from there and things went sour preety fast. Cheers, Brett T PS I really shoul get off my lazy arse and finish these kits!!

Tony, What follows is really only my interpretation . I always considered the whole UN Forces situation to be a bit odd. Rather I see it operating in a similiar way to the way the U.N. does today. They decide to send in a peace keeping mission and request the personnel from various countries. Since the technological beakthroughs gleaned from the ASS1 were meant to be shared by all I could imagine countries around the world purchase and maintain their own fleet of VF's. Obviously some countries are going to be able to purchase more than others, but they contribute where they can. The cost of a VF would be astronomical so Stonewall/Bellcom would want as many countries on board as possible, just like Lockheed/Martin and the F-35. Very rarely does the Royal Australian Air Force purchase an airframe "off the shelf", instead thay jam al sorts of weird and wonderfull stuf into their assets, sometimes good, sometimes bad. So I couldn't imagine them going for a bog standard VF-1A, and instead purchase the better VF-1J as their standard. I chose 75 SQN because I thought that a VF-1 done up in a similiar scheme to the 75th annaversary "diamonds" would be cool. And because most of the other RAAF squadrons have boring squadron markings. The decider on why to do a RAAF jet? Well I'm sitting at my desk only a few hundred metres from the majority of RAAF Hornets right now...... So to answer your question, the VF will have probably have both diamonds and the top hat (on the tail) I have also fooled around with the idea of a 2OCU VF-1D and a ARDU VF-1S in Gerwalk (Hasegawa of course!) Brett

Nicely done Grayson. But sheesh drilling out those lights, what a nutcase those clear bits are tiny! Nice flightline pics too

Right. All the stripes were painted by hand, and the UN SPACY marking were donated by a 1/170 VF-1S I have had since the stone age. Anyone who has one of these kits will know that the kites are scribed into the kit so they were easy to paint by brush, add a black wash and voila!

Left

I replaced all the old pics with some better ones, as well as adding some more. Thanks for praise, Cheers, Brett Traynor

The kit is a Bandai 1/144 scale VF-11C that I picked up cheap from ebay. Unfortunately I lost the canopy along the way and had to shape a 1/100 VF-1 canopy to suit. It's not perfect but better than no canopy at all

The decals were some old UH-1 markings that I had kept around. I never throw out decals, you never know when they might come in handy.

Side. Excuse the bad photography, I'm using a borrowed digital camera.

After all the lurking I thought I'd share my Tigermeet VF-11. Enjoy! Berttt

I have had a look and I think I might use a similiar system to what Opus suggested. The idea is I'll use a some strips of styrene with with a bit of detail thrown in on each arm, and put two pylons inline per side with two missiles on each. Or I could ditch the eight missile idea and fit two pylons on the centreline with three wepons each. This set up will go on my RAAF 75SQN VF-1J that I'm planning, not that I'm jumping on it straight away, I've got to finish the VF-1A Super that I'm working on now, along with a VE-1, and a cannon fodder VF-1A Gerwalk - I have a lot of work ahead of me that's for sure. Thanks to everyone that replied, it helped clear things up a bit. Cheers, Berttt

In Nanashi's description of the AMM-1, there is a description on how the GU-11 can be replaced with two four run pallet's of missiles. I have a heap of Hasegawa AMM-1's lying around and wouldn't mind scratching something together. The thing is I can't get my head around what something like this would look like. So I am asking the aircraft wise here at MW for suggestions. Is there any weapon pylons that exist currently to hold four weapons, other than the Apache's Hellfire rails? Cheers, Berttt

Err....in which parallel universe? Graham Yeah pretty sure that's a typo since they were discussing the F/A-22 in the previous sentence. It's a pity jounalists and editors don't check thier articles properly. I'll agree that the whole point of the excercise was to point push new aircraft type, but from what I have heard those Mirage 2000 drivers have been punishing F-15's to the point where they don't want to play anymore

Quoted from yesterday's Australian 24Jun04 THE US Air Force has had a "wake-up call" as a result of mock air-to-air engagements with India earlier this year that showed the US can no longer take air superiority for granted in a conflict, a top US general said today. A study of the "Cope India" air exercise, conducted by the US and Indian air forces in Gwalior, India last February, is secret, said General Hal Hornburg, head of the air force's Air Combat Command. "But we have to learn a lot of things from that," he told defence reporters. "We have to learn if we want air superiority it doesn't come cheap and it's not automatic." The Russian-made SU-30s are reported to have bested the F-15s in a majority of their engagements, much to the surprise of the organisers. It was the first time the two top-of-the-line US and Russian-made fighters have flown against each other in an exercise, an air force spokeswoman said. It pitted F-15Cs from the air force's 3rd Wing at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska against a variety of Indian fighters, not just the SU-30s. They included Russian-built MiG-21s, MiG-29s and French-made Mirage 2000s. The US fighters flew with certain restrictions that handicapped their effectiveness. Nevertheless, the performance of the Indian fighters exceeded expectations. "In general, we may have learned some things that suggest we may not be as far ahead of the rest of the world as we once thought we were," General Hornburg said. He said the results of the exercise showed the need for the F/A-22 Raptor and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Both aircraft are stealthier than the F-15, but the F/A-18 also has greater range and speed than the air force's existing fighters. The air force has been battling the perception that the costly new fighters are a luxury at a time when the US has dominance in the air. "I thought it was a wake-up call for some things that we've been talking about before, and it provided validation," General Hornburg said. The trade journal Aviation Week and Space Technology reported last month that the exercises showed the SU-30s had a clear advantage over the F-15C in a long-range fight. The US and Indian aircraft were seeing each other at the same time with their radars but the SU-30 pilots were able to fire their AA-10 fire-and-forget Alamo missiles first, the magazine said. My guess is the restrictions were probably related to the use of ECM. Cheers, Berttt

Great work man! You have definitely brought something special to MW. This might be a bit off topic, but we see a lot of How-to's for building models, but how about something similiar for making your own masters and casting stuff. I would love to know the process so that I could get stuck in and scratch some 1/72 Regults, Q Raus and N'gers. Cheers, Berttt

I know what you mean, imagine my disgust when something similiar happened to my CF VF-1A Battroid when I put the final flat clear coat over the decals!! Now I stick to all acrylic paints as much as possible as much as possible. The whole thing was wrecked, but I have a plan and the bits from this and a VF-1S fighter that had a little accident will rise again in the form of a Hasegawa gerwalk.

After reading about close air support in Vietnam, it would seem that unguided bombs can be employed quite accurately. Australian Forward Air Controllers were quoted a saying that the quality of the pilots played a big part, USAF tended to vary from very good to mediocre, were as the US Navy pilots were invariably excellent and were preferred not just for their accuaracy, but also the superior bomb load on the A-6, as they could be kept on station longer.

That's the problem with Palladium Books, they apply a totally arbitrary system to their games with little relevance to the way the real world works! Berttt