Monday 18 February 2013

Open Fire First Tanks

Took advantage of the gaming time at our local club to spend a couple of hours making a start to the tank kits in Open Fire!

Started off with the 3 German StuG III tanks.


These are the basic kits. I've not put any of the optional stowage on. Also I've not added the tank commander in the open hatch as none of the one's I have left on the sprue match the picture in the assembly guide. Again checking on the Flames of War online StuG assembly guide shows me which one to use - completely different to the picture on the included guide!

Next I moved onto the 2 Sherman Firefly kits. One of the advantages in doing the build at the club is chatting with other folk who have already experience of the box. I had been warned that the Sherman mould don't seem to line up properly, even after a good amount of filing edges down. This experience was repeated by me.



Both Fireflys had the same large gap across their fronts. The online guide seem to had avoided this, but you can see that even they have a good amount of filling needing done down the sides.



This is as far as I managed which these 2 kits. Mostly done bar the turret magnets (which are included) hatches and filling...

Next up will be the Sherman V kits - which I have been warned are much worse than the Firefly ones. Oh joy!

4 comments:

  1. I thought that moving over to plastic would see an end to the chaos that comes with assembling Battlefront products, but that does not seem to be the case here. I like those StuGs though.

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  2. I must admit to being a bit disappointed in them. I would have thought that a company their size could get the introduction set right. Only 6 models to go anyway. When it comes to expanding the force I've only heard good things about The Plastic Soldier Company, so I will be checking them out. Getting ahead of myself a bit though.

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    1. I've done a box of the PSC Shermans (with firefly option) and was really impressed with them. My only minor quibble with them being the rather 'vague' instructions. Currently got one of their Tigers on the workbench too, lovely detail.

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    2. Sounds like a ringing endorsement to me.

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