Great video! I’m so happy to see Rapidfire and especially Able Archer content!

@watchdogwargaming

2 жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it, more to come !!

I was well into this in the 1970s, spurred on by Airfix releasing the Chieftain and Scorpion/Scimitar models, but that was about it at the time. I made some FV432's and a couple of variants using Minitanks M42 Duster chassis (the chassis and tracks scale out about right) and of course all the CVRT variants courtesy of Airfix and Slaters Plastikard. Landrovers were cheap plastic toys but perfectly to scale but other softskins had to be stand ins. The Warsaw pact got BMP1s based on Eastern Models PT76 chassis (under scale but the best I could find), the T55s (and some US M48s) were from AHM, clip together 'kits' with a friction drive motor and big wheels underneath (but they tidied up really well). Then a set of WP troops appeared (Esci I think) but no plastic (ie cheap) cold war brits (the Matchbox Falklands paratroopers came along just too late and I missed them as I was at sea by then). I gave a lot away to my godson but I still have a few of the models, the Frog rocket laucher with the 'working' hydralulic ram to elevate the launcher (paper wrapped around a pin and soaked in glue, remove the pin and put it mack when the glue dried), B10 recoless rifles and 812mm British mortars also made from paper wrapped around a pin (so they had an open muzzle) with sights from the head of a pin. Happy days.

@watchdogwargaming

Жыл бұрын

Great memories, thanks for sharing, sounds like you were a great 'Kit Basher' for making vehicles and equipment. Bravo 👏

@mikesmith2905

Жыл бұрын

@@watchdogwargaming Back then it was a necessity, I am forever indebted to the Gods of kit bashing who wrote for Airfix Magazine, the likes of Gerald Scarborough, Peter Chamberlain and Terry Gander. I once tried a 'trainer' aircraft conversion, extending the fuselage with a balsa plug and plunge-forming an new canopy from one of the articles but my main interest was the soldier side of things and there were many inspiring articles in the magazine (I still use the Airfix guides to make some things). One chap did the whole of the Battle of Tewksbury using the Airfix Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood sets, it's huge, now in a museum (but lacking a bit because they loaned it to another rather 'trendy' museum who chopped a bit off and threw it away to meet the feng shui or whatever of their 'space', hundreds of hours work, all based on historical data, very sad. Making a 'bofors quad' using the Airfix Quad with a gun based on the 6 pounder (with a muzzle extension using the hub cap from an 88mm gun kit) was about as far as I got, but I did make it swivel by gluing the gun to a drawing pin (Araldite, no superglue back then), making a hole in the chassis with a pin held in pliers and heated in a candle flame and trimming the spike on the pin down. That kind of thing, and cannon/catapults that actually launch projectiles are frowned upon these days for health and safety reasons (I still have a few scars myself) but if I get to know the family I sometimes add one or two in a top-up box if the kid has taken to it. Since retiring I have been making up sets of toy soldiers to give away to less well off folks and thus far the kids seem to play with them the same way we did. WW2 is easy, Cold War has come on a bit as has the modern stuff, Knights and Knaves are not too bad (bugger to paint though and battlements are a bit of a pain), but sci-fi is very poorly served. There is quite a lot of 'merchandising' and when the shiny newness wears off the prices drop but most things I have to make from scratch or kit-bash (there are quite a few sci-fi 'crawler' type machines out there with plastikard bodies on Armourfast T34 chassis). Sadly I have now run out of the 1:32 Halo figures I picked up in a discount shop a couple of years ago so it's back to converting 'army men' (the Airfix Paratroopers make good 'space marines' and the Dark and Light Alliance Stalkers sets make good space pirates in 1:72 for age 7 and older). A set costs me about £40 or $50 US and generally I make about 2-3 a year but I did 10 during lockdown, mostly for carers as they get crap pay. The 1:32 sets have about 30-40 figures, the 1:72 sets have 100+ plus figures plus half a dozen tanks and artillery. I always include a lot of scenery, bunkers with removable roofs, houses with 'playable interiors', hedges, walls, trees, hills, trenches, ruins etc, all the stuff I would have liked when I was ten, but that's mostly cardboard, glue and dried tea leaves. Hopefully I will kindle enough interest to keep things in production, the youngsters seem to enjoy them and I get to make all the things I have ever thought of without having to find storage room (and they are getting played with, which is very satisfying). Sorry for rambling on here.

Nice work watchdog.

@watchdogwargaming

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you, More to come !!

Fabulous about to start a British battlegroup soon for able archer

@watchdogwargaming

Жыл бұрын

The cold war, seems to becoming more popular.

@WargamingHistory

Жыл бұрын

@@watchdogwargaming I hope so, we have westpoint students coming again this year for a deadly northern lights weekend, need to crack on and get my Swedish and Danes completed!

Where can you get the rules from