Vietnamese Tank Museum 37/ 52

As promised here some Pictures from the Tank Museum, which I visited during my vacation in Vietnam.
It is not a real Museum, it was more a Collection of any kind of US scrap they had found or catched. The intention was to show all visitors, look we besieged the US Army.
There were no Action to conserve the tanks, some of them even looked like everything possible had got stolen.

But in any case it was worth to stop there.

new set of Minis, new 1/144 dioramas 36/52

Even if you collect tanks in the scale 1/144, it can happen, that room and space becomes a topic for you. For me, it is already a topic, my four shelves are full, the space for additional Marinefährephams is gone and for new dioramas? Forget it. So I had this wonderful idea to start building real small mini dioramas. Besides space they have the advantage, that you can finish them very quickly, most of them I built in less than a day.
So today enjoy the first selection of my minis.

Basement for all is a small canvas, which I buy in a 10 pieces set.
The outside dimensions are 5 x 7 cm 

some of my new 1/144 dioramas

1/144 headless Sherman and a German Atlantic Wall

1/144 Famo with Bilstein crane

1/144 Wespe crossing a bridge in France

1/144 German Befehls- Tiger in a forest

1/144 Mercedes LF 8 fire brigade

1/144  Tiger in German street ruins

If someone is interested in getting a better description how I built them, please leave a comment.

1/144 Werfer position in a German town 35/52

While I still have to finish other projects, I will present you an older project, which I never sold to the public. In the beginning you were allowed to print several even small parts in one order. Later the figured out, that this was too expensive. With my old design, I had several small rockets, the wooden boxes and other stuff, all in just one order. Today you would pay a fortune to get it printed.

front view of the rocket launcher

top view of the tiny diorama

the wooden boxes for the rockets

1/144 rocket position between German ruins

By the way, the ruins are 3D printed as well, but I already changed the design, as I was not so satisfied with the result

Here, you can learn more about all the different German rockets.

1/144 Luftwaffe Tankspritze Ts-2.5 auf Henschel 33 34/52

No I am not on vacation but in the last weeks I was a bit lazy, as I had to take care for my garden instead of drawing some new stuff. On my bench are still several half painted models but I decided to start with something totally new. After the Mercedes DL 22 I thought an additional fire engine would be nice.
Therefore I go at the moment with the Henschel D33 and the Tankspritze Ts-2.5.
On Wikipedia you can find some more facts about the history of the Henschel D33.
Ordered by the Luftwaffe, it was used on all German airfields. For some reasons I  could find out why, but according to what I read, not on the African theatre. 
So here some more sources for the Henschel Tankspritze:
Henschel Type 33
here you can find a pdf with some details about the Roco model of the Tankspritze and the real one (only in German)
a video about one of the still existing Tankspritze in Germany

a second video,

And here a first picture form the Henschel Tankspritze

1/144 fire brigade 33/52

In the last days I finished some new painting jobs for my own fire brigade.
It is the Crossly Fire tender and the Renault AHD fire brigade.

Crossly and Renault AHD fire brigade

Crossly and Renault AHD fire brigade

Crossly and Renault AHD fire brigade

Crossly and Renault AHD fire brigade

Mission accomplished: end of vacation and some new models 32/52

This weekend we returned from a longer vacation to Singapore and several different locations in Vietnam. As I'm not such a fan of Fish Dishes, a very good friend of mine gave me in Singapore a special survival set. Hidden in a small bag I got some very delicious cakes. In Japan they sell this traditional German Baumkuchen. Sealed and very good packed it helped me to survive in the Vietnamese Jungle and to have enough power to do some new designs in the evenings.

HK many thanks for this!!!

As you can see, I was even able to bring two packs of Baumkuchen with me home.

Japanese German Baumkuchen

Sealed and together with an Vietnamese Coffee, ready for eating

In Singapore I found nothing in relations with my hobby, but in Vietnam I saw several nice strong points, a Vietnamese Tank Museum and some small Bunkers from the US.

Best of all were on a small island with a beautiful Hotel. There they used several ferries to bring trucks and other heavy material to the island and the mainland.

Of all I will post some pictures in the next days.

1/144 Mercedes 4500 DL 22 German fire turntable ladder 31/52

During World War II, the German fire brigades became part of the so called "Feuerschutzpolizei". The Germans created standardized vehicles and described what equipment and what functionality had been needed. For the rescue service they standardized two types of turntable ladders.
First the DL 17; a fire engine with some equipment and a ladder of 17 m length.
The second truck was a fire engine with a ladder of 22 m length.
I have some trucks from the "Feuerschutzpolizei" but a turntable ladder? I never saw one in the scale 1/144. Very soon I found out why; the design of the ladder was not so easy, the ladder had four parts and with the requirements from Shapeways for a successful print it took several attempts to find a design what is close to the original and the print requirements. So here is my German Drehleiter DL 22. The number 22 indicates the maximum length of the ladder, here 22 meters.

Here the first previews of my latest 1/144 design:

Mercedes DL 22 Feuerschutzpolizei

Mercedes DL 22 Feuerschutzpolizei

Mercedes DL 22 Feuerschutzpolizei

On Youtube you can find two short videos:

If you are interested in more technical details, so please check this German page:

http://zifft.de/mercedes-2/dl-22.html