Another Bank Holiday in Lock down

For reasons known only to the Welsh devolved government, they have decided to part ways with England's move to reduce lock down and have committed us to a continued period of "house arrest"!

Whilst this is frustrating, it does provide continued opportunity to 3D print and paint miniatures!

Every cloud.......

Firstly I completed the 15mm Team Yankee AFV's I had underway.

I've been looking for a useful Leopard 1A4 model, with mixed success. The first I found was a nice, clean model sculpted by Lava808 at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2454094

This is 1/100 scale, so a little large for true 15mm so you may want to reduce it slightly before printing. The finished model prints well and is a robust wargaming standard piece, but lacks some fine detail on the hull and I'm not convinced the turret shape is correct.

Lava808 Leopard 1A4

With this in mind I searched for another model and ultimately cobbled one together borrowing a turret from one design (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2300125), the hull from a Gepard (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3082413) I'd already printed together with side skirts added from another model I'd found on Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3634073).

The TimsTanks cobbled together Leopard 1A4!

This was printed at 1/120th scale (15mm) but whilst the details were there, I was still not happy with the overall finished item. My quest continues.

Until now, I've never included any paper panzers in an army. I chose to make an exception with the "Chieftain Marksman" AA Tank. I found a simple rendition of the speculative add-on turret at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3656289 and married this to the Chieftain Hull I'd previously shown at  http://timstanks.blogspot.com/search/label/3D%20Printing?updated-max=2020-03-28T17:58:00Z&max-results=20&start=8&by-date=false

The "Chieftain Marksman" AA Tank

The idea was to produce a British "Gepard" and was proposed by Marconi in the early 1980's as a system that could be fitted to any redundant MBT hull to create a mobile Anti-Aircraft platform.

The model is speculative I know, but it is rather impressive, if somewhat ugly! If you don't believe what it looks like check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CWeino-wu0. You will be in awe!

ZSU-23-4 Shilka

Far from a paper panzer, the ZSU-23-4 Shilka is very well know and in its own way, another impressive addition. This model was from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3099853 and whilst the gun barrels need a little care to clean them up, it produced a fine model.

One of the fun things with any budget end 3D printer is their use of the selection dial to control the operational programme. This gives you the issue of occasional incorrect item selection! This manifested itself when I tried to select one model from my memory card, but ended up with a standard (not up-armoured) Warrior IFV. This model is a real gem, designed by Captain Ahab (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3773972) a truly prolific 3D designer who's models are intended largely to be printed at 1/300th scale, but are rendered at 1/100th. I love these designs and have made his up-armoured Challenger 1 as well as modified this model to create the up-armoured version.

Warrior IFV by Captain Ahab

The Scorpion is another Lava808 model and the Leopard 2 is a Marco Bergman item.

Lava808 Scorpion

Marco Bergman Leopard 2

Now I must get on and complete my Hind Gunship.......