Thanks again for the nods, fellas!

Iliken the 1/16th RC armor scene today to the 1/35th scale scene back in the early 1970s. There were a few kits, and a LOT of scratchbuidling... which demonstrated to the major manufacturers that there was a desire for variety, and variants. If you were around back in those days (I was pretty young, but my older brother was a BIG builder) there was an absolute explosion of kits between 1974 and 1978. Tamiya and Italeri led the way in 1/35th, and then the smaller manufacturers and aftermarket companies poured in. It was an exciting time for armour builders, and that appears to be going on with 1/16th armour now.

I was actually an aircraft guy, and I built and scratchbuilt a lot of 1/72 scale stuff. But it got really tiresome trying to work detail into models that small... part of the appeal of 1/16th is the size, and the fact that you don't need a magnifying light to see what you're building. My eyes are still okay(I'm 39) but the larger size was a real joy in terms of working up detail. It's also cool running the tanks and seeing them move in such a large scale.

I do hope that the scratchbuilding leads to more product development from the Heng Longs, Tamiyas, WSNs and Matorros of the world. There are so many huge gaps out there, they'll be years filling all the holes.

Once the paint goes on the Cru, it's straight into a scratchbuilt Hetzer. I was going to do a Panzer 38(t), but the Hetzer seems like a more manageable build..... and it just a wicked little tank. That is one tankI'm surprised has not been rumored for development... so many great variants can come off that chassis.

BTW... that Chaffee and that Puma are NICE!!!

Shep