Wednesday 22 February 2023

The Airfix Bofors Posse - A Bunch of Old 'Part-Kits' Made Good

One of the joys of the Conference of Wargamers (CoW) is the wonderous "bring and buy" stall, wherein a cornucopia of feasts is found: from books, board games to plastic models and the ubiquitous boxes of toy soldiers. More spare 'odds and ends' than full eBay collections, the useful left overs from last night's Indian curry that can make do for another meal (maybe I stretching the analogy there). For example from three separate Airfix boxes marked separately as: almost a Tractor and Bofor, two Bofor Tractors and a final one marked "more than one" Bofors and Tractor there came a veritable "Jock column" of 1/76 light AA guns was made (see below, admittedly two tractors were missing 'bonnets' but leftover plasti-card from other projects made up that shortfall; there was a final missing mudguard [to which I say is just character] which sadly came from when the wife poured out the soapy detergent basin of water in which  they were "soaking in" to de-grease somewhat prematurely - in her defence she had emptied the dregs of a coffee cup into the waters and was actually trying to make good her perceived "damage" to the models [moving on]):   


A final posse of four tractors in total were made which was quite an achievement from all the separate boxes (see below, I am quite proud of the production line effort now ready to be shipped to the front. Somehow I am thinking Western Desert or Mediterranean - although it was a ubiquitous piece of kit used throughout the war so perhaps British Army "Green" would be better 1940, 1943-45): 


Part two of the build, the actual Bofor AA guns, which I made three models of in total so there is a spare tractor which comes in rather handy (see below, all in a WIP state - the two to the right look more "lunar lander" than finished AA guns at the moment): 


The complete battery (see below, three guns and plenty of binoculars scanning the sky, by Holmes like abductive reasoning I think in total there were at least six different original model kits in play to generate my four  complete tractors and three complete guns): 


Bring on those Stukas we are ready for you! And a big thanks to the suppliers of the original raw material from the CoW 2019 Bring and Buy stall, look forward to seeing you for some more in 2023.

4 comments:

Al said...

classic set

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

Cheers Al - welcome back
Where have you been?

pancerni said...

Nice set of ack ack. You could paint both green and desert.

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

I must admit pancerni after you make a few you get into "the zone" and churn them out like a factory .. so painting for both sounds good ;)