Thursday 4 June 2015

Great crate?

COW attendees will soon have the opportunity to inspect this stuff at first hand as it forms the basis of 'Don't Look Now' - this year's Plenary Game.
This rather large and extremely heavy box was picked up on eBay last year.  John Armatys spotted it and drew it to my attention.  I made a quick calculation of what the bits were worth and placed a maximum bid on that basis.  Forty minutes later it was mine.  The dearth of bids was I suspect largely due to the seller's understandable insistence on it being collected from Aldershot...
The size of the thing meant that it only just fitted in my car.  It's weight proved a challenge only just overcome by the combined efforts of myself and the vendor - a Royal Engineers officer.
Readers of a certain age may recall that Miltra used to have ads in Military Modelling promoting their lovely but hugely expensive 1/100 scale AFV models.  Clearly their main customer was the Army, and this is how their sets were packaged.  Sadly I had to part with the enormous box.  It's squaddie-proof over engineering made it too heavy to move by myself and it took up way too much space in the garage.
 The contents.  Not, as it turned out, a complete set but most of it is there.
  Some of the models.  I'll let you identify them....
 There are a fair few buildings and terrain features...
 ...and about 30 vehicles.
 
 Some of the resin buildings.  The church is a delight.
  There are about 6 feet of road sections - also cast in resin. 
 Some of the terrain set up.





22 comments:

Hugh Walter said...

Lovely find!

Tim, are there any figures in the set, and if so are they also resin? I've had them listed in my archive for decades as 'Possibly Resin', and while there is an old Military Modelling review of them it's not terribly clear. I didn't know about the vehicles, but if they are resin, it helps tie down the figures!

By-the-by; the ILRRP School in Neuhausen/Weingarten used off-the-shelf Rocco and Roskopf mixed together!

H

Tim Gow said...

Hugh Walter
No figures - and no indications that there were any. I'm sure that buying ROCO would have saved the hard-pressed UK taxpayer a fair bit but Miltra had the required WARPACT AFVs our chaps needed to recognise.

Pete. said...

That is a hell of a find Tim. Looks very impressive. Did the Army use it for wargaming, demonstrations or vehicle recognition?

Cheers,

Pete.

Tim Gow said...

Pete
As far as I can find out it was used for AFV recognition training. We tried it out last night and even at scale small-arms range it's fecking difficult!

Peter Douglas said...

Lovely stuff Tim. The terrain looks wonderful. How will you store it without the stout box if came in? Another pub parking lot arms deal?
Cheers, PD

Tim Gow said...

Peter Douglas
The terrain has been decanted into a stout - but rather more wieldy plastic crate. No car parks - pub or otherwise - were involved in this transaction. So far.

Robert (Bob) Cordery said...

Tim,

It is a very impressive collection of models ... and I look forward to seeing them close-up at CZoW in July.

All the best,

Bob

Chris Kemp said...

I saw one of these kits at Chatham at the RSME (Royal school of Military Engineering)in the late 70s. Also incomplete, and the vehicles were lead alloy. I don't recall any figures or buildings.

regards, Chris

Al said...

That is very very cool!

Paul Foster said...

Outstanding addition to the cause Tim.

You should be well pleased.

Birdy said...

Wow, who knew the army would be into small replica's of their own vehicles when they can jump into the real thing! :D

Stephen Thomas said...

Nice !!!

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

Wow I am envious ;)

Chris Kemp said...

Dear Harry,

The other untold MILTRA story is that they built (8?) Medium Girder Bridge (MGB) sets for the Sappers to allow NCOs to train in building the bridges at far less cost than using the real things. The models (which were correctly balanced) were reputed to cost as much as an actual MGB.

Regards, Chris

Tim Gow said...

Bob Cordery
It will all feature in 'Don't Look Now!' - the COW Plenary Game.

Tim Gow said...

Chris Kemp
If even Chatham didn't have a full set I feel a lot better about mine!

Tim Gow said...

Al
Damn right!

Tim Gow said...

Paul Foster
I expect to get a lot of use from this stuff.

Tim Gow said...

Harry
I think it was more a case of getting a look at the other side's vehicles, but fair point!

Tim Gow said...

Stephen Thomas
This was the stuff we had out at the club last week.

Tim Gow said...

Geordie
Always a good sign....

Tim Gow said...

Chris Kemp
I recall hearing the same story - those bridging engineers must have cost the hard pressed taxpayer a fortune!