Tuesday, December 15, 2020

SPW Communications MB Post 1

I like Brickmania. They are a company that produces lego sets and books, and sells specialised parts and lego kits dealing with military history, modern military equipment, and some stuff from science fiction.

My favourite stuff of theirs is the WWII military vehicles and weapons. I especially like their instruction books for kits they have made or sell. These instruction books give you step by step instructions on how to build different things from whatever the topic of the book is, like airplanes, tanks, artillary, and other vehicles. If you're interested in these kinds of instruction books, here is a link to the book, Rats & Foxes, which is all about the North African Campaign. 


One of my favourite designs from the Rats and Foxes instruction book, is that for the GMC 30 CWT Truck of the British LRDG.

Another interesting fact about these books is they give you the history or details about the set you will build. Here is the information about the 30 CWT of the LRDG.

"The long distances of the patrols required special vehicles for which civilian trucks were acquired and customised to the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) needs. Each patrol contained several heavily modified GMC 30 CWT (imperial hundredweight) trucks, each carrying a three man crew and a variety of heavy weapons and supplies. Special equipment included sand channels attached to the side of each truck, which were also outfitted with extra large radiators connected by a hose to a specially designed condenser canister. This allowed the LRDG trucks to operate over long distances in the extremely hot desert environment."


This is a picture of the kit for the Opel Blitz lightweight truck, which is also an instruction set in the book Rats and Foxes.

Finally, if you'd like to learn more about the North African Campaign during WWII, Wikipedia has a nice informative article to get the basics.

British Crusader tank passes a destroyed and smoking German Panzer IV tank during Operation Crusader, November 1941

Italian Empire in November of 1942

A British Matilda Mk II named "Glenorchy" of Major K.P. Harris, MC, commander of 'D' Squadron, 7th Royal Tank Regiment during Operation Compass displaying an Italian flag captured at Tobruk, 24 January 1941



I hope you found this interesting and have fun learning more about the North Africa Campaign and Brickmania.

No comments:

Post a Comment