Daydream Notes

I made this kit a few years ago now; but only now have taken its picture. It's Tamiya's I-400 kit. The I-400/I-401 are fairly famous (I mean I saw a comprehensive documentary on them out of PBS), so I'll skip the info dump this time.  Just for context, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had some exceptionally large submarines, as the expected combat zone was the entirety of the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese warmed up to the aircraft-carrying subs for a few reasons. First, some of their submarine classes were large simply because they were built for trans-pacific operations. Second, for those finding things in the Pacific reasons, the idea of scout aircraft was seen as sensible, regardless of what job the submarine was assigned to. The Japanese were also really good at submarines, and really good at aircraft carriers, so making it practical came much easier. Finally, the Japanese were also the people who made floatplane versions of their fighters to operate air cover in ...

Calling this one done. This project got more complex than I thought it would; I started wanting to do something interesting with stowage, and ended up spending a month or two fashioning wood, metal, and epoxy putty bits. Then I discovered the enclosed tracks were not great, which meant for the first time ever I was motivated to do a diorama. So, this is a M4 Sherman, with the later 76mm gun, welded hull, wet stowage. The Trumpeter kit is adaquite, but not great. Aside from the awful vinyl tracks, the tie down points were rendered as solid plastic wedges; easy to replace by cutting out the wedges, then using your tiny pin vise drill to make holes and run wire through said holes, but still. It's not all bad, though: the kit comes with 2 turrets, and three different suspension assemblies. The two unused ones here are the easy 8 suspension upgrade, and one like I built, except one piece, so easy assembly for say wargaming. If you've seen tank pictures, you know they ...

Making a 1/72 Sherman by Trumpeter, and it looks like I'm going to be making my first diorama, featuring mud.

 It is difficult to write about the Ratte for the same reason it is difficult to write about Shakesphere. Shakespeare has had several hundred years of expert analysis, with many brilliant scholars spending their careers trying to fully understand how the Bard constructed his works. Short of finding the legendary lost play, or finding some new, completely different folio of Shakespeare play transcriptions, it's difficult to imagine even the most diligent scholar today could contribute anything new. It is a similar deal when writing about the P.1000 Ratte, the preposterous "land cruiser" ultratank the Nazis briefly considered building. The history of the project is short, and most of what's worth saying about it was said in the book " My Tank is Fight" by Zach Parsons. Parsons has a chapter on the Ratte, and if you search the Internet for Ratte-tales you will find people nearly cutting and pasting what Parsons wrote.Unlike Shakespeare, the Ratte can...