Japanese Tank Crew

1/72nd scale soft plastic Japanese WWII tank crews.

Figures made by Orion in Ukraine.

You get four sprues like this one.

Figures are crisply molded and no flash.

Nice poses and great detail, note the guy on the right with a samurai sword.

The private gets a shovel.  Tanks often have to be dug out of holes and mud.
 

Japanese in the Tropics Strelets

Man with submachine gun and machete.  Officer with sword and very tiny pistol.

Sometimes the jungle is so heavy you have to chop your way through it just to move.

Lunging with bayonet and sniper with camouflage.

I like the scoped rifle.  This is a great figure for Japanese in the jungle.

Kneeling firing rifleman and charging with bayonet.

The Japanese were strong believers in the bayonet and used it often.
 

Tropical Japanese

More Strelets figures in 1/72nd scale soft plastic.

Japanese troops in tropical uniform are what many of us think of as the classical Japanese Army look.  Many of their most famous battles were fought in Burma, India, and various islands in the Pacific Ocean.

I write these blogs often months ahead of when they appear for publication.  As of July 2022 Strelets is made in Ukraine and that nation is fighting a war against a Russian invasion.  I hope by the time you read this the war is over and Ukraine is victorious, without the war having spread to other countries.

Back to the figure review, these are flash free and include one Streletsi figure.

I used to give those away but now I keep them.  I saw some painted as Santa Claus once, red suits with white trim and they looked great.  I am using them for a fantasy / alternate history army.

These WWII Japanese are in combat poses with a nice variety of small arms including rifles, submachine guns, and a grenadier.

Submachine guns were in very short supply in the Japanese Army in WWII but it is nice to have a few of them in my army.
 

Japanese 75mm Guns

A while back Strelets came out with a lot of WWII Japanese sets.  I have been struggling to keep up with them!

The 75mm Field Gun was very common and used widely in WWII.

It's a good kit, easy to assemble and you get a good number of crewmen too.

 The set includes three guns, I hope to buy 12 guns total.  Soft plastic, 1/72nd scale, no flash.

Emily Again

About the only thing I paint when building a plane is the crew and interior.

Only when it's done to I paint the exterior.  I mass paint planes so they are painted in the same batch and the planes match colors better.  I think it makes them look more like a real squadron.

I also decal them at the same time so I can coordinate the markings between them.

UPC Emily Flying Boat.  I read that American pilots rated it the hardest Japanese plane to shoot down in WWII. 
 

Zero

Heller 1/72nd scale Japanese Zero.

I used to shop at kit collectors shows in Southern California.

For years I purchased aircraft to build once I retired.

I seldom paid more than $2 for a single seat aircraft.  Mostly they were in zip lock bags.  The kit collectors wanted the boxes often not the kits.

Now I am building the models one at a time at first.  Then once I got a few of the kits put together I built them two at a time.
 

Japanese Held Island

A small island in the South Pacific.

Japanese airbase.

Planes require a lot of maintenance.

Gotta keep the AA guns ready in case the Americans show up.

At the end of a long supply chain it's hard to get parts.
 

Japanese Airplane

 

I have been working on building some WWII Japanese aircraft.  Here one is ready for painting the interior.

Parts are masked off where they will be glued later.  This is a Lily light bomber.

Yesterdays Japanese air crew figures, now with a base.

Back view.  The tool box needed a handle so I used some plastic rod and super glue to attach it.

WWII Japanese

 

Here are the assembled WWII Japanese aircrew figures in resin.

They are 1/72nd scale and I added a little plastic base to them.

I am building a Hasagawa Lily Kawasaki Ki 48 light bomber kit.

2020 has been a big year to upgrade my WWII Japanese forces.

Airplane

More progress on my mass airplane build.  I am building eight of these models at the same time.

First all the parts were removed from the sprue and trimmed.  Now the pilots and interiors are painted and the fuselage halves are being glued together.

Models often have some tricky bit and by building them enmass I learn those lessons and apply them right away.

On this kit there are three pieces of exhaust, they are not seen once the engine is put together so I left them off.  Saved me 24 pieces.

Engine cowlings waiting to be put together.  They would have covered the exhaust anyway, so leave the exhaust off!