Cold War Roco and Hot Wheels

Some of my Cold War US Army. Roco M106 mortar carriers, and M577 armored command post vehicles. I took a Hot Wheels 2 1/2 ton truck, removed the canvas cargo carrier body and replaced it with a Roco van body.

A few Roco Abrams and another view of the Hot Wheels trucks. Checking the toy departments at Target or other stores can sometimes yield some pretty nice vehicles.

I really like these Hot Wheels trucks. They cost me a dollar each, a pretty cheap way to build up a transportation unit. Durable and sturdy for wargaming.

A Boley Bradly. I use them for conversion work since they are so much cheaper than the Roco. Note the plastic box, I keep a small spares box in most of my vehicle boxes in case bits fall off or need to be added in the future, they are handy to the vehicles that need them.

Cold War Vehicles

Part of my Cold War collection includes actual Cold War vehicles. The BRDMs here are "Hot Wheels" type vehicles from the Eastern Bloc. I used to have pen pals in the pre- Internet days from Czechoslovakia. I would send them Japanese made model kits and they sent me these HO scale models of Soviet Bloc vehicles. They also included some plastic vehicles, including some of the trucks in this photo.

This PT-76 light tank is another one of these die cast HO scale vehicles, as is the Sagger ATGM carrier too.

The backbone of my Soviet Bloc / Warsaw Pact tank collection is that old workhorse, the Roco T-54 tank. Not only have I been buying them new forever, but I have gotten a few from used collections too. These tanks with Arabic markings will have the Arabic covered over by red decals or numeric decals.

This AVLB is another one of those vehicles. It is a really nice bridge. I also did some conversion work and put this bridge on some T-34 tanks too.

I added a few die cast vehicles from Matchbox and others to provide construction equipment to my Soviet forces. This group also includes the very old Roskopf BTR-152.

Model Show and Information

The Brewer Brothers Model Kit Expo is nex weekend in Huntington Beach, California. Sunday, February 21, 2010 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Admission is $5.00.

Old World Village
German Hall and Restaurant
7165 Center Ave #49
Huntington Beach, CA 92647

They will have all kids of model kits and even a wargaming display. Check it out.

I got some of the Waterloo 1815 Japanese and USMC figures, and Caesar Miniatures figures, Germans in Greatcoats in the mail from Always Model yesterday. They seem to be very nice models. More information and photos of them later. I also got a set of the Waterloo 1815 Vlad Tepes too. I have some plans for them.

There is a new company making army men called Plastic Soldiers. They are supposed to be hard plastic 1/72nd scale figures that will work with other soft plastic figures. The first sets should be out in only a few weeks. The first sets will be WWII Germans, Russians and British infantry and heavy weapons.

The Plastic Soldier Company Ltd

WWI Germans

As part of my recent massive hobby purchase, I got a bunch of World War One plastic figures. I wargame late World War One, 1917 to 1918, US vs Imperial Germany. There have been a number of new WWI German sets in recent years and I am finally getting enough to bulk up the German side.

I also got a set of Caesar Miniatures WWI Germans. They are a mostly stormtrooper type figures. They have armor, and lots of grenades.

I also got two each of the Emhar WWI Germans, one is infantry and the other is artillery. They include tank crews, artillery, and machine guns.

These are the Strelets WWI German Horse Cavalry. The Germans used lots of cavalry on the eastern front and often kept some ready on the west in the event of the "big breakthrough."

These few hundred troops figures are only a small part of my WWI German collection. Most of the troops in my WWI collection are the Revell figures.