Krupp 28 cm K5 railway gun "Leopold"

Here are some more images of Dragon models 1/35 scale Krupp 28 cm K5 Railway Gun "Leopold". The K5 guns were probably the most successful of the large railway guns which could fire 565lb shells a distance of 40 miles. A total of 28 K5s were constructed between 1936 and 1945. This kit was a beautiful model to build although it is an expensive model to purchase. When I bought this kit in 2003 it was around $140 Cdn, today who knows. I have yet to see it re released. If you do manage to purchase one make some room because it does make an impressive display piece.

From Wikipedia'
The Krupp 28-cm-Kanone 5 (E), in short K5 with the (E) signifying Eisenbahnlafette (railway car gun-mount), was a heavy railway gun used by Germany throughout World War II.
Krupp's K5 series were consistent in mounting a 21.5 metres (71 ft) long gun barrel in a fixed mounting with only vertical elevation of the weapon. This gondola was then mounted on a pair of 12-wheel bogies designed to be operated on commercial and military rails built to German standards. This mounting permitted only two degrees of horizontal traverse. The carriage had to be aligned on the rails first, with only minimal fine leveling capable once halted. Hence the gun could only fire at targets tangential to an existing railway track.
To track targets needing greater traverse either a curved length of railway was used with the gun shunted backwards or forwards to aim; a cross-track was laid with the front bogie turned perpendicular to the rest of the gun and moved up and down the cross-track to train the weapon; or for 360 degree traverse, the so-called "Vögele Turntable" could be constructed, consisting of a raised rail section (the "firing bed") carrying the gun, running on a circular track with a central jack to raise the gun during traverse and to take some of the enormous weight.
The main barrel of the K5 is 283 mm (11.1 in) in calibre (caliber), and is rifled with twelve 7 mm (0.28 in) grooves. These were originally 10 mm (0.39 in) deep, but were shallowed to rectify cracking problems.
The K5 was the result of a crash program launched in the 1930s to develop a force of railway guns to support the Wehrmacht by 1939. K5 development began in 1934 with first testing following in 1936 at the Firing Test Range Rügenwalde-Bad (German: Schießplatz Rügenwalde-Bad) in Farther Pomerania at the South coast of the Baltic Sea. Initial tests were done with a 150 mm barrel under the designation K5M.
Production led to eight guns being in service for the Invasion of France, although problems were encountered with barrel splitting and rectified with changes to the rifling. The guns were then reliable until the end of the war, under the designation K5 Tiefzug 7 mm. Three of them were installed on the English Channel coast to target British shipping in the Channel, and proved successful at this task.
Towards the end of the war, development was done to allow the K5 to fire rocket-assisted projectiles to increase range. Successful implementation was done for firing these from the K5Vz.
A final experiment was to bore out two of the weapons to 310 mm (12.2 in) smoothbore to allow firing of the Peenemünder Pfeilgeschosse arrow shells. The two modified weapons were designated K5 Glatt.
Several other proposals were made to modify or create new models of the K5 which never saw production. In particular, there were plans for a model which could leave the railway by use of specially modified Tiger II tank chassis which would support the mounting box in much the same manner as the railway weapon's two bogies. This project was ended by the defeat of Germany.

Two types of high explosive projectile were used with the K5. The 28cm G35 weighed 255 kilograms (562 lb) and contained a charge of 30.5 kilograms (67 lb) of TNT. The 28cm Gr.39 m. Hbgr. Z. was slightly heavier, weighing 265 kilograms (584 lb) and containing around 44.5 kilograms (98 lb) of TNT.
The rocket-boosted shell was known as the 28cm R. GR.4351. This carried 14 kilograms (31 lb) of explosive and was boosted by around 20 kilograms (40 lb) of Double base powder rocket propellent. The total waeight was 248 kilograms (547 lb).

A K5(E) is preserved at the United States Army Ordnance Museum in Fort Lee (Petersburg, Virginia). It is composed of parts from two guns that shelled Anzio beachhead during World War II. They were named Robert and Leopold by the Germans, but are better known by their Allied nicknames - Anzio Annie and Anzio Express.
The guns were discovered on a railroad siding in the town of Civitavecchia, on 7 June 1944, shortly after the allies occupied Rome. Robert had been partially destroyed by the gun crew before they surrendered and Leopold was also damaged but not as badly. Both guns were shipped to the U.S. Aberdeen Proving Ground, (Aberdeen, Maryland) where they underwent tests. Leopold was restored using parts taken from Robert. In early 2011 it was moved to Fort Lee, Virginia (37.250338°N 77.340492°W) as a result of the 2005 Base Relocation and Closure (BRAC) Act.
A second surviving gun can be seen at the Batterie Todt museum, near Audinghen in northern France.

Kriegslokomotive BR52

Here are some images plus a composite of Trumpeter's 1/35 scale Kriegslokomotive BR52. From Wiki "Kriegslokomotiven were German 'war locomotives', produced in large numbers during the Second World War, whose construction were tailored to the economic circumstances of wartime Germany, such as shortages of materials, goods transportation (in support of military logistics), ease of maintenance under difficult conditions, resistance to extreme weather, limited life and rapid, cheap, mass production. In order to meet these requirements, economic drawbacks such as relatively high fuel consumption had to be reckoned with".

Gato Class

Here are some more images of Revells 1/72 scale Electric Boat Companies Gato Class Submarine. This design was the basis in which all other American World War Two submarine designs were based off of. Like all American submarines of that time the Gato (which is a kind of fish) class were named after fish. However these 311 foot long fish had a 50 caliber deck gun, 4 10x21 inch torpedo tubes with 24 torpedos, a Bofers 40mm cannon and a Oerlikon 20mm cannon. At 52 inches long this model is big and it has about the same level of quality as the two type VII U boat models.

From Wikipedia"
The United States Navy Gato-class submarine formed the majority of the United States Navy's World War II submarine fleet. Named after the first vessel of this design, USS Gato, the Gato-class and its successors, the Balao and Tench classes, formed the core of the submarine service that was largely responsible for the destruction of the Japanese merchant marine and a large portion of the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II. Gato's name comes from a species of small catshark. Like most other U.S. Navy submarines of the period, the Gato-class were given the names of marine creatures.
The Gato-class boats were considered to be "Fleet Submarines". The original rationale behind their design was that they were intended to operate as adjuncts to the main battle fleet. They were to scout out ahead of the fleet and report on the enemy fleet's composition, speed, and course, then they were to attack and whittle down the enemy in preparation for the main fleet action, a titanic gun battle between cruisers and battleships. This was an operational concept borne out of experience from World War I. In order to operate effectively in this role, a submarine had to have high surface speed, long range and endurance, and a heavy armament. State-of-the-art submarine design and construction in the 1920s and 1930s made this combination of qualities very difficult to achieve. The USN constantly experimented with this concept in the post-World War I years, producing a series of submarines with less than stellar qualities and reliability, the AA-1 class and the so-called V-boats.
By 1931, the experimental phase of fleet submarine development was over and the Navy began to make solid progress towards what would eventually be the Gato-class. By 1940, a much better developed industrial base and experience gained from the Porpoise-, Salmon-, & Sargo-class boats resulted in the Tambor- & Gar-classes. Finally, the USN had hit the right combination of factors and now had the long-desired fleet submarine.
Timing, however, conspired against the actual use of these boats in their assigned role. The attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 destroyed the Pacific Fleet battle line and along with it the concept of the battleship-led gun battle. The successful Pearl Harbor attack overturned 20 years of submarine strategic concept development and left the fleet submarine without a mission. Fortunately, the very same capabilities that would have enabled these submarines to operate with the fleet made them superbly qualified for their new mission of commerce raiding against the Japanese Empire
The Gato-class design was a near duplicate of the preceding Tambor- & Gar-class boats. The only significant difference was five feet in length added to the engine room section to allow the addition of a watertight bulkhead, dividing the one large engine room in two, with two diesel generator sets in each room. The Gatos, along with nearly all of the USN fleet-type submarines of World War II were of partial double hull construction. The inner pressure-resisting hull was wrapped by an outer hydrodynamic hull. The voids between the two hulls provided space for fuel and ballast tanks. The outer hull merged with the pressure hull at both ends in the area of the torpedo room bulkheads, thus the "partial" double hull. Operational experience with earlier boats led the naval architects and engineers at the Navy's Bureau of Construction & Repair to believe that they had been overly conservative in their estimates of hull strength. Without changing the construction or thickness of the pressure hull steel, they decided that the Gato-class boats would be fully capable of routinely operating at 300 feet, a 50-foot increase in test depth over the preceding classes.
The Gatos were slow divers when compared to some German and British designs, but that was mostly because the Gatos were significantly larger boats. Sufficient fuel bunkerage to provide the range necessary for 75-day patrols from Hawaii to Japan and back could only be obtained with a large boat, which will take longer to submerge than a smaller one. Acknowledging this limitation, the Bureau designers incorporated a negative (sometimes called a "down express") tank into the design which provided a large amount of negative buoyancy at the start of the dive. Normally kept full or nearly full at the surface, the tank was emptied to a certain mark after the boat was submerged to restore neutral buoyancy. At the start of the war these boats could go from fully surfaced to periscope depth in approximately 45–50 seconds. The superstructure that sat atop the pressure hull provided the main walking deck when the boat was surfaced and was free flooding and full of water when the boat was submerged. When the dive began the boat would "hang" for a few extra seconds while this superstructure filled with water. In an attempt to speed this process, additional limber, or free flooding, holes were drilled and cut into the superstructure to allow it to flood faster. By mid war, these measures combined with improved crew training got dive times down to 30–35 seconds, very fast for such a large boat and acceptable to the boat's crew.
The large size of these boats did negatively affect both surfaced and underwater maneuverability when compared to smaller submarines. There was no practical fix for this due to the limitations of the installed hydraulic systems that were used to move the rudder. Although a point of concern, the turning radius was still good enough to be acceptable. After the war, a few fleet boats were fitted with an additional rudder topside at the very stern.
These boats all had air conditioning, refrigerated storage for food, fresh water distilling units, clothes washers, and bunks for nearly every crew member; luxuries virtually unheard of in other navies. The Bureau designers felt that if a crew of 60–80 men were to be expected to conduct 75-day patrols in the warm waters of the Pacific, these types of features were vital to the health and efficiency of the crew. They could be added without impact to the boat's war fighting abilities due to the extra room of the big fleet boat. However, one feature in particular had a very practical side to it. Submerge a submarine for any length of time and the heat generated by the recently shut down engines, electronic gear, and 70 warm bodies will quickly raise internal temperatures above 100 Fahrenheit. High humidity generated by tropical waters will quickly condense and begin dripping into equipment, eventually causing electrical shorts and fires. Air conditioning, acting mostly as a dehumidifier, virtually eliminates this problem and greatly increases mechanical and electrical reliability. It proved to be a key factor in the success of these boats during World War II.
Twelve submarines of this class built by Electric Boat received what would be the final installations of the Hooven-Owens-Rentschler (HOR) double-acting diesel engine. The Navy had been tinkering with this engine off and on since 1937 because its unique design promised nearly twice the horsepower in a package the same size as other diesel engine types. Unfortunately, the HOR company ran into severe design and manufacturing problems and these engines proved to be operational and maintenance nightmares. Frequent breakdowns and utter unreliability had destroyed these engines' reputation with the Navy and they were all removed at the first opportunity and replaced by GM-Winton 16-278A V-type diesels. The other Gato-class boats received either the Fairbanks-Morse 38D8 1/8 nine cylinder opposed piston engine or the GM-Winton 16-248 V-type as original installations. These engines were hardy, rugged and well liked by the crews and served the boats 

These boats were authorized in appropriations for Fiscal Year 1941, as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's proclamation of "limited emergency" in September 1939. The first boat laid down was actually the USS Drum at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on 11 September 1940. She was commissioned on 1 November 1941 and was the only Gato-class boat in commission when the war started. The Gato herself was laid down on 5 October 1940 by the Electric Boat Company at Groton, Connecticut and commissioned 31 December 1941. Due to their large construction capacity, more than half (41) of the class was built at Electric Boat facilities; three new slipways were added to the north yard and four slipways were added to the south yard to accommodate their production. In addition, the government purchased an old foundry downstream from the main yard, constructed ten slipways and turned the yard over to Electric Boat. Called the Victory Yard, it became an integral part of Electric Boat operations. A total of 77 Gatos were built at four different locations (Electric Boat, Manitowoc, Portsmouth, and Mare Island).
There is occasionally some confusion as to the number of Gato-class submarines built with some sources listing the total as 73. This is due to the transitional nature of the first four boats (SS-361 to SS-364) constructed under the second contract by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. These were originally intended to be Balao-class subs and were assigned numbers that fall in the middle of the range of numbers for the Balao-class (SS-285 to SS-416 & 425–426). Manitowoc was a designated follow-on yard to Electric Boat; they used construction blueprints and plans supplied by Electric Boat and used many of the same suppliers. The government-owned shipyards (Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and Mare Island Naval Shipyard) began to make the transition to the new Balao design in the summer of 1942. Electric Boat, due to the huge backlog of Gato-class construction, was not ready to make the transition to the new design until January 1943. Manitowoc had already completed their allotted production run of Gatos and could not switch over to the Balao design until Electric Boat supplied them with the plans. Faced with a work stoppage while they waited for Electric Boat to catch up, managers at Manitowoc got permission to complete four additional boats (SS-361 to SS-364) to Electric Boat's Gato-class plans. Manitowoc's first Balao-class boat was USS Hardhead.
All of the Gatos (with one exception, USS Dorado) would eventually fight in the Pacific Theater of Operations. However, in the summer of 1942, six brand new Gatos were assigned to Submarine Squadron 50 and sent to Rosneath, Scotland to patrol the Bay of Biscay and to assist in the Operation Torch landings in North Africa. All in all they conducted 27 war patrols but could not claim any verified sinkings. Considered a waste of valuable resources, in mid 1943 all six boats were recalled and transferred to the Pacific.
Once they began to arrive in theater in large numbers in mid-to-late 1942, the Gatos were in the thick of the fight against the Japanese. Many of these boats racked up impressive war records: Flasher, Rasher, and Barb were the top three boats based on tonnage sunk by US submarines. Silversides, Flasher, and Wahoo were 3rd, 4th, and 7th place on the list for the number of ships sunk. Gato-class boats sank four Japanese submarines: I-29, I-168 and I-351 and I-42; while only losing one in exchange, USS Corvina to I-176.
Their principal weapon was the steam powered Mark 14 torpedo in the early war years, with the electric Mark 18 torpedo supplementing the Mark 14 in late 1943. Due to a stunted research and development phase in the Depression-era 1930s, and in great part due to the arrogance and stubbornness of the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance, the "wonder weapon" Mark 14 proved to be full of bugs and very unreliable. They tended to run too deep, explode prematurely, run erratically, or fail to detonate. Bowing to pressure from the submariners in the Pacific, the Bureau eventually acknowledged the problems in the Mark 14 and largely corrected them by late 1943. The Mark 18 electric torpedo was a hastily copied version of captured German G7e weapons and was rushed into service in the fall of 1943. Unfortunately it too was full of faults, the most dangerous being a tendency to run in a circular pattern and come back at the sub that fired it. Once perfected, both types of torpedoes proved to be reliable and deadly weapons, allowing the Gatos and other submarines to sink an enormous amount of Japanese shipping by the end of the war.
The Gatos were subjected to numerous exterior configuration changes during their careers, with most of these changes centered on the conning tower fairwater. The large bulky original configuration proved to be too easy to spot when the boat was surfaced; it needed to be smaller. Secondly, the desire to incorporate new masts for surface and air search radars drove changes to the fairwater and periscope shears. Third, additional gun armament was needed and cutting down the fairwater provided excellent mounting locations for machine guns and anti-aircraft cannon. The modifications (or Mods) to the Gato-class conning tower fairwaters were fairly uniform in nature and they can be grouped together based on what was done when:

• Mod 1 – This is the original configuration with the covered navigation bridge, the high bulwark around the aft "cigarette" deck, and with the periscope shears plated over. All the early boats were built with this Mod and it lasted until about mid 1942.
• Mod 2 – Same as Mod 1 but with the bulwark around the cigarette deck cut down to reduce the silhouette. This also gave the .50 caliber machine gun mounted there a greatly improved arc of fire. Began to appear in about April 1942.
• Mod 3 – Same as Mod 2 but with the covered navigation bridge on the forward part of the fairwater cut away and the plating around the periscope shears removed. In this configuration the Gatos now had two excellent positions for the mounting of single 40 mm Bofors or twin 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft cannon, an improvement over the .50 caliber machine gun. This mod started to appear in late '42 and early '43.
• Mod 4 – Same as the Mod 3 but with the height of the bridge itself lowered in a last attempt to lessen the silhouette. The lowering of the bridge exposed three I-beams on either side of the periscope shears. These exposed beams gave rise to the nickname "covered wagon boats". Began to appear in early 1944. The conning tower of USS Flasher (SS-249) is preserved in Groton, Connecticut in this configuration, with two single 40 mm Bofors mounts.

Variations on the above mods included the 1A (shortened navigation bridge), 2A (plating removed from periscope shears), and the 3A and 4A (which moved the SJ radar mast aft of the periscopes).
Deck guns varied during the war. Many targets in the Pacific War were sampans or otherwise not worth a torpedo, so the deck gun was an important weapon. Most boats began the war with a 4 inch (102 mm)/50 caliber gun, some with a 3 inch (76 mm)/50 caliber gun. The 3 inch was the gun originally specified for the Gato class, but war experience led to the removal of 4 inch guns from old S-class submarines to equip front-line boats. During 1944, almost all were refitted with a 5 inch (127 mm)/25 caliber gun, and some boats had two of these weapons. Additional anti-aircraft guns included single 40 mm Bofors and twin 20 mm Oerlikon mounts, usually one of each.
A Japanese boarding party from the destroyer Naganami inspected the grounded and abandoned USS Darter (SS-227). Documents disclosed weaknesses, later used to improve Japan's anti-submarine warfare.

Lothar Von Richthofen's Fokker Dr.1

Here are some images of Hobbycraft's 1/32 scale Fokker Dr. 1 Triplane. This is the aircraft that was flown by World War One fighter ace Lothar-Siegfried Freiherr Von Richthofen. Younger brother of Manfred Von Richthofen. Lothar Von Richthofen was credited with 40 victories during the war but died in a plane crash in 1922. Lothar Von Richthofen is credited for shooting down in 1917 top English ace at the time Albert Ball.

Billy Bishop's Nieuport 17

Here are some images of Hobbycraft's 1/32 scale Nieuport Ni 17. This is the aircraft Billy bishop flew during the World War One. Billy Bishop was Canada's leading fighter ace with over 72 victories to his credit. Some would say he was Britain's leading fighter ace as well though there is some conjecture on that point.

From Wikipedia"
The Nieuport 17 was a French biplane fighter aircraft of World War I, manufactured by the Nieuport company.
 
 The type was a slightly larger development of the earlier Nieuport 11, and had a more powerful engine, larger wings, and a more refined structure in general. At first, it was equipped with a 110 hp (82 kW) Le Rhône 9J engine, though later versions were upgraded to a 130 hp (97 kW) engine. It had outstanding maneuverability, and an excellent rate of climb. Unfortunately, the narrow lower wing, marking it as a "sesquiplane" design with literally "one-and-a-half wings", was weak due to its single spar construction, and had a disconcerting tendency to disintegrate in sustained dives at high speed. Initially, the Nieuport 17 retained the above wing mounted Lewis gun of the "11", but in French service this was soon replaced by a synchronised Vickers gun. In the Royal Flying Corps, the wing mounted Lewis was usually retained, by now on the improved Foster mounting, a curved metal rail which allowed the pilot to bring the gun down in order to change drums or clear jams. A few individual aircraft were fitted with both guns - but in practice this reduced performance unacceptably, and a single machine gun remained standard.
The type reached the French front in March 1916, and quickly began to replace the smaller Nieuport 11 and 16 in French service. The type went into service with Escadrille N.57 on May 2, 1916. With the British DH.2 the Nieuports were responsible for ending the reign of the Fokker Eindecker - the so-called 'Fokker scourge' period, proving a severe shock to German aviation high command. Most French aces used the nimble Nieuport during their career including Georges Guynemer, Charles Nungesser, Maurice Boyau, Armand Pinsard, Réné Dorne, Gabriel Guerin, Alfred Duellin and Jean Navarre. The type was also used by American volunteers of the Escadrille Lafayette when they replaced their earlier Nieuports. During part of 1916 the Nieuport 17 equipped every fighter squadron of the Aéronautique Militaire. Charles Nungesser scored most of his victories while flying Nieuports.
It was also ordered by the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service, as it was superior to any British fighter available at that time. Historians have found it difficult to identify how many of each Nieuport type were operated by the RFC as its surviving records tend to only specify 'Nieuport scout'. An unknown proportion of various Nieuport models including the N. 16, 17 and 24 were issued to squadrons. Individual Nieuport types are best identified from surviving photos rather than archives. British squadrons known to have used the type include Nos 1, 29, 32, 40 and 60 of the Royal Flying Corps and No 6 of the Royal Naval Air Service which was attached to the RFC. During the Battle of Arras much use was made of British Nieuports in balloon-busting attacks to prevent enemy artillery spotting. No 40 Squadron experimented with low level hedge-hopping attacks to reach the balloons while Nieuports of No 60 Squadron co-operated with F.E. 2bs of No 11 Squadron to carry out massed strafing attacks on German infantry entrenched on both sides of the River Scarpe.

Nieuport 17 plane in 1917

The Germans supplied captured examples to several of their own aircraft manufacturers for them to copy. This resulted in the Siemens-Schuckert D.I which, apart from the engine installation, was a close copy and actually went into production, although in the event it was not widely used operationally on the Western Front. German technicians also salvaged many engines from crashed Nieuports and re-used them in German machines including Fokker Dr1 triplanes. Albatros Werke adopted the Nieuport's sesquiplane wing structure for the Albatros D.III and D.V: called 'V-strutters' by the RFC to distinguish them from the earlier Albatros D.II. The German machines were heavier than the Nieuport and this aggravated the tendency to wing failures which the Nieuports had already experienced. Despite experimenting with extra bracing the Germans never fully solved the problem. Several pilots were killed while others experienced terrifying crash landings from altitude with a lower wing cracked or missing.
By mid-1917, the Nieuport was outclassed by the firepower and speed of the twin-gun latest German fighters, being one of the types suffering heavy casualties during Bloody April. An up-rated engine resulted in the Nieuport 17bis. Newer models (the Nieuport 24 and the 27) were brought out in an attempt to retain the type's ascendency. However, the powerful SPAD S.VII had already replaced the Nieuport fighters in many French squadrons by mid-1917. The British persisted with Nieuports a little longer, not replacing their last Nieuport 24bis until early 1918. The SPAD was powered by a water-cooled inline engine and proved stronger in a dive as it had a more conventional wing structure.
Many British Empire air aces flew Nieuport fighters, including Canadian ace W. A. Bishop, who received a Victoria Cross while flying it, and most famously of all, Albert Ball, V.C. who often hunted alone in his Nieuport. 'Mick' Mannock VC flew Nieuports early in his career with No 40 Squadron. His VC award reflected his whole combat career - including his time on Nieuports.
Italian aces such as Francesco Baracca, Silvio Scaroni and Pier Piccio all achieved victories while flying Nieuport fighters. In Belgium the 1st and 5th Belgian escadrilles were equipped with the Nieuport 17. Belgian aces flying the type included Andre de Meulemeester, Edmund Thieffry, Francis Jaquet and Jean Olieslagers. Imperial Russian forces operated the Nieuport. It is believed that the Russian ace Kazakov flew a Nieuport which was still marked with French-type roundels.
Like the other Nieuport types, the 17 was used as an advanced trainer for prospective fighter pilots after its operational days were over. The American Expeditionary Forces purchased 75 Nieuport 17s for training. The Nieuport 23 was a development of the 17. Charles Nungesser's own Nieuport 17bis was later converted to Nieuport 23 standard.

Roy Brown's Sopwith Camel

Here are some more images  of Accurate Miniatures 1/32 scale Sopwith Camel. This is the aircraft that was flown by Edmonton resident, World War One ace Capt Arthur Roy Brown the man officially credited with shooting down Manfred Von Richthofen aka the Red Baron, though recent studies suggest that the Red Baron may have actually been killed by Australian ground fire. What makes Capt Brown amazing is that he never lost a single pilot under his command. The reason for this was his training methods. One of his methods was that he would have new pilots position themselves high above a dog fight to study and observe maneuvers and tactics until he felt that they were ready to participate. In 2000/2001 when the city of Edmonton were compiling their top 100 Edmontonians of the 20th century Capt Arthur Roy Brown wasn't even mentioned. I guess fighting for King and country and keeping your pilots safe doesn't really cut it with today's progressive elite, but I digress. If you wish to know more on Capt Arthur Roy Brown you may do so here .

Railway Gondola Type OMMR

Here are some images of Dragon models 1/35 scale German Railway Gondola Type OMMR. I don't know what else I can tell you, it's an open rail car. I did put a couple of Goliath tracked mine vehicles and extra sand bags in it. And uh... well... Oh! I did use RLM 66 grey as its main colour.

Panzerjagerwagen

Here are some more images of Trumpeter's 1/35 scale Panzerjagerwagen. The Panzerjagerwagen with the Panzer IV turret and long 7.5-cm KwK cannon, were an important innovation of the BP 44 armor train type. It was the armored pursuit car that was replaced by the earlier pusher car. That now gave the train an effective means of defense against Russian tanks. In this instance, a program of new construction had been planned in 1944 by the German Army.

USS Nimitz CVN 68

Here are some more images of Trumpeter/White Ensign's 1/350 scale U.S.S. Nimitz.
This was a fun model although I wish that Trumpeter would have provided more aircraft. Oh well I've ordered more but they're taking forever to come in.

From Wikipedia"

USS Nimitz (CVN-68) is a supercarrier in the United States Navy, the lead ship of her class. She is one of the largest warships in the world. She was laid down, launched and commissioned as CVAN-68, but was redesignated CVN 68 (nuclear-powered multimission aircraft carrier) on 30 June 1975 as part of the fleet realignment of that year.

The ship was named for World War II Pacific fleet commander Chester W. Nimitz, who was the Navy’s last fleet admiral. Unlike all subsequent Nimitz class carriers, Nimitz only uses her namesake's surname. She is also the first carrier of her class and the most recent supercarrier not to be named for someone who held elective office in the United States.

Nimitz was homeported at Naval Station Norfolk until 1987, when she was relocated to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. After her mid-life overhaul and nuclear reactor refueling in 2001, Nimitz was relocated to NAS North Island, in San Diego, California.

Nimitz home port was changed from the NAS North Island, to Everett, Washington. This move is expected to save the Navy $100 million.

USS Nimitz first deployed to the Mediterranean on 7 July 1976 with Carrier Air Wing 8 embarked in company with the nuclear powered cruisers USS South Carolina and USS California. In November 1976, Nimitz was awarded the Battle "E" from Commander, Naval Air Force U.S. Atlantic Fleet, for being the most efficient and foremost aircraft carrier in the Atlantic Fleet. The cruise was uneventful, and the carrier returned to Norfolk, Virginia on 7 February 1977.

A second uneventful Mediterranean cruise was conducted from 1 December 1977 to 20 July 1978. The third deployment began on 10 September 1979 to the Mediterranean. The ship moved to the Indian Ocean in response to the Iran hostage crisis in which the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran was overtaken and 52 hostages were held. (During this trip, the ship took part in the shooting of the movie The Final Countdown and played a central role in the film.) After four months on station, Operation Evening Light was launched from Nimitz's decks in an attempt to rescue the U.S. Embassy staff. The mission was aborted after a helicopter crashed at a refueling point in the Iranian desert. The ship finally returned home 26 May 1980, having spent 144 days at sea.