This post appears almost year after the refashion of some of the most remarkable military vehicles at the National Military Museum in Sofia. But it’s just now when I found time to visit the museum and take some pictures. The vehicles were first primed and then some of them painted in the similar-to-the-original colour and markings, which is very good and, sincerely, I haven’t expected such thing to happen at this museum. Here are the pictures:
First, primer:
And then the final results:
Amongst all Bulgarian aircraft during WW2, two were undoubtedly remarkable – the famous Me-109G and the frightful dive bomber Ju-87 Stuka. The Royal Airforce had two versions of this warbird – Ju-87 B2/R2 for training purposes, and the later and much more effective Ju-87 D5. See the picture below:
This is my latest attempt for building Bulgarian aircraft. Here is the result:
Continuing the topic about Bulgarian Aircraft in World War Two with this Arado Ar-96B, used for training and reconnaissance purposes. The wings’ ends used to be in yellow before September, 1944, but were painted in white afterwards. With this camo scheme it served in the late stage of the war. The kit is issued by “Kopro“, 1/72. Its quality is below the average level, but at least it was simple to build.
I keep collecting kits of aircraft models, used in the Bulgarian Royal Airforce during WW2. Til the last Christmas I missed a very remarkable type of Messerschmitt 109 – the G-2 type, such as the one, flown by Dimitar Spisarevski – the most famous Bulgarian WW2 pilot, who lost his life in a direct hit with a “Flying fortress” in the sky over Sofia.
The HobbyBoss kit is from the “easy kit” series. It contains two plates of light grey plastic, another two of clear plastic and separate details for the wings and fuselage. Decals are presented for two versions – VI.JG52, 1942, Russia and III.JG53, 1943, Tunisia. The instructions sheet is on gloss paper with colourful camouflage scheme.
As for details and quality of plastic, the kit is pretty neat. All parts are good engraved, there are no sprues or defects. The usual disadvantage of the “easy kit” series is the poor cockpit. It is cast in the fuselage and represents only the pilot seat.
Conclusion: Great kit for beginners and not only. I will love to build it into Bulgarian Airforce Messerschmitt “Strela”, flown by lt. Dimitar Spisarevski.
My first experience in modeling semi-track vehicle is going to end with a gallery of the only one preserved German semi-track towing vehicle, used in Bulgarian army – Sd. Kfz. 8 (12ton) now in decay in the yard of the National Museum of Military History. Probably this particular machine was captured from the SS Division “Prince Eugen” while fighting in Yugoslavia in late 1944.
It used to look like this years ago:
But now the sad reality is this:
I found this rare picture of the vehicle from late after the war – on a military parade in socialist Bulgaria maybe in the 80’s. The inscription in the front says “TITAN” and on the left side “Praise the leaders!”. It looked like this:
Another picture from the war (but here I think it’s Sd. Kfz.8):
And the finished model:
So, as I said in my previous post, it was time for the tracks! Painted them in Humbrol’s tank grey. Then applied some water colors, and some tempera, as it was not enough to look like mud. While the tempera was still wet, I poured some rust (I keep in a little vial a pinch of real rust, which I collected from a rusty detail of a real tank T-34, so it couldn’t be more authentic) and the rust became dust. Yeah, a low-cost option, but for this moment I like it this way. Here are the pictures:
You may see also:
Inside the box of Sd. Kfz.7 (8ton) – Tamiya, 1/35
And then… after some paint covered the chassis, I was ready for the front pair of tyres and then the numerous wheels of the suspension.
As you may notice, I paint with brushes and this was really tough work – there are 30 wheel plates to be painted and weathered. Argh… It took me an evening and then a whole morning to finish this boring stuff but then the assembling was real fun.
And here we are… ready for the tracks.
Half of the vehicle, haha!
You may see also:
Well, I didn’t have patience and in the first days of the new year I started to build my semi-tracked towing vehicle. A number of Sd Kfz 7 were delivered to the Bulgarian army in 1943 (of the models Borgward HL m11 and Krauss-Maffei KM m11 models). Several were also captured
after 1944, when Bulgaria was fighting the Wehrmacht in Serbia and Hungary.
Started with the little detailes – exhaust, transmission, etc. Painted the whole under surface in dark yellow and applied some coats of water colours – different shades of brown with some black. 
Exhaust tube was painted with water colours and salt crystals to look like rust. Simple.
shelftanks 