Another day for bargains

Yesterday my wife and I went to visit my father-in-law who lives near the sea in North East Kent. On the way we stopped at the Chatham Maritime Retail Outlet Centre – a rather long name for a large collection of shops that sell ‘ends of ranges’ etc. to the public – for something to eat and some retail therapy.

Since we last went there a small department store has been added, and we naturally gravitated towards it as we walked round. My wife wanted a ‘quick look round’ the seasonal section, and I expected to see nothing but Christmas decorations, wrapping paper, and greetings cards; you can therefore imagine my pleasant surprise when I found that ‘seasonal’ included some toys … which I bought!

Last year Hasbro/MicroMachines brought out a range of ‘Indiana Jones’ vehicles and figures that were part of a commercial tie-in with Lucas Films, and it was some of the models from this range that were on sale. I managed to buy two tanks and a cargo truck that will fit in very nicely with 15mm scale wargames figures.

The tanks are both described as ‘Vogel’s Mark VII tank’ and were featured in THE LAST CRUSADE. The box has the following information about them:

Only a very few of the formidable British Mark VII tanks survived the end of World War I, to be either sold or given to friendly governments in Africa and the Middle east. This one has been retrofitted to add a more modern swivelling turret gun on top, and heavier armour, rather than netting to deflect grenades.

What a lot of old tosh!

The Hasbro/Micromodels model of 'Vogel's Mark VII Tank' , as featured in THE LAST CRUSADE.

The model is actually a modified version of the Mark VIII (or Liberty Tank), which was the result of a project by the British and US Governments to produce a standard heavy tank. Unfortunately it only came into production at the end of the war, and never entered full service. The only Allied unit to be fully equipped with the Mark VIII was the US 67th Infantry (Tank) Regiment.

The Mark VIII or Liberty Tank.

Despite this historical inaccuracy, the model is very useful and could easily be used – after the removal of the extraneous turret – in wargames set in the early 1920s (or perhaps even slightly later). Paul Farrow (of MrFarrow2u (+ Jack & Amys!!) DBA 1500 Onwards Page fame) has two painted to represent captured British tanks in service with the German Army on his blog … and might fine they look!

The truck is very typical of the type used by the German Army in the late 1930s and 1940s. It comes with its own model figure of Professor Jones being dragged along behind – as featured in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK – but this will be easy to cut off.

The German Cargo Truck, as featured in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. The Indiana Jones figure can be seen being dragged behind the model.

I also visited the branch of ‘Past Times’ where I bought two bags of wooden houses for less than £5.00 each.

Each bag of buildings includes ten small single-storey houses, two slightly larger two-storey houses, a Dutch-style town house, a railway station, a Town Hall/School building, two towers and an arched gateway, eight lengths of wall, and numerous other bits and pieces.

I already own quite a few of these buildings … but you can never have too many! Their basic design is similar to the buildings featured in the photographs of Joseph Morschauser’s wargames, and this was an added incentive to buy them.

On our return home I found that Royal Mail had delivered a book I had ordered via Amazon.

HITLER’S WAR ON RUSSIA by Charles D Winchester (published by Osprey [2007] ISBN 978 1 84603 195 3) is an extensively re-written, new edition of the same author’s OSTFRONT (published by Osprey in 1998), and I am looking forward to reading over the next few weeks.