On Saturday 29th December 2001 members of the UK Tank club met with Alex 'The Russian', the man behind the models at a members house in deepest darkest Sussex. Alex was hosted in the UK by Mark Spencer of Mark 1 Tank fame.  This was probably  the biggest gathering of 1/6th Scale models in the UK if not the World (unless you know different?) and also featured the unveiling of the new 1/8th scale T34 and 1/6th Panther. There was a little snow on the ground that day which the T34 handled very well-just like the real thing! Alex showed us some video of the T34 forging it's way through 4 inches (approx 100mm!)in Russia with ease.  The new Panther must be the noisiest of the 1/6th models and to hear them all running was deafening. Thanks must go to our friend and mentor Peter Shaw for the use of his property and especially to his wife for supplying the hot food on a very cold day!

Here is Alex with Peter's 1/4 Scale King Tiger. Sadly it's only a static model but Alex was heard muttering something about 'the next scale'!!

This is Jim's Tiger standing ready for the off in front of Peter's half track.

This is a clearer picture of Peter's SdKfz 250 made from wood! Yes wood. Even the tracks are wood. The front wheels are real though.

Here are the three RC 1/6th models in Peter's collection. In the middle a standard Tiger, in the foreground is his Sturmtiger which he converted himself and at the rear a halftrack made from a 1/8th Panther chassis!

This picture shows in detail the Sturmtiger commander and ammunition loading crane.

In the Autumn Peter had a hip replacement and while he was convalescing he built this 1/6th Puma, and to the left you can see the back end of a Horch which was built at the same time. (Both static)

Alex inspects the Sturmtiger as myself (in the woolly hat), Peter (in the Russian hat) and Jim look on.

Alex, Dave (standing) and Mark (hiding behind the Sturmtiger) taking pictures of the UK's biggest 1/6th gathering...

...if not the World's!

Here is the new 1/6th Panther shown to the world for the first time (ish!)

Alex has promised not to fix any more track links on the glacis after receiving a lecture from Dave!

The model uses the same type of all steel wheels that the Tiger has. So if some earlier wheels were applied a 1/6th JagdPanther could be made......!

Here we see a close up of the rear complete with Flamvernichter!

And here we see the detail cast into the engine decking. Ok the grilles should be open but do you want to let water in? On my models we painted the holes in black and after the mesh was added over all the grilles you can't see that their blocked off.

Another new arrival was the long awaited 1/8th T34. The next few pictures show it against my JagdPanther for comparison.

We were all very impressed with the models looks and performance. It shares the Panther/JagdPanther transmission.

This is a pre-production example. Later models will have revised gearing to make them travel faster (as did the real tanks).

It makes a refreshing change to see a plain green model. Easier on the eyes and paintbrush!

You can see from this picture that the model even has the characteristic sag of the tracks! I could be tempted you know!

Here we see a (muddy) close up of the rear sprocket. You can see the large teeth that engage in the sprocket quite clearly.

This view shows the width of the tracks, so wide for such a small tank.

This shows the front idler. It seems strange to me being brought up on front drive tanks talking about front idlers and rear sprockets! Notice the thick rubber tyres on the road wheels.

Here we can see the detail that is cast into the one piece upper hull and the size of the turret against the hull.

And finally a close up of the turret.