TANK WAR -1968

A favourite pastime of mine as a kid was playing war in the garden. I was always getting cheap Hong Kong bagged or carded army sets with a handful of green soldiers and a couple of vehicles. My favourites were always the Blue Box army sets with the hard plastic tanks and stuff, but usually it would be the bendy plastic variety for a few pence. Just today a nice large box arrived that i won on ebay, chock full of Britains farm animals, soldiers, knights and cowboys, along with a slew of army vehicles.A lot of them were fairly recent, cheap knock offs of early toys, but some were the vintage version from my garden wars.

 This neat dark green tank, which looks russian in inspiration, has been co-opted into battle and is not part of the ebay haul, but was given to me by Hugh from Small Scale World, along with a pair of the blue tanks below. Ive added a pair of old Airfix tank treads. Its just under 3" long and the biggest piece of ordnance in the fleet.

 But this is why I bought the box on ebay, three of these little 2" long tanks. I used to pop down to the corner shop with a pocketful of pennies, when I was six and buy myself some of these. The top popped off and inside was a little wad of paper wrapped chewing gum!

 Theres about four colour variations and I think, two turret types. I'm looking for a red one, so if anyone fancies a swap?

 This fine little beast has Made in Hong Kong, No 404 emblazoned on the back and needed a set of tracks too. Very T-34!

 Another possibly russian inspired Stalin Tank clone.

 A chunky Daimler Armoured car, just under three inches.

 This neat little truck with a german Luftwaffe logo pasted on has a fine radar rig which looks like its been lifted from several different space toys!

 Heres the infantry grunts manning a field gun, from the look of them, they've been made to fit some other vehicle and drafted in to man the gun. I'd keep my head down in those red suits though..

Finally, the workhorse of the army, the Willys jeep. These were always a staple in the army sets!