Ron Bell Posted January 4 Report Posted January 4 This gun was a beast, as a kit and in reality. Developed at the end of WW II, it nevertheless saw service in the US for a short time until it was overtaken by the first generation of SAMs. It could fire up to 60,000 feet and earned the nickname "The Stratosphere Gun". This is the 60's vintage Lifelike kit of it that I got in a bag at the last IPMS Nationals. Amazingly, it was only missing two parts, one that I replaced by scratching up a replacement and the other was the fourth figure that came with the kit which I did without. There was not one part that wasn't covered in flash and/or mold seams or had sink marks or mold release pin marks. When I was done with the clean up my modeling area was under a 1/4" thick coating of plastic dust from filing and sanding every single part. Fit was mostly ok but some areas needed extra help to go together and the instructions weren't very specific on how some things went with other things. It came with a cover for the top of the gun that I have to believe was not used in action but rather when traveling or not in use. It was a typical 'action model' of its era having many moving parts which always makes assembly interesting. It could be displayed in battery or in travel mode, the two bogey wheel sets used similarly to those on a German 88. The figures were typical 60's molds and the poses somewhat stilted. Since the gun was used after the armed forces were integrated, I painted the ammunition handler as an African American. That skin tone is tricky. You may notice the round in the tray. That's the automatic loader. The tray tilts down and an arm swings around and shoves the round into the breach. Lifelike had a series of these 1/40 scale military kits and they all had cute nicknames on them. This gun was "Tilly the Toiler" ( There were no decals in the bag so I couldn't do that), An Amtrac was "Winne the Whale" and a 155 SP gun was "Choo Choo Baby". They also did some of the support equipment for a Hawk AA Missile battery, but they weren't named to my knowledge. 2
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