Research Begins

Now that I'm over the spending hangover, I'm really interested in finding out more about this tank. Before purchasing the kit, I had skimmed over the brief history written up on the Armortek website(http://www.armortek.co.uk/html/vehicles/Comet/Comet2.html). It bascially tells you that the Comets were based on the Cromwell design and they were modified to upgrade the electroncis and main gun. They were introduced to the war effort late in the game and actually didn't have a huge impact in WII.

The first Comets actually saw action in the Spring of 1945 where they replaced the Shermans of the 11th Armoured Division / 29th Armoured Brigade. 11th AD “Taurus Pursuant” utilized the new Comets to sweep the Baltic ports once they crossed the Rhine.

The Comets were utilized port war as well, but being a WWII nut I'm going to spend my research time looking into the time spent there. I'm also interested in digging up more information on the 11th AD / 29th AB and see if I can get some interesting facts about them.

1:6 Scale Armortek A34 Comet Order Completed

Well, here it goes. I've spent the better part of a week and a half trying to talk myself out of spending a boat load of money to purchase an R/C Tank but I couldn't.

Let me start out by giving you a bit of background. I've always loved model building and working with my hands to create something that I could eventually enjoy and admire. My problem has always been having the patience to do it properly and not be in a hurry to get the thing running so I could play with it. In fact, I've had that problem with everything I've worked on (ask my wife about the chest of drawers that is sitting in our garage for example). My garage at home has a fair amount of tools / equipment but it's by no means fully outfitted. I have most of the basic wood working equipment and quite a few power tools but nothing extraordinary.

That's personal background enough, now let's get back to the whole WWII Tank thing. I've always loved the World War II simulation games and therefore the military history of equipment and soldiers. I've been playing WWII PC / Console games for as long as I can remember. A few years ago I started playing World War II online (now called Battleground Europe http://www.battlegroundeurope.com/) and I starting falling in love with the armor from that era. I enjoyed the Axis and Allied governments social and economic decisions and how they all effected the war machine on the battlefield.

Moving right along now, I bought my first R/C tank model from Walmart and it happened to be a Late Model Stuart 1/6 scale plastic model. It has sound and is actually pretty agile. The range is pretty short and there are some bugs in the electronics but all in all, I have enjoyed playing with it from time to time. Every since then, I've been searching the net for some other large scale tank models from the era to give it a brother so to speak.

Now, we're up to recent history. I am currently away from home in Spain working and this past couple weeks, I've been thinking about my next "Project" when I get home.. you know.. aside from the ten I'm already working on. I happened across a web site out of England that boasted large scale tank models (static or dynamic) that were of high quality machined steel. I spent a few days pouring over and over their web site (http://www.armortek.co.uk/).

Wow, that's all I can say. Those things are very impressive.

Now, I'm getting down to the entire reason I started this post... yes I finally bit the bullet and bought one. I placed my order on Thursday. A brand new British A34 Comet should be ready to ship to my house mid summer 2010 but I'm already thinking in my head how I want to set my garage up to prepare to assemble the model. This blog was set up more for my benefit than anyone else, just to track my progress over the next year in building the unit up from scratch (if you can call machined to fit pieces scratch).

The next step in the process is RESEARCH.. I'll see if I can post a few words over the next couple of weeks about the history behind the A34 Comet.