ERA everywhere. Herbert Erpaorp Discord group build A bit of fun as the evenings lengthen.

 ERA everywhere. Herbert Erpaorp Discord group build.

ERA?

Reactive armour is a type of vehicle armour that reacts in some way to the impact of a weapon to reduce the damage done to the vehicle being protected. It is most effective in protecting against shaped charges and specially hardened kinetic energy penetrators. The most common type is explosive reactive armour (ERA).

Reactive armour is intended to counteract anti-tank munitions that work by piercing the armour and then either killing the crew inside or disabling vital mechanical systems.

I was thinking about riot police and was thinking... What if they had ERA.

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...and then I was walking through my model shop and saw this.

What about a horse though?

Tamiya's mounted German figure? Sure we can try that.

800 Yen about £2:50 or $3:00. I think that's good value. I shall have a bit of fun with this.

There is some interesting information of the sides of the box.

The usual purchasing help on the end panels.

The paint schemes are on the back along with demonstrations of the variable poses.

Let's have a look inside. Snip, snip.

Plenty of modelly goodness.

On the instruction sheet, the figure is on one side.

The sprue looks good. It's certainly good considering the age of the kit

The instructions for the horse are on the reverse.

Can't see anything wrong with that. Looks like a horse...potentially...

A small sheet of plastic card. I'll be using that for the bridles for the horse.

The horse doesn't need a lot of cleaning up. It looks like a horse to me but I'm no horseologist so I don't know how good it is but I think it looks more like a horse than a camel so...

Using card to create a blanket.

Clay will do for the rest. I think I could have got the finish smoother but it will be fine this time round.

Every fashionable horse wants a nice neckline.

I tried using a stamp to create the ERA but as you will see, I wasn’t completely happy.

I put the saddle on now while the clay was still flexible to take the indentation.

While I had the clay out, I added neck armour next. It was here that I thought we could have a shield too.

A coat of Panzer grey because, you know, Germany.

As I mentioned, I wasn't happy with the 'ERA' so I cut up an old plastic A5 file to make squares which were about the right thickness for the ERA.

I applied these with PVA.

Painting the armour grey.

Time to add the bridles. Careful, too much glue melts the plastic... How do I know?,,,

Testing the figure because I have little patience.

I added some extra blankets behind the saddle. It's all good practice for another time.

Do  you know what? I think it looks good.

Let's get that figure finished. I wonder what he's looking at.

55 pence case from the local cheap shop. 66 cents if you are of an American persuasion.

The cheap shop had some DIY brick facing. As if you would but I will use a brick as the texture for my base.

Cut out a brick...

Remove the backing

Glue it to the base with P.V.A the best glue in the world...

Tufts of hemp string attached with P.V.A the best glue in the world...

Further texture using green tea

And I thought I was finished... but no.

Oi! shift over.

I had the German 20mm Flakvierling sitting waiting for a display and I thought, why not?

See the model build here.

Four guns for the price of one. 20mm Flakvierling ... 
I'm building the German 20mm Flakvierling 38.

I added ERA square to the armour plate and rearranged everything on the base.

Finally, I found a supply of synthetic moss to add that broad-leaved look to the grass...

An NOW I am finished.

I just sat the model on the laptop with a country-side background and well, that was fun. What do you think?