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A Tale of Two DUKW's

A tale of two dukw's

Alan has had these two Italeri 1/35th DUKW's sitting around for awhile, with no particular plans to use them. Whilst researching at the National Archives in London, England he came across information relating to amphibious vehicles. Needing to 'replenish his batteries', Alan decided to build these two DUKW's straight out of the box. The results of which can be seen here!

During the build, Alan had decided the back of each vehicle needed to fully loaded with stores or anything else he could lay his hands on........and to that end the stores in each vehicle come from a range of accessory kits, such as those offered by Italeri themselves, but also Tamiya and other manufacturers. Some items were scratchbuilt.............for example the Medical load was actually made from two cigarette paper packets covered with tissue paper. The rope is an item from Billings Boats, and the life preservers left over from another project. The stretchers are from Accurate Armour.

The markings on both vehicles are actually a mix of some that Alan had in his spares box and the kit-supplied ones. Alan wanted to have the vehicles marked up as Royal Army Service Corp vehicles in recognition of these oft-overlooked personnel. He split the name 'Portland Rose' for their names, calling one Portland and the other............Rose!

The figures are a mix of Tamiya and Resicast items that were just added to give a sense of scale and add a little interest to the pictures, but Alan hopes to include the vehicles eventually in a diorama, along with a couple of LVT's in a Rhine crossing setting. Since building these he has discovered he now has to add some fire extinguishers and some brackets to the rear of the driving compartments.