Over on TL, a poster put this up:

http://www.track-link.net/forum/news_industry/14041

WHOOO HOOOOOO!

(and I just ebayed my MB Models resin one a few months ago!)

Oh...my...gawd!

Cordially,

Dennis

One very large tick on my 'Always wanted one' list

David

This is indeed great news, even if I do feel like a schmuck for shelling about $150 on the white metal Pit-Road kit, which is probably what Trumpeter's upcoming release is based on (they do have the habit of purchasing masters from the cottage industry...)

It was not 2 days ago I was wondering what it would take to scratch build one of those.

that is progress - used to be I actually had to get well into a conversion or scratchbuild before a release of the same subject!

I wonder when we'll see the boxart by Dragon

i'll wait for this one, that's for sure Dragon or Trumpeter...

Truly GREAT News...

I was just looking at these yesterday thinking - this is just too cool...

And now it's here today. I must be psychic!

Links for the gun:
http://svsm.org/gallery/203mm_B-4_Family


Edit / Add: They sure take the commitment to preserving history seriously at Aberdeen...

It is my impression that Dragon don't seem to be too interested in Soviet stuff, besides the obvious T-34's and maybe a few derivatives.
There is no Dragon equivalent to Trumpeter's line of KV's. And they haven't corrected their JS line to challenge Tamiya.
Probably they only want to go toe to toe with the competition on German hardware because they know it sells a lot more.

Dude: don't knock the Aberdeen staff. Do you know where the money comes from? Thin air? They work very hard with very limited resources. The Elefant was just finished. They have to make choices.

This is the second announcement in a week when I discussed the subject with a manufacturer at Nuremberg.

Great thing is (with the 203mm), naturally enough, the manufacturer who was seriously considering doing it WASN'T Trumpeter...

Do I have some kind of strange power?

I was out at aberdeen a couple months ago, and this 203mm was not evident in the field, which hopefully means it was in for restoration.

There was also word there that the collection will finally be moved indoors in the near-ish future at a different site at Fort Lee, Virginia, and all recently restored/maintained vehicles were to remain in storage until that time.

Aberdeen's facilities have never recieved much $$$ for maintaining the collection of vehicles they have, as it was orginally supposed to just be a place to test them by puting them thru their paces and/or blowing them up. My understanding is that it has been a bit of a fight over the decades to just keep the collection from being scrapped, with interested people having to use arguments about tourism, job, and similar things to save it.

I'm not really much of an artillery man - is this the big gun that appears in an oft-seen piece of contemporary combat footage filmed in the 1945 Battle of Berlin?

If so, it'd be a must-have for the stash.

- Steve

I've seen these on the Military Channel and always thought "what if".

Yes, it's the same one, there are pictures of it in Berlin, in Budapest. The soviets often used it not like a howitzer, but with direct aiming against buildings, bunkers. One technical question: the tracks were just for reducing the ground pressure, they were not motorized, were they?

Great news ! I can't wait to get one......

I guess I'll have to break my "no more new kits until I finish at least 50% of what I have started vow."

I was watching a programme on TV about Hitler today and saw one of these guns in action, and was thinking I wonder where I can get my hands on one of them. its funny how things work out.

You are correct, the tracks were not motorized.
This is really a groundbreaking release! Excellent news!!

Don't get too excited guys, I've already found 172 detail and dimensional errors in the test shot.
Wait for the Dragon one, it will be much better!

Just joking!
Sorry Jim, I just couldn't resist!


Congrats to Trumpeter for innovation. This should sell like hotcakes!

My friend Noodle-San and I will be starting a daily blog to highlight the errors in this 'Bugler-Hybrid'

Error # 1: Hiroshi-san is not standing in front of a loaded example.

While most of us are familiar with them in the urban fighting near war's end, the B-4 was actually in service at the onset of the war. I've seen some w/evident camo schemes.

I (kinda) feel badly. I just ebayed off the resin MB Models one about a month ago. I figured that SOMEONE would eventually come out with this in plastic. I didn't realize how prescient I really was!

IIRC several were captured by the Germans and were sent to France where they were captured by British/US forces?

Also, the post-war B4M supposedly had a smallish motor added for short movement?