Just curious. Me? I tried building 2 models (Fuchs and SCUD). The reason I build them is because I like large land warfare vehicles. Also, I'm about to buy the Hummel and the Karl because of the WWII games I've played (Day of Defeat, Medal of Honor, Battlefield 1942). Only recently I knew that building armor was as fun as doing an AC!

I guess I started building because I love war history and movies. Seen lots of peoples builds on websites like this one and decided I would like to try to make some. Now I love it and it is becoming my #1 hobby. Also I think the choices you have when you purchase a kit is great. Paint any colors that apply (or camoflauge), decals can be secured from many places if you want to make a certain units vehicle. Two kits of the same type and manuefactor can be very different from paint and decals, plus adding or converting a few pieces.

Cheers
HastyP

I build them cause my grandpa told me his od war-stories and i found them interesting so i build a vehicle he told me about (t-35/85) nad it great fun so i built more (atm a Japan Type 1 SPG from Tamiya)

Probably old WWII movies on TV Sunday afternoons. I'd read a lot of kiddie history books from the library when I was little and then discovered the adult 900 (history) section of the library.

That and the old Grants ??, pre-Wal-Mart days, had a good selection of the old yello box Testors/Italeri kits and a hobby shop on the walk to middle school did not hurt.

Bolmiers is long gone as is Grants, I've moved 1300 miles from there, but I'm still a treadhead!

Mike

It had to be the sheer awesome size and power of tanks when I first saw them in ole WWII movies. Than I saw one in a museum when I was I kid and that's what finalized it for me.

My first armor experance was with hasagawa's Kublewagon in 1/72. It was the first kit that I painted (the tires...black)...when I was about 5 years old.

I got back into armor hardcore after seening an article in finescale modeller about the Tamiya Panther A with zimmerit on it. I remember using a heated screw driver to make the zimmerit on it also. Its been all down hill since then, with a short break taken at the end of High School then while I was in the Army for almost a year and half before picking it up again.

Other reason I build armor....I can't build airplanes to save myself

I got interested in AFV's early on because my dad was in the U.S. 1rst Armored throughout WW2. As a kid I enjoyed looking at his old war pics(which were unfortunately lost in a recent move ) and hearing his stories of the war.

Mike

Well,

simply because they interest me the most... something about WW II just fascinates me... So do sailing ships, and medieval, classical and Napoleonic times... Unfortunately there is not too much available in that respect that either fits in my room, fits in my budget, or is not a sole figure...

I for myself wanted to improve my skills first with subjects that interest me before paying a lot of €€€€ for a few miniatures, which are really easy to ruin...

But besides armor, on my to build list are a Su-27 in 1/48, the Bismarck, one of the Heller sailing ships (possibly Soleil Royal) and then figures... Ultimate dreamkit to build: wooden model of the Sovereign of the Seas.

Because they are there. I like the awesome power that they exude. I have always liked heavy equipment and AFV's are HEAVY equipment

I like to build what I served on and what I served with.

Also, it is fun to build what I have read about in both fiction and Non-fiction. I think the first serious armor kit I built was due in large part to reading Tom Calncy's "Red Storm Rising". I have an interest in almost every other aspect of model building, from Sci-fi to aircraft, but armor and figgies are my fav's.

I got interested in models when i was about 6 years old. BUT when i saw my first..I don't know if any of you remember these SS Kressage 1/48 scale kits at K-mart..i fell inlove with german armor. They had everything in wwII armor...they might have been just repackaged Bandai kits..I don't know.Then i saw my first Tamiya kit when i was about 11...that was it for me...sometimes i buy a kit for the figures that come with it!!!! I love tanks..i took my wife on vacation and our first stop was Aberdeen Md. to the museum. Bodeen

I think the old 1/48 Aurora tanks as well as the smaller Airfix kits hooked me back in the early sixties. My older brother was building planes, but I saw the 1/32 Monogram armor/truck kits and wanted some of that action! Then, one day in a supermarket (around '70 or so) I saw my first Japanese import, a Bandai Pz IV I believe. I couldn't believe the amount of detail visible through the plastic box top. About that time I was blinded by the incredible built-up kits in the window displays at Valley Plaza Hobbies, when they were still located in North Hollywood, CA. Oh man, just LOOK AT THAT!!!! Tamiya followed me home, and it's been armor since then.

Of course, five years in the 2d Armored Division allowed me a lot of personal reference material. I scratch-built an M113 APC, finishing it at the same time Tamiya released their kit. Isn't that how it usually happens?

Now, the ever-expanding selection of kits, bolstered by the aftermarket accessories, makes this a field that you can walk through all day long, and never see the same thing twice!

Gunner/HEAT/Schoolbus!

Gunner/Cannister/Hippies in the open!

The DEVIL made me build the first one, and he makes me keep buying kits also!!! #:-)

I used to build 144 scale airliners and blew them up during firecracker season. (no surprise I became a military engineer). I started AFVs when I joined the army just because it was a logical extension of my chosen career.

HI. I thing that the hobby of building model ARVs is kind of a progression from my heavy interest at one time (when I was much younger, of course) for the factory muscle car craze of the late '60s and early '70s. Which kind of ventured over into the keen interest in shooting guns, esp. military hardware or their civilian counterparts in the late '70s and '80s, and the great interest in history that I've always seem to have had.

I think the modeling aspect also puts some kind of a three-dimensional aspect to all the different kinds and types of vehicles that were used in any period of war history since and advent of the internal combustine engine as well.

And for the very life of me I just can't see how most people today just go through life without actually 'creating' anything, other than just work, worry, and keeping up with each other. There's so much more to life than that, and a hobby or two in which you are building and/or creating something is what does it for me.

Take care, sgirty

I build TANKS because they are just so much fun to do and are soooooooooo cool when done! I also build other types of models, but I enjoy tanks the most.
capnjock

Guess 'cos like any kid I loved anything that went bang, started making models when I was seven, graduated to MFVs during my teens, and have carried on ever since - luv the machinery aspect of tanks as well.

Paint.

I was stationed in Germany in the late 70s with the 2nd Armored Division (Forward). The dollar-deutchmark exchange rate took a dump and it was expensive to go downtown, so I needed a hobby. I built models when I was a kid, until I turned 16 and discovered cars and girls, and decided to try that. I picked up a couple airplane kits at the PX, copies of Scale Modeler and Military Modeler, some glue and paints and started building them in my barracks room.

I wasn't happy with brushed-on paint on my airplanes, so I tried a couple Testors-Italeri and Tamiya tank kits. They came out much better. Getting tips and ideas from Military Modeler (this was the old Challenge Publications mag out of Canoga Park, CA), I kept working on my modeling skills. Our meager post library had lots of military history books and soon I was hooked on building WWI armor -- mostly the German stuff I could buy at the PX.

By the time I could afford an air-brush rig to properly paint aircraft, I was hooked on armor. I have hundreds of magazines, books and photographs I've collected over the yars since then. In the mid-80s, I ran into an IPMS group and that really fueled the fire. Now I'm an active member of two IPMS chapters, plus an AMPS chapter. I still build an occasional aircraft, but armor -- Sherman variants in particular -- are my favorites.

Hey guys,

Built AAA fodder in high school back in The Netherlands (hey, they flew overhead all the time, what do you want?!). Had to do National Service after college, served as a gunner on a Leopard 2, and started building armour after I got out. Haven't stopped since.

Cheers

Olaf

I built a 1/10th scale Tamiya RC Rally car (Subaru Impreza) this got me interested in WRC (World Rally Championship for those who don't know). I found out that Tamiya made 1/24th scale WRC Cars in plastic. I bought 2 (Impreza and the Focus) built em both, they came out pretty bad....first models since I was 12 (20 years or so). After watching Saving Private Ryan I started looking at WWII AFVs....the Sherman reached out and smacked me in the face...so I bought it, built it, and have since built about 2 or 3 more shermans, none of which I have finished, but have added to my "To do list" that consists of some 60+ models. Thats how I came to model AFVs.

In the 60's I bought the early Aurora tanks.The voices in my head decided this was good.So they keep telling me to buy more and bigger ones.I have.The voices are quieter now.

I think.
#:-) (++) (++) (++) (++)

Well I started build aircraft kits when I was around 7. Continued building them for about the next 14 or 15 years with a few armor kits now and then. When I started in my field ( I am a general aviation mechanic) I got tired of coming home and working on aircraft as well. So I switched to armor. Now it is my main modeling interest with aircraft and others taking a back seat.
Eric

Hmmmmmm,.......great thread.
Loved reading the responses.

I had to think about this one awhile.......so I could answer it as truthfully as possible. Reason being, is at my core, I'm absolutely a pilot to the 'Nth' degree.......so, why am I such an armour fan?
Here's the first thing that honestly comes to mind.
I have an ABSOLUTE respect, and admiration for all of YOU, who serve/served in such a role. The ability to jump in a machine of that design and perform your duties as you do/did, is, IMHO, extremely courageous. I am not claustraphobic, nor am I weak of courage (already proved my 'metal', thanks!) But, I guess what I'm trying to say is: Because of my admiration for the 'brass ones' required to pull that detail, I feel the personal need to form a kind of 'homage' to all who served in that capacity.............because I wouldn't. I need the freedom of FLIGHT. I need/needed the open field of fire to proceed towards achieving any kind of heroism.
My 'hat's off!' to people who are able to perform in that capacity.
I mean that sincerely.

So for me, I guess, it's a way for me to get as close as I can to people I admire and respect. I did my part, and then some, while in the 'Corp, but, obviously could not 'do it all'......this way I can taste what it might have been all about and try to experience a wee bit of what life might have been like for what we used to call......the Cavalry.

Tread.

What made me build AFVs?

Model Aircraft, of course! #:-)