No problemo. I ordered the SAS Jeep from HLJ and had to pay for FEDEX Expedited service (They don't offer Airmail right now). I got it within two days. I ordered the Aber brass Browning .50 cal barrels and US Jerrycans from Royal Model & Eureka. I got both sets of Jerrycans and they are very nice. I ordered another set of figures as well. This ancient Tamiya kit is costing lots of dinero.

Two is one, one is none, that's my motto.

My point was to illustrate...

And therein lies a fundamental difference between us, Kurt. I didn't post to prove a point, I posted to help a fellow modeler, not guide him through an episode of Dora the Explorer. It can be quite refreshing...

And yes, a Scalemate search will actually reveal the ENTIRE kit number for that old Eduard PE set, not just a mystery portion. But once again, it was not available when I did that build.

Now, on to answering more questions.

A quick Google search gives me multiple responses, all of which indicate commander, gunner, driver and two loaders (five crew).

And I think that can be misleading. I'm quite certain it had a crew of five, but I find it difficult to believe they all worked in that tiny space. In a static position, for which that piece was primarily designed, I'd say those two "loaders" were more likely ammo handlers. I'd even venture to say the driver shared in those duties. Position improvement, setting fuzes, stacking ready rounds to be handed up...

It only takes one dude to load a 155, and contrary to what's been posted in this forum in the past, one man can handle an eight inch round if he's been working out, so two guys to load a 75mm round seems a bit of overkill.

So two in the fighting compartment still seems about right.

Good info about the production numbers. As impressive, and expensive, the AJ Press series for Japanese armor (I've got all 5), I find it somewhat bewildering that of all that information about the Ho-ni series, that there was anemic knowledge about production numbers.

And I have helped people, many, many, times. At first I thought he had some confusion based on differing information he'd found. It quickly became obvious that I was wrong. I thought I was getting BS responses instead of a real interest in finding an answer, so I left. [auto-censored] like that can happen.





I think we've been through this before, but to reiterate:

Not everything is about you.

You wrote that you didn't know if a fret for this kit had been made yet. I was pretty sure one had, so for other people who might read this thread I gave the information I had off the top of my head. I wasn't concerned about you because I was certain that if you wanted to know you could look it up yourself. Judging by your response quoted above, I was correct.

KL