Tag Archives: Military

Tanks and fighter planes, dioramas of World War II battles, dreadnoughts and battleships — LEGO builders have an obvious fascination with the arms and armor of the military-industrial complex. Find all these LEGO weapons of mass destruction right here on The Brothers Brick.

Friday Night Fights (Round 12)

Welcome back fight fans, to Sin City Nevada for another skull cracking edition of Friday Night Fights! Tonight’s middleweight bout features two veteran fighters in the prime of their building careers. Let’s go to the tale of the tape:

Fighting out of the red corner, the Bordeaux Bruiser…Eric Druon (Baronsat) and his “NAVETTE ULYSSE 31“.

And fighting out of the blue corner, from Nazareth Belgium….BeLgIuM ww2 bUiLdeR and his “sdkfz“.

As usual, constant reader, you are tasked with deciding the outcome of this pugilistic endeavor by way of comment. On the last edition of Friday Night Fights The Suboken Project gave his opponent a savage beating to the tune of a 9-0 victory, causing many in the fight community to wonder if the matchmaker has lost his wits. Only time will tell, tune in next week for more action!

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Learning to fly in WW2

The latest diorama by Gary the Procrastinator shows a not unusual day in 1943 at Randolph Field. Back in 1943, the US Military had a need for large numbers of new pilots to fight in World War II. Their standard training aircraft was the Boeing Stearman 75 Kaydet, often known simply as the Stearman. Like many aircraft of its era it was a so-called tail dragger, with an undercarriage that consisted of two main wheels and a tail wheel. Taking off and landing in such an aircraft could be tricky, in particular in crosswinds. In the diorama, one trainee pilot gets it right. The other, however, has veered off the runway, the main wheels have dug into the grass and the aircraft has nosed over.

The aircraft models are beautifully built in the colours typical for these trainers and, while the landscaping is a little more straightforward than on Gary’s march to Gettysburg diorama, the tyre marks on the runway and through the grass are a nice touch.

USS Queen of the West

New Guy (or gal) Saturday rolls down the mighty Mississippi river with JBIronWorks, who provides today’s exploration into American military history with his interpretation of a Civil War era warship. According to the builder:

The Queen of the West was a side wheel steamboat launched in 1854 for service on the Mississippi river and its offshoots. In 1861, she was bought by Colonel Charles Ellet Jr., along with eight other vessels, and was converted into a fleet of rams, ordered by the War Department. Sent into service in early 1862, they served in many engagements, including The Battle of Memphis, where Ellet was mortally wounded aboard the Queen, his flagship.

AH-51 Goldtooth

Jacob Unterreiner (4estFeller) has been on fire lately, producing some of the best models of his career as a ‘MOCist’. The builder claims it took him 20 hours to produce this gem for the “No Runway, No Problem” category of the 2013 Lego Military Build Competition. Enjoy tonight’s offering of modern military action.

One Monotank to Rule Them All

Here’s a creative take on a tank by Luke (LukeClarenceVan). You don’t see white tanks every day, and especially not monotracked ones. I particularly love the way the armor sits all the way down on the sides, and all those little antennae make me think of a caterpillar. Luke also makes great use of stickered and printed pieces on the sides.

Schnellboot Docked at Night

More and more it seems that we are seeing lighting integrated into a model’s presentation. When done right, it can create a wonderful ambiance for the photo. Nate Flood’s Schnellboot (Fast Boat) is a perfect example of this. The lighting and simple diorama sets the perfect mood for the image. Nate says that the photo is courtesy of Jim Liermann, so it appears this was a team effort.

For those that want to have a closer look, there are further photos of the Schnellboot in Nate’s flickr photostream.

Thanks a bunch to Mike for the heads up on this shot…I surely would have missed it.

Distant Thunder -new vehicles by Aleksander Stein

Aleksander Stein has not been building as much lately as he used to in previous years, and it has been a while since we last blogged one of his models, but that only serves to make it more exciting when he does post photographs of new models.

His latest, which he aptly calls ‘Distant Thunder’, shows a selection of vehicles participating in a military operation. Fictional military vehicles have rarely looked this realistic. The types of vehicles and the presentation remind me more than a little of photographs from the war in Afghanistan.

8.5-foot USS Yorktown WW2 aircraft carrier by Marcello De Cicco

It is not as big as the USS Intrepid by Ed Diment or the USS Harry Truman by Malle Hawking, but you have got to admire this LEGO aircraft carrier, USS Yorktown, by Marcello De Cicco.

The model represents the second aircraft carrier named USS Yorktown. The first was sunk in 1942, during the Battle of Midway. One of the new Essex class carriers then under construction was named Yorktown in her honour and had a long and distinguished career that lasted until the Vietnam war. Like her sister ship, USS Intrepid, she has been preserved and now is part of a museum.

The model was built to a scale of 1/108. That is a rather small scale for building aircraft models and I am impressed by the level of detail that the builder has managed to achieve. Small is a relative term, however. With aircraft carriers being stupendously big things, this model is still a pretty whopping 8.5 ft. (or about 2.6 m) long. The photo quality does not really meet our usual standards, but I can imagine that something this big is not exactly easy to photograph and the ships in the background do not look shabby either.

Many thanks to Brick Tales for the heads up.

Skis, Guns and a big LEGO Fan

The pedant in me is very happy that Karwik has, after many years, given me the designation of a rad ski-mobile (technically an aerosan) I built way back when. He’s also given all of us an absolutely excellent LEGO rendition of the NKL-26 which totally puts my older one to shame. And since you need to be freezing in your boots to use this thing, I promise not to complain about the 10C minimum on this Winter’s day…

And a Chickamauga rises from the ashes.

Mike Yoder has been working on a Confederate sidewheel steamer for the last few weeks. However, after a catastrophic fall last week it was uncertain whether the model would be finished. But Mike pushed on despite the hardships, and I think the results are worth the pain and suffering.

Easily the neatest feature for me is the working engine.

Queen of Hearts

Jon Hall (JonHall18) returns to TBB for the second time this year with another impeccable war-bird, the H-90 Falcon. Jon is one of those go-to builders for many of us on this site, a slump-buster if you will, whose builds can always be counted on to be bloggable.

Col. Strong Vincent marches to Gettysburg

Okay, just one more — I couldn’t pass up the beautiful landscaping in this scene by Gary the Procrastinator, who managed to finish his diorama well in advance of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Gary has depicted Col. Strong Vincent leading the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division of the V Corps of the Army of the Potomac in an overnight march to the decisive battle that would place the Union Army on the road to victory. Strong was mortally wounded defending Little Round Top during the battle.

Gary built this as part of a collaborative display for BrickFair Virginia this summer.

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