Greetings from Lancashire!

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Morkath
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Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Feb 14, 2020 11:41 am

Greetings from Lancashire!

Post by Morkath »

I've already posted a shorter version of this at the bottom of a thread I created (in General Questions) to ask about a fault I was experiencing. Of course then I noticed a message from Matdragon explaining the rules and posting your intro here so I figured I should put it where it belongs.

I'm from Lancashire in the UK, I've hovered around for a few years reading the forums but never joined as frankly I'm an odd sort of RC tank person.

Been into tanks for for as long as I can remember, just hit 40 last week. I'm an Army brat (entire family has been Army going back centuries). I spent a not insignificant amount of my childhood in Germany, Herford specifically. Father was WO1 attached to signals (I think, it's been a while). I don't remember the details but I got left in the motor pool fairly often. So sitting in and on armoured vehicles like the Chieftan whilst they worked on them was pretty normal, then there were the Rhine army shows etc.

After I left school I did join the army with the intent of trying my luck at getting into a Challenger tank (and then the Challenger 2 hopefully when it launched a few years later, it was still in development when I was joining) but cutbacks had taken hold and that was a rare gamble. It was far more likely you'd end up in a Scorpion or Warrior. Didn't matter in the end as during my Medical they discovered a rare heart condition and that was pretty much the end of that career. It took the NHS 25 years to advance enough to be able to surgically correct it (for wich I am grateful) but they finally sorted it (though too late to serve) so I'm a computer engineer instead.

I'm still a tank nut but generally I've collected models rather than RC, Forces of Valor 1/32 pretty much all the models, Forces of Valor 1/16 extreme metal series (Tiger 1 (Ausf. E), Tiger 2 (Ausf. B), D-Day Sherman.

Forces of Valor were always slow to release models and their Extreme Metal series was even worse at 1 model every 5 years, then they were bought by if I recall correctly a Chinese corporation and well, that's probably the end of them and almost certainly the extreme metal series.

As an alternative I looked at RC and found that whilst the paint applications aren't very impressive the details themselves are actually very good and you can get accessories to improve them if you wish. So I bought my first RC, a Torro full metal (hull, gearbox, tracks etc) Tiger 2, so that I could paint and pretty much turn it into a fairly accurate looking model.

The RC element always appealed to me but frankly I'm very busy with work and don't get a lot of chances to get out much so generally it's an afterthought even though I do prefer to fully upgrade the tanks whilst they are current models, you never know when the parts will go end of line and maybe even the scale change. So with that in mind I like to check they are fully working.

I went looking for Challenger 2's and the only one I found back then was the Mark 1 tanks 1/6th scale, which I almost bought several times, unfortunately I have a really nice coupe, it's big and the tank would fit with the seats down but getting the behemoth weighing as much as it does over the bumper and into the car without damaging the car would be a nightmare, so I've put a pin in that until I get a bigger vehicle maybe (hopefully they still make them when the time comes though the price has already gone up by around a grand since I first got a quote from the fella that makes them).

Then, finally I noticed Heng Long had released a 1/16th Challenger 2, took a while to pull the trigger but I did and it arrived with a fault (main cannon not firing). After getting some help to try and resolve my fault with the new Heng Long Challenger 2 I bought (thanks again all!) after reading through these forums I started to get the bug, the more i read of the Challenger 2 builds the more interested I became, I drew up a spreadsheet of what I wanted to do to the tank (in an Ideal world) and hey, it looks like a hell of a lot of fun so I' think you're stuck with me!
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43rdRecceReg
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Posts: 6295
Joined: Fri Jul 31, 2015 11:38 am
Location: North West Highlands, Scotland

Re: Greetings from Lancashire!

Post by 43rdRecceReg »

Well, thanks for an immersive, and articulate, mini-biog. :thumbup: It's easy to see where the armour bug came from :D My own Dad got as far as Bremen during WW2, with his Recce group; Granddad got as far as the Army hospital in Le Treport, after being gassed in WW1, and I got as far as being a few years short of compulsory National Service. (Though all of my cousins went into the Army, or the RAF). All my Uncles and Great Uncles also served. The stories, humour, stoicism, (and oft-times wee bits of bias :shh: ) all filter down and influence one's own choices. It's no surprise that they often point in the direction of scale model war machines... :D :wave: All roads lead to RCTW :haha:
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please"- Mark Twain.
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midlife306
Warrant Officer 1st Class
Posts: 2238
Joined: Sun Aug 27, 2017 10:34 am

Re: Greetings from Lancashire!

Post by midlife306 »

Welcome along from East Lancashire
If you ever fancy venturing out with your tank, there’s a club that meets at Hyde Manchester on the first Sunday of the month.
Cheers
Wayne


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spee34
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Posts: 55
Joined: Sun Jan 05, 2020 7:23 am

Re: Greetings from Lancashire!

Post by spee34 »

hello and welcome here :)

best regards

Dominik ;)
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