Wednesday, December 14

Bellona

With thanks to contributor Jim Walkley, how about this for a walk down memory lane for the older amongst us?? 





..and from that page.. U-RV2 I do believe.... 
 

...and U-RV9..


...and look'ee there - a few pieces of U-WV1 or 2 - that brick wall set was the one we all wanted - being vacuum formed you could make yards and yards of wall simply by using it as a mould for plaster of paris....
 




You'd give your right arm for either that English Civil War star fort, or the Bunker Hill fortification...



Brilliant - cheers, Jim!

28 comments:

  1. I have the bridges (I see in your picture that the wooden planking over the ruined bridge has been lost) and also the river, which gets used a lot. Sadly missed. Light weight and practical.

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    1. Trebian - may have had it once, now long gone...

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  2. I still use several Bellona items from their 6mm range and walls from their 20mm range

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    1. St Steiner - not surprised - they'll probably be good for the next 300 years or whatever the decomposition rate is of plastic... long after we're gone anyway... :o)

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  3. Oh ! my Lord ! I remember these back in the late 60s - early 70s , had the Menin Road and the bridges , Tony

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  4. Never heard of Bellona but they do look useful.

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    1. What???? How old are you???

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    2. Now, now Trebian, play nicely...

      Jonathan - not sure they were ever available in the good ole US of A?? The hobby being what it was back in those days, a small British company was unlikely to export I guess, so no, doesn't surprise me...

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    3. Trebian, despite being at this hobby for more the forty-five years, I guess old enough to know better than to publicly display my ignorance! Really, I am not familiar with these products. Luckily, Steve has come to my aid and helped bail me out of this quagmire!

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    4. Well, in that case maybe they were a British/European thing. If you ever read any Military Modelling magazines or Wargamers Newsletter their adverts were ubiquitous in the 70s and 80s. They're also regularly to be seen in the photos illustrating the classic books of the period - Don F, Terry W Charles G et al and listed in the suppliers in the back. Of course, none of that compares with the memory of seeing the plastic packets of them hanging up in your local model shop!

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  5. Hard to believe these were state of the art in the late '60s. I had almost all the Landscape pieces and they looked great (through the rose-tinted glasses of 4+ decades!!!!)

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    1. Jeremy - ah, it was what you could do with them and a bag of plaster of paris that won us over... one of my fellow gamers back then was turning out walls by the mile..... :o)) To be fair though, and the bridge I have is a case in point, based, undercoated and dry brushed they came up really well...

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    2. It never crossed my mind to use them as a mold - I suspect my Airfix ACW games needed more fences than walls? But don't get me started on those Modroc plaster of Paris hills ......

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  6. Did Bellona do the 2foot square ruined town or jetty and beach sets?I remember them from my youth battling over them with wrg infantry platoon action rules.
    Alan

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    1. I don't think so. I had the ruined town, and I reckon it was closer to 3ft square. Brilliant.

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    2. Tradgardmastare - Airfix perhaps???

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    3. Definitely NOT Airfix.

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  7. Glad I have opened up memory lane for some folk - years of hoarding justified. I believe the ruined town and the jetty were Bellona.

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    1. Tradgardmastare/Jim/Trebian - Battleground apparently - more here:

      http://www.warbird-photos.com/gpxd/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19959

      ..and a picture here:

      https://imageshack.com/f/0zruinedcitycloseupj

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  8. I never had the pleasure, just wondering would they not be rather fragile?

    Also, just wondering - roughly what era are your campaign maps? (on the link to the left)

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    1. CK - some were, some weren't, all of them benefited from basing firmly, and a filling of plaster of paris, or plasticine, added weight/stiffening...

      The maps are Napoleonic era I believe...

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  9. Remembered well but if you still want your fix then check out Amera Plastic mouldings they do some interesting pieces I use their Islands etc. For naval gaming

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    1. Hi Graham - yes - saw them on display at a number of shows recently... I wonder if the more modern gamer would even consider them given the plethora of MDF stuff about??

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  10. I enjoyed that trip back in time, still looks good to me. Perhaps we have all become a bit too MDF obsessed these days, well I have anyway! Thanks for sharing Steve.

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    1. Cheers Lee... the added advantage of course is that when you opened the bag and took your wall sections out (etc.), they didn't smell like a three week old bonfire.. :o)

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  11. Oh, I do remember some of those! Dates me rather, but I don't have any now. As I recall it was prone to become brittle and split? Or maybe I was just clumsy. Enjoyed the nostalgia anyway Steve, thanks.

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