Model Armour

Modern Bastion Cage Barriers

Manufacturer: ET Model

Scale: 1/35

Material: Photo-etch

Serial Number: EA35-063, EA35-064 & EA35-065

Price:  £4.83 

Introduction

ET Model from China has a rapidly expanding catalogue of photo-etched and detail sets for a wide variety of kits in varying scales, together with a very prolific release schedule.

Set Contents

There are three different sets of bastions released by ET Model this month, each slightly different from the other two, although each is constructed in an almost identical way. Of the three sets available, #063 contains parts to make six bastions, whilst the other two sets each contain only sufficient parts to make four.

Each bastion, regardless of which size or set it derives from, is as said, constructed in the same manner. First the one part that makes up the body of the bastion is removed from the fret, the attachment points cleaned off carefully with a small file, and the four sides folded to make the rectangular tube. The type of bastion the set represents is a Hesco Bastion, type 'Concertainer', available in 13 different configurations. The foldable sides are actually joined in this kit in nearly exactly the same way as the real one was. A steel coil was threaded between two panels, so joining them. In this set, the wire to construct the 'coil' is actually provided on the photo-etched fret, but once removed I found it almost impossible to use, and far too 'springy' for the intended purpose. Of course it could be annealed to remove some of this springiness, but there's really no point since almost all modellers will very easily be able to put their hand on some spare wire of an appropriate size to substitute for it, which is what I did.

Once the body of the bastion is built, a liner supplied as a print on thin brown paper is cut out, folded itself, and inserted into the basket. This represents the polypropylene geotextile lining found on the real thing. If you refer to the photograph shown below of the one I've built, you'll see that it is slightly incorrect in that I've folded over the edges of the lining to the inside, whereas these should be folded out and over the edges of the basket before they were filled.

Conclusion

These could prove very useful indeed. There are resin ones that I am aware of, bu these are the first photo-etched ones I've seen, and so present the modeller with more options...however....you do have to fill them yourself. Nothing a little wall filler and some sand can't sort out! I'm puzzled as to why ET Model decide to make these frets from what I suppose is some sort of nickel alloy, rather than the more common brass, although I suspect it has something to do with its resistance to breaking when folded. I'm also supposing they have a very good reason for not supplying a bottom on the brown paper insert they provide to represent the polypropylene lining. Which meant that I had to supply my own before I could fill it. When all is said and done, they are incredibly useful if you're a modern diorama builder, and so cheap you could afford to buy multiple types in multiples! I just hope ET Model come up with the other ten types now!

My thanks to ET MODEL for the review sample.