Awesome, Michel @michel-verschuere
Perfectly aligned, your fine detail work did indeed pay off.

It may appear as not much difference since yesterday but in fact there is! Yesterday was a dry-fit-final-repetition...

• The two-piece metal barrels have been merged with epoxy

• The deflection mechanism was epoxied too and the upper and lower support merged (and glued in place)

• I added some cabling detail on the backside, but I won't exaggerate this for lack of references

• The fuse setters and loading mechanism had been added, which took some intricate work in order to leave it workable

I think now that final assembly will be for tomorrow.

Stay tuned for the next update and happy modeling, Michel.

Looking perfect indeed, my friend @michel-verschuere!

This one is ready for the paint shop! Did the main assembly, adding the compensators (workable) and the gun posts for the gunners and loader-supervisors. You can see some detailed pictures here.

Will now apply black enamel and pre-shade with white. I decided a German grey finish monochrome with some weathering.

Hope you like it!

Happy modeling, Michel.

@fiveten this model is not really from scratch, it is Takom's 2023 kit dated 2015. Seems sold out now but got mine last year - if I remember correct - when researching the topic of Flak Towers. I read there was a 1:35 resin kit before costing a fortune but this kit is the first and only go at it in injection molding. The kit does have issues as indicated in reviews I found. You need a good dose of patience, persistence and sanding sticks to bring it to a good end. Main job for me - as indicated in this feed - was adjusting the elevation and deflection mechanism for the heavier turned aluminum gun barrels I opted for. Glad you like it! Next report on this one will go in the main feed and then I will turn to finish the flak tower setting, which definitely is a scratch job!

Michel, @michel-verschuere
It has been a little while since I have had an opportunity to check on your progress. Needless to say, when I finished reading these latest installments, I am very impressed with the quality of craftsmanship on display in front of us here.

I also like how you have incorporated a figure to show the size of these cannons. I have been around several 88's as they were being restored, and they were big... I can only imagine how much larger these 128's were, much less in a tandem mount like this one.

During my military service, I have been around a lot of different weapons systems, and I have heard first hand just how loud it is when something similar in size was fired. The closest thing I can think of would be a 120 MM smoothbore main gun on a M-1A1 Abrams, or possibly a 155 MM mounted on a M-109.

The overall noise level increases as the length of the cartridge grows. I'm sure things like the overall barrel length has something to do with the report as well, as does a muzzle break or bore evacuator.

I'll bet these babies would "bark" pretty good, and their bite was much worse ! I have seen in various television WW2 documentaries, where twin 40MM Bofor's (or even the quad setups) would alternate between left and right barrels during the firing sequence. These were typically used on US Navy warships and they were used extensively to repulse Kamikaze attacks.

Do you know if these 128's were fired in a similar manner ?

and can you imagine the recoil on these monsters ? Incredible...

All of your additional work to make it sit properly definitely took a lot of thought and labor... but the fruits of this was definitely worthwhile. The turned aluminum barrels are a huge improvement over the kit supplied parts.

I look forward to seeing your completed model posted on the main feed.

Louis, @lgardner
Thanks for checking in my friend, also @garybrantley thanks for your encouragement!
I finished all aspects of the build by now there was some work left on the Eduard set I completed yesterday in the evening. There are electronic consoles merged on the front of the gun mount. The Eduard set details them well better than the kit, including switches and the likes thereof. I now separated all main parts and gave them a primer with black enamel (Revell 8) using my airbrush. In some areas it appeared that a little sanding job remains but generally, the sanding and filling already completed worked out well.

I hope to continue paining the model with flat German grey after pre-shading with white, also enamel some time this week.

Regarding the use of the guns, I don't think @lgardner they were used as 40mm Bofors (Pom-poms). As far as I read and can tell from the model, the guns could in principle fire independently. So alternating regime or even just one when the other one was out of order. In general, these guns were fixed mounted (apart from some ending up on a railcar for use near railroad switchyards) and even most on these Flak towers in Hamburg, Berlin and Vienna. The main reason why they were used as twins was the firing rate, that virtually doubled from 1 shot every 12 seconds to 1 in 6 seconds for the zwilling.

The rate was slow because the following manipulations happened:

1. shell placed on fuse setters by personnel
2. fuse set and shell transferred to rammer
3. shell entered in firing chamber
4. breach closed
5. electric shell fusing

Boom!

The direction control was electronic via optical or radar tracking through an analog computer which transferred the tracking signal electrically to the Zwilling, directing elevation, deflection and fuse time delay. The operators oversaw the setting of these gun parameters but did not directly need to intervene. A scheme very much ahead of its time (interfacing with machines through electronic means, servo direction of operational angles, etc.), just like with 88 mm AA guns already, these 128mm beasts were only bigger even. The main job for the operators/gunners was to keep these behemoths fed with new shells and remove the flaming hot spent shell casings continuously using asbestos gloves.

Hope you like! Michel.