During the week of 18-21 March 2003, Scale Specialties principals, Norm and Pen Harms,  attended and introduced the latest offerings featuring the first part of the soon to be released U.S. Armored Divisions decals at the GAMA trade show. Along with these newcomers, were shown the already standard British and German markings for the N-Scale Minifig and Don Perrin lines of miniatures. These U.S. World War II sheets, will provide insignias and markings allowing U.S. forces to venture into the North Africa, Sicily, and Italian Campaigns. Prominently featured will be found the division and sub-unit compositions for the First and Second U.S. Armored Divisions.  These insignias provide not only the larger regimental markings but offer bumper codes for the subordinate units of these respective divisions.  Visit our SMS products page for an up-close-and-personal view of these sheets and more photos.

Due to the nature of the instruction sheet, which will have to accompany these various decals, none of the individual decal sheets will be released until the subject matter can be provided in its entirety, i.e., all associated U.S. armored decal sheets to be released simultaneously. Stay tuned for additional information.

It should be noted that the tables and back-drops at GAMA were in black, so if it appears that the table-top is floating in space...that's why. We really weren't lost in a black hole somewhere.

 
After everything got set up -- note the magnifying glasses-- some of these decals are VERY small. (Remember, we said bumper codes provided along with three-inch U.S. stars for use on the bumpers, in actuality in N-Scale a 3 inch star translates to be 0.018 inches high.)



The photo-board in the background contains pix that can be seen on our SMS products page, and also features some of the bumper codes as the photos were generally three-times larger than the original vehicles.  Note upper right - there's a quarter beside the truck.



At the top right of the Squadron-Signal book is the Stuart tank decaled as is the one on the book cover, including the American 48-star flag.



And, there were little signposts -- where the troops had been and where they were going, in fact it traced the chronology from Norfolk to Berlin. (more below),  the General Lee through the Sherman through the Pershing Tanks.


Well - I suppose you could call this a melée -- note the Tigers and Panthers (don't forget the Mark IV) in and amongst the American and allied vehicles.


And speaking of Tigers -- the rear of the turret has the 506 SPA Tiger with "W" in background (actually you can see the insignia better here in the photo than you can up-close-and-personal -- but as you can see, all the detail is there!).



Onwards to St. Lo and later Bastogne....(I think "Waldo" is in the lead jeep.)



Over the beaches and by railroad car -- Minifigs are advancing, and you know who they are by looking at the Scale Specialties decals.  The LVT in the foreground (slightly out of focus) belongs to the Army, you can tell by the star insignia on the gun turret whereas the following vehicle belongs to the Marines who generally did not feature this insignia on their LVTs.  In the background two U.S. Army Lee's are moving to the embarkation point; you can tell they belong to the 2nd Armored Battalion of the 13th Armored Regiment of the 1st Armored Division by the clearly viewed insignias for same.