# Tamiya 1/100 Bucc - SAAF Striker!



## Faust (Dec 1, 2012)

The British officially decided, in a Defence White Paper in 1957 that missiles, not manned aircraft, were the way of the future. However, since there were a few programs that were already too far along to stop, these “last few” were allowed to reach completion. On aircraft was the legendary Lightning interceptor. The other was the Buccaneer, an large, fast and tough naval attack aircraft. Eventually the Bucc’ went on to serve not only the Royal Navy, but also the RAF, taking part in the 1991 Gulf War with great success.

However, while it was a great plane, the poor Bucc’ didn’t do well on the export market. The only customer was South Africa. Their small force of Bucc’s long outlived the RAF versions, and while not a lot of people know about them, they performed yeoman service against the backgrounds of crippling sanctions and worldwide political disapproval.

No surprise then, that I wanted to build the Tamiya 1/100 Bucc’ as one of the South African ones! I do love the oddballs and little-knows, and it helps that a.) the kit comes with nice SAAF decals, as well as b.) their paint schemes are really cool. The little Tamiya kit might be old, but it’s still a great built, with a bit of attention leveraged in the right spots!

Check out this little old gem here, and let me know what you think!

*https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/planes/tamiya-1100-buccaneer-s-2s-50/*


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

Looks great. You don't see many of the 1/100 Tamiya kits built, but all of them are really nice.


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## Faust (Dec 1, 2012)

Thanks!

Yeah, these little Tamiya kits are amazing. I can't believe they're as old as they are. I mean, it's unbelievable compared to some of the crud that American companies were making at the time, and even a couple of decades later! No wonder they got such a good reputation!


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

To me what killed the series was the weird assortment of largely unrelated aircraft they made. The 1/100 series lacked any real focus so no matter what you collected there were only one or two applicable kits. For example, the WW2 series only included a Messerschmitt 262 and 163, both of which were sold in one box. Likewise they did an F-86 and MiG-15 kit but no other Korean War era jets. Hot jets at the time the series was active like the Phantom and Crusader were overlooked, yet they made the relatively obscure MiG-19 (a truly bad kit) and the Buccaneer. 

Tamiya does reissue some of these kits from time to time. But even the old kits are fairly common. The big B-52 is actually pretty cool and a nice interim size between the giant Monogram kit and the small 1/144 kits.


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