Continuing on with the Amusing Hobby 280mm mortar ammunition. The mortar shell provided in the kit is a bit dodgy looking as far as what you would expect a mortar bomb to look like it checks off most of the boxes but it was bugging me a bit as it features the fuze on the nose of the bomb body that looks like a tiny little nipple sticking up from the nose and not like what you would expect an artillery shell fuze (mortar or cannon) to look like. I could at this point just remove the offending little nub but then I would be fighting the urge to go further and drill out the nose for the fuze well that would be present if the fuze were removed or a filler plug that would have to be removed prior to inserting said fuze. I opted for an alternative solution. Hide the offending pip and leave it be.
What could be used for this purpose? Thankfully I have a box of odds and ends within reach that contains stuff that has not been donated or further categorized and put away so a quick inspection of these odds and ends netted some suitable candidates for the role of obscuring the odd little fuze on the mortar bomb. Some return rollers from an unknown kit presented the best and quickest solution to the problem. I assembled to of the things, one on top of the other, scraped away some parts that were standing proud from the back of each were the return roller would have mated up with an axle of some kind on the original vehicle and all of a sudden I had a protective collar to place over the nose end of the mortar bomb. There was still a little space left for another single return roller to be placed behind the dodgy fin section of the mortar bomb to provide the needed protection at that end of the munition. While the bare material looks a bit on the primitive side, it fulfills the function I envisioned for it and take care of that tiny fuze problem.
One more thing to add. I find it laughable that the Amusing Hobby box art for this kit depicts two gunners carrying one of these 280mm mortar shells in the box. That mortar shell is more than two-man lift/two man carry. More like four man lift/four man carry at a minimum.
