British Helicopters - Part 2 - TOW Lynx AH.1

Time for the next update - and this time something a little more shooty! Having a Gazelle in a wargame is all well and good - but what can it shoot! Everyone wants a proper anti-tank helicopter, and so did I. What I really wanted was a couple of Lynx AH.1 helos armed with 8 TOW missiles.

This one seriously cool helo, which you can find out a little more about here
Suffice to say its very, very, very fast and incredibly manoeuvrable - I beleive it was one of the first helicopter that could perform complete loops and rolls.

I had to search around for a bit for a TOW armed Lynx as the Airfix offering (almost always my first port of call) -

- is armed with 6 HOT missiles for some reason (I think they might have trialed this, but it never went into service). So I decided not to get this one...

I soon discovered that Corgi did a diecast version -

- that is absolutely beautiful, but comes with a awe inspiring price tag as well - I'll let you discover that for yourself. Again. not for me...

Then, trawling from ebay I discovered a Polish company - Plastyk - makes a few variants of the Lynx, including this one -

- at it was available on ebay for what I thought was a very reasonable price, so I thought, why not? - and grabbed one to see what it was like.

Plastyk Army Lynx AH.1 Mk.1 Review

Well what can I say about this kit. Well before I say anything bad, I will say that it wasn't bad enough to stop me buying another one - so I have two Lynx AH.1. I think you end up with a pretty reasonable model of the Lynx that will certainly stand up to wargaming. It's solid, nice and chunky and is unlikely to break if you accidently knock it over on the table. There are basically no fiddily little parts and it goes together reasonably well. I don't consider myself to be a super model maker - and I coped with it without to many problems.

On the other hand - it ain't a German Revell or even British Airfix kit. At times, such as when you have to attach the tail boom to the main cabin - get ready to do a bit of carving. The small windows below the cockpit did not fit that well and you really could not do any interior, if you wanted to. I didn't so that was not a concern for me.

My major problem though was with the TOW missile launcher and how they attached to the main body of the helo. Obviously Plastyk make this basic kit, and then add bits and peices to it in the box, plus new instructions, to make different variations. This means that the basic kit doesn't necessarily have the fittings for different attachments. Nor are the instructions what I would call excellent (although better than ACE) so when I went to attach the TOW launchers I had to use my imagination, and a drill. The first time I did this, I thought I was putting them in the right place, and then spent a few days convincing myself that it was OK - but when I made the second kit I moved them further down the back of the cabin and I am much happier. I still have no real idea where the launchers are to go exactly - but I can live with them.

The final problem was the decals. The decals were quite thick and had enormous clear surrounds. I tried to cut them into shape and it worked to some degree, but on the roundels in particular, it wasn't the greatest result.

Painting

I painted them exactly the same way as I painted the Gazelle.

So onto the pictures (please forgive their crappiness)

Here they come:


The first kit (with the launchers in the wrong place):


Let's pretend they both look like this:


or this:


or this:


Here they are back in formation:


And finally a couple shots of all three in formation:




Onto some youtube clips:







That's about it for now

Have fun

Richard

British Helicopters - Part 1 - Gazelle AH.1

For some reason the first vehicle I've completed for my British Army on the Rhine (BAOR) contingent turned out to be an Airfix Gazelle helicopter (excluding the two Harriers - which were of course RAF, not BAOR). This helo will be the first in what I envisage as being a little series of air support helo for my various forces - starting with the Brits.

I hadn't actually considered making a Gazelle at all until I read a couple of books - one I have mentioned before here on my blog the other I've not. The first discusses the Gazelle, mainly in terms of how they are used to assist TOW armed Lynx helicopters to find and strike at armoured targets.

The second is a book by Ed Macy - previously the pilot and author of "Apache" which describes one of his tours of Afghanistan flying an Apache Gunship. In his next book:



Macy talks about his training and why he originally chose to fly the Gazelle over the Lynx (before the Apache was even really being considered), the training and role of the Gazelle generally. He also describes how the Gazelle was used in Northern Ireland. Well worth a look.

More basic information abou the Gazelle can be found here at wikipedia

Airfix Gazelle - The Model

What can I say apart from this is a fairly simple kit - not the greatest model I've ever made, but certainly not the worst. It all fits together fairly well (the front canopy is a little too big) and has reasonable instructions that means you don't have to guess at anything (which is a nice change from ACE kits and some others).

Painting

Again this was fairly staright forward.

1. Undercoat - Citadel Black
2. Base coat - spray FoW Warpaint "British Armour"
3. Dark Green Bands - Vallejo Dark Green
4. Rotors and engine - Citadel Chaos Black
5. Pin Wash - pretty rough - Citadel Babab Black
6. Dry Brush - base coat green over pin washed areas - Vallejo Russian Uniform
7. Engine - Vallejo Gun Metal
8. Engine - Rotor area - Citadel Babab Black - Exhaust area - Cital Orygn Flesh
9. Perspex - Vallejo Luftwaffe Uniform
10. Perspex - brush on Citadel Gloss Varnish

I know the perspex isn't fantastic or even great, but I wanted to kept it fairly basic, and see how the Luftwaffe Uniform/Gloss varnish looked. I'll live with it.

Just in case you're wondering - I decided against the Grey/Green striped Gazelle that you often see and went with Green/Dark Green instead (obviously). I decided I wanted all my BAOR helo's to use this colour scheme instead. I'm pretty sure these colours were used at times and it will fit in better with the rest of the force as well.

So here are the pictures:















So basically I'm pretty happy with how this turned out and will now move onto the Lynx's.

Here's a couple of Gazelle related youtube links:

S&S Soviet Reinforcements

Well, back on track now...

A few weeks ago I got a nice little package from S&S Models - thanks very much Shaun for his prompt and very friendly service.

ASU-85

These little beauties were incredibly hard to get previously. I think one Polish company produced resin kits of them that were expensive and very fiddlily to make. The Guild added these to S&S Models special 15+ club and there was quickly enough people keen on them to convince S&S to make some. Which they did, obviously. So now my VDV can be supported by these assault guns.

Here is the wikipedia link on the ASU-85. Steven Zaloga's book on the VDV basically states that the ASU-85's designed as tank hunters, were actually pretty crap, as the 85mm gun could not penetrate the armour of modern MBTs, and the VDV had the missile armed BMDs anyway, so the ASU-85s became infantry support assault guns rather than tank hunters.

Anyway - here are some photos - lighting no great as one of my lamps died and my new lamp has a yellow bulb only...









Next up is an S&S BMD-1P. This is my last BMD-1 as I now have enough to field 2 complete companies (1 of BMD-1 and other of BMD-2). I particularly like the AT-4 Spigot ATGM it is armed with, and I asked Shaun for a few of these so I can go back and refit the rest of my BMDs to this standard, and a couple of VDV missile teams, and maybe even some of my ACE BMP-1s.





Finally a UAZ-469. I haven't painted any crew for it yet - as the scenario I got it for has it parked to begin with.









Finally some youtube clips - very hard to find one with the ASU-85...


This one shows a couple of ASU-85s around the 35 second mark.


Nice short UAZ-469 clip


Another good UAZ clip - showing its fording abilities

That's all for now - already close to finishing the next project - so more on that soon.

Richard