BMD's and BTRD

Well I didn't quite realise it at the time my my last post was my 150th post - so I'm quite chuffed with managing to make it this far!

Enough self-congratulation - on with the show.

Next up are a couple of ACE Models BMD-1s.  As I said in the last post, the under-carriage on these were a bit of a nightmare, a real lesson in pain-in-the-neckery - basically because they allow you to have the wheels up or down.  Once I had decided what to do with them and which hatches to leave open - it was all relatively straight forward. 

I added some standard Liberation Miniatures Russian Tank crew as the drivers, and did some head swaps on some more tank crew to create VDV vehicle commanders.  I'm happy with the end result - (it would of helped if I had put one of the turrets on properly!) so here they are:

At the same time I quickly worked up an old MMS BTRD and added a GRAN or ACE ZU-23 to give my VDV some more AAA.  Here it is:

And here it is with the Gaz-66 AAA from last week:

Finally here is a group shot of my most recent VDV armour:

Thanks

Richard

ACE Models 2S9 Nona

Next up on the list is the ACE Models 2S9 Nona self-propelled 120mm mortar - which comes in a box like this:

You can find some general info on this AFV here and here

For an ACE kit, this one was pretty straight forward - it probably helped that I had just built 2 ACE BMD-1s (whose general fit and wheels had stressed me no end) so I had overcome all those issues before building this kit.

The biggest decision was whether to have the undercarriage raised or lowered.  Raised is for parachute landings and perhaps for firing from a position where you want to lower the the vertical view/exposure of the vehicle.  Lowered means locking the wheels in position for standard movement.  If I had 2 Nona's I'd do one of each (maybe some day) but I decided to filed this one with the wheels lowered so it fit better in with all my other BMD's and BTRD's.

I opened one hatch (one of the real benefits of the ACE kits is you can have pretty much any hatch opened or closed) and added a Liberation crew member.

So here it is:

Finally - here's a youtube clip showing various 2S9 Nona's in action



Thanks

Richard

S&S Models - Soviet Trucks

It's been too long...

I've finally been able to finish off a few models - most of which is part of my Task 2 entry in the 2013 Group Build on The Guild  I'll be putting it all up over the next few days - but thought I would start off today with a bunch of Soviet soft skins.

First up is an S&S Ural 375.  I got this to act as a supply truck for my 2S1 artillery battery shown here and here - and hopefully soon shown all together... Anyway - this was a great, simple (and huge) kit/truck - which goes together very nicely (resin and metal) and fulfills the purpose I wanted - an excellent representation of a much used Soviet truck - without having to deal with axles etc like a plastic kit.  For some reason I find the underside of truck kits very stressful!

So - here it is:

Next is 3 Gaz 66 trucks - again all from S&S.  Two of these will primarily act as the tows (portees) for my VDV's 120mm mortars while the final one will act as the portee for one of my VDV ZU-23.  Again this is a straight forward resin and metal kit.  There is an excellent review of it on Andy's blog Cold War Gamer

Here they are:

This next one is my fav.  I added a false floor to raise the gun a little - the ZU-23 in this case is a GRAN kit.

Finally - here's a look at all the soft skins together

Sorry if the pics are a little dark...

Anyway - more tomorrow

Richard