Beyond The Sprues
Modelling => Completed GBs => Group and Themed Builds => Desert Warfare GB => Topic started by: father ennis on January 18, 2013, 08:39:21 AM
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I've been lurking on here since I found a link here and thought I would put my toe in the water for this group build. I'm forming an alternative history to give this some basis in an alternative history. Briefly,the Dunkirk and Normandy invasions failed. This caused the U.S. and Britain to call a truce with Germany. The U.S. decided to forus on the war against the Japanese. Stalin and Churchill have both died of natural causes. The Japanese have formed a real Asian-Co-prosperity League. They are joined by Korea and large parts of China. The Russian's have now taken notice of this when attacks were launched against targets in Western Russia by the combined forces.
The British and American's have supplied equipment to the Russians. The British had sent them lots of armour including Valantine tanks. This .kept them in the war but large amounts of local production facalities were lost to Germany. The Russians were very good at battlefield recovery and used the recovered equipment. One such vehicle was the tracked armored car made from the body of old wornout armored cars with the tracks and running gear of lost tanks. Never liking the original Valantine tanks. They used the turrets and running gear and melted the rest into metal for new vehicles.
The BA series of armored cars were an old and tested design which they incorporated with the useable parts of the destroyed tanks. This resulted in the creation of a new chassis with the supension from the Valantine tanks,as well as, the turrets and other smaller items (radios,etc.). This is the subject of my model.
I used two kits for this. One was the BA-3 from Zvezda. I had looted it for parts,already. I used the Maquette Valantine XI kit for the kit parts. I first sectioned the chassis tub by removing the flat center section. It didn't have the outer parts of the suspension which hadn't fully molded which was good for this build as I wanted something that looked "different" from where it came from. Leftovers from a Dragon panzer III gave up detail parts as well. Following the build of the chassis pan I made a new front and then built the body of the A/C ( actually,I built this first to fit the pan). I added the trimmed turret base from the Valantine . This raised it a bit and allowed me to have space to turn the turret !!! It also gives a few small details. I built the turret OOB ... Sortof. I used a muzzlebrake made from one of the smoke candel launchers instead of the crappy one from the kit,not to mention. The kit instructions show the same one on both barrels in the kit. A few parts are in different locations and a second venterlator to the turret roof rear. After mating the basic body to the chassis, I had to cover the sides where I removed a section from the length as well as the sides. I used the fenders from the a/c because it was part of the body and I didn't want to mess with it. I did cut down the fenders front the Pz.III. This is as far as my build has gotten,so far. I attached the boggie systems with pieces of rod. I changed the way they were used on the Valantine by just changing their positions and used a mix of the two types of wheels. More on this in the future ...
As far as the desert build goes,I'm planning to finish it in camo used by the Russians for desert areas. I'm placing it in the forces used to fight in Mongolia which has large desert areas. Hope you like it when it's done ...
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Sounds neat and I like your story premise. Hope to see more of it and some photos soon! Welcome aboard man 8)
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Thanks for the welcome !!! I'm working on that right now. I don't know if I can upload pictures from my cell straight from the phone or not but I will try to get some up asap ... Now if I can just get the wheels to stay on I'm in business ... !!!
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I look forward to seeing your build. ;D
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Have I mentioned,just how much I hate individual track links ??? I have spent the last three days diddling with these Damn links !!! I much prefer length and link or resin to them !!! The only good thing is It's coming together fast now. It's almost ready to paint. And that is the other thing I really hate to do too !!! Still haven't gotten around to taking pictures and putting them up but I will by this weekend. I have to admit I'm really enjoying this build !!!
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I'm not done yet but here is an inprogress shot and what kits I used.
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All hail the Great GTX adminstrator !!!!!! :). He has solved some technical problems I had uploading pictures so now I can show off my work. Here are the two base kits I used and the major parts from each. In addition to these I used many detail parts from the Valantine along with some Dragon parts from a Pz.III and things from the parts box. Sorry about the lightening on them. I'll be working on my photo setup before next post. I've given you views all around so you can see as much as possible. All I have left is to finished my exhaust system and add the forward fender supports. Then its paint and detail !!!
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Whoa! :icon_surprised: Very cool! :)
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Now that's a winning combination of disparate parts, Father!
It's got a Russian Civil War/Weimar Freikorps look about it.
Most excellent!
Brian da Basher
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Very neat, father ennis! It reminds me a bit of the Marmon Herrington conversions.
(http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/safrica/SA-MarmonHerrington-mk4F.jpg)
Cheers,
Logan
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Very nice work. A really odd collection of parts but I can't wait to see the end result as I think it will look really good. 8)
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I love these kinds of bashes!!! Please continue sir. Any ideas on paint(s) yet?
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I'm thinking on using standard Russian paint scheme from WWII. Base green with a sand ( don't know what color yet) pattern. I'm thinking on doing the common spotted pattern used on their a/c. I won't really know till I set down and do it really but I'm open to new ideas if anybody has any suggestions ...... ???
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Those early Russian armored cars are great to build. There were some BA's (3? 6? 10? all of them?) that had an optional track for the rear tires; it looks like you took that to the next level!
As for camo, you have TONS of color options - green, and green, how about a nice faded green?, maybe a winter wash over green, green with a white or red stripe, dust covered green.
Here's a not completely green version - used by the Turks in the 30s:
(http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s105/afnuyt/overvalwagen3/turkba6cuneyt1.jpg)
Tan or sand and green.
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I think Frank3k's on to something here. I think the Turks may be a good possibility for an operator of your type of vehicle. The Turks used a ton of the Praga prime movers which actually looked a lot like your vehicle plus they used BA-3s, BA-6s (http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/Turkey/turkey.html), and Valentine tanks (http://www.modelsitesi.com/referanslar/etimesgut02/index.htm)! That also gives you a great excuse to do a really awesome paint scheme to match the prime movers...
(http://forum.valka.cz/files/vehicle_202_527.jpg)
Just use a tan or yellow color as the base and red, brown, or green splotches on top.
Cheers,
Logan
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You some sick puppies !!! :o. I didn't think.I wanted something that EXTREME !!!! But I'll see if I can rise to the occasion. I was ... thinking on a base green and maybe a "pinky rose" color. Something similar to what some British units in the Levant in WWII. If I can get my network problems fixed I'll post some more pictures,different ones too ... !!!
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I thought I'd try to upload some pictures,if my carrier has been fixed ...
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Lucky me !!! My pictures finally loaded !!!!!! :). Now I'll tell you how I did it. As you can see the dark green body is a Zevzda BA-3. It's in need of Lots of detail work which I wasn't moviated to do,so I robbing it for parts. I also had a Marquet Valantine mk.IX whose supension hadn't molded and was surpluse. This build prompted me to combine the two for one model. Some Dragon pz.III I had a lot of leftovers from different versions.
I started by building the turret,no mean feat. I built it OOB,mostly. It's looking good now but it took me some time to get it that way !!! I built the a/c body and added the turret's mounting plate trimmed to fit. All the light colored parts are Pz.III except the vision devices from the RPM detail set for Polish tanks. The chassis,is Valantine cut apart and narrowed and shortened. I changed the placement of the boggie wheel sets to make it look different. Attaching the two was a pain but went quickly. I had to plate the sides in to cover gap and made the front from sheet as well. The lights were Pz.III and the tow lugs are Valantine. I should have taken more plastic from the sides but couldn't because when I got that far the suspension was in the way. The Valantine had individual track lengths but were a pain to put on !!! The crew,are from a Tamiya T-34 mod 1943. I built the exhaust system from tube and pieces of kit parts. I'm planning on using a typical Russian camo scheme used on a/c in green base with a reddish spider pattering. Decals will be from my scrap box. I'll put up some pictures next week of how it turns out. I hope you all enjoy this build as much as I have and any and all comments are welcome.
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Looking good.
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I especially like that the one standing tall is giving a nice "thumbs up".
I really like the look of this!
Brian da Basher
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Thanks guys ...