Love the Statue of Liberty on the far right of the art work. Surprised the box art doesn’t have the three flying “starship troopers” riding flying robot sharks with lasers on their heads. However, if they take that thing into a bad hood they’ll get carjacked. Park it over night, they’ll find it in the morning sitting on cement blocks missing wheels and tracks.
Looks fun to build and weather. No accuracy issues to worry over. One could even pretend its a 1946 paper panzer design.
One of the finest C and C games ever made and one of the best RTS ever made too. So much nostalgia. I remember when installing this on the computer there was concept art of all the various vehicles.
The flying dudes are a bit wrong though- only the Allies in the game had ‘Rocketeer’ units- the Soviets had ‘Flak Trooper’s’ to defend against them. The Apocalypse tank could also fire AA missiles at them as shown on the box. In the background you can see the ‘Kirov airship’ which was quite a destructive but slow moving blimp from the Soviets. In Multiplayer mode, when one of them was built, you would hear ‘Kirov Reporting’ spoken and then you knew you had to get some defenses built damn quickly or you could kiss your base dasvidaniya!
The double track design is also something seen recently on a vehicle being considered for purchase by the Bundeswehr- first posted here I think by @HermannB. The Luftbeweglicher Waffentrager.
It’s very unique and different. I would still prefer modern Fast Attack Vehicles and dune buggies to be made in plastic (although they are available in 3D printed files).
How about the “Final Fantasy Spirits Within” Copperhead…
I was thinking the other day when going through my spare parts box that it would be cool to get creative a build something sci-fi / imaginary from the parts. This is very much aimed at that and I think i will buy it just to get creative with the spare parts. Its such a cool idea. People will slag it off and say it isnt real but we have been building E-75s, E-100s, Panther IIs and Rammtigers and their paper panzer ilk etc for ages so I dont see this as much of a leap further down the rabbit hole. As a means of getting creative i think it has enormous potential. Love it. Well done Border!
Go For It!!! Much fun to be had, relaxing (if it doesn’t exist you can’t get it wrong), and the additional satisfaction of making something unique to yourself; let your creativity loose. There’s a certain pleasure to be had in thinking “O.K. Mr Tamiya/Trumpeter/Whoever, you might want this built one way but I bought it with my money, it’s my plastic now and I’ll do what I want with it…”. Even more so when you include stuff never meant to be part of a scale model; the other day at the pharmacy I was looking at a cheap toothbrush travel case in what looked like glueable plastic and thinking it was nicely shaped for the hull of a space battleship, anime style…
I really think it’s a hoot…I’m so tired of ANYTHING Panzer related, that this is a bit o fresh air…and totally off the wall…what fun…! I’d LOVE to see an XM800 in real plastic, those huge tires and that 20mm auto-canon…YESSSS…! After a while, WWII armour gets so long in the tooth, as there are so many co’s putting out the same vehicle, it just sucks the imagination outa me. BRING 'EM ON BORDER…!
Looking for something different, I just picked this kit up at my LHS yesterday — haven’t even opened the box yet… This because I am trying to resist the urge to start it, amidst too many other half- or nearly- finished projects — have a feeling I am going to lose that battle as it just looks like too much fun not to start (arg), and I will likely tear into it today…
Question for anyone familiar with the game, as I am not: are there any cool American or Allied fantastical tank designs from the game that we might be seeing kitted by Border Models in the future??? If so, got any pix?
I have just cracked mine open- going to start a build log on it shortly.
In terms of Allied tanks in the game they had no tank that could go toe to toe with the Apocalypse. Standard Allied tank was the Grizzly which was faster than the Soviet’s standard tank, the Rhino.
Grizzly
Rhino
In order to bring down one Apocalypse you needed two Grizzly tanks. I doubt Border would do the Grizzly as it was a run of the mill unit.
However, as the game progress the Allies get the Mirage tank and the Prism tank.
Mirage
This was cool as it could disguise itself as a tree etc and ambush enemy units. Not great against tanks though. The weird shape would be a cool kit!
Prism
This was the coolest Allied tank- fired a big laser- but if you got two of them then double power laser, three was triple the power and so on. For me, this is the one I would want would Border to do.
Really hope they come out with another one from the game.
I hope you enjoy the kit when you get started on it.
Yeah I think the downsides to four separate track units are probably quite prohibitive but it may offer some form of stability or manoeuvre that makes it worth building a test vehicle for.
Thanks for cluing me in on the tank’s counterparts… Pretty sure I have seen that Prism tank as a pricey resin kit — agreed, hopefully Border will put out their version of one in more affordable styrene…
Looking forward to that build log!
Have continued to somehow resisted the temptation to open the box and get started on mine…we’ll see how long that holds.
The development of tank guns kept pushing the requirements for thicker armour.
Thicker armour = heavier vehicle. A heavy vehicle needs more track surface to
avoid sinking into the ground. More surface requires longer and/or wider tracks.
There can be restrictions on vehicle width given by roads, bridges and most
importantly by railroads. (the Tiger II had transport tracks, some modern tanks
can remove or fold up the side skirt armour to stay within the width limits).
The “only available” option is to make a longer vehicle.
A long tracked vehicle will have difficulties turning, the length of the track
increases the resistance against being forced sideways. The limited width
limits the leverage that can be applied to turning. We are stuck between
requirements and limitations. One possible solution is the semi-trailer tank,
we get the larger footprint while keeping the maneuverability. The price is
incresed complexity and maintenance. Four tracks to keep the right tension
on instead of two, could be solved with automated track tensioning devices
which comes at the cost of complexity.
Another solution, which was not available at that time, is new armour designs.
Modern tanks can have armour “thicknesses” measured in feet instead of inches.
Armour “thickness” is compared as thickness of rolled homogenous armour (RHA)
The King Tiger had 100 to 185 mm of RHA, " Steven Zaloga estimates the frontal armor at 350 mm vs armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) and 700 mm vs high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead in the book, M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank 1982–1992 (1993).[84] In M1 Abrams vs T-72 Ural (2009), he uses Soviet estimates of 470 mm vs APFSDS and 650 mm vs HEAT for the base model Abrams. He also gives the Soviet estimates for the M1A1, 600 mm vs APFSDS, and 700 mm vs HEAT.[85]" I do not think that he real numbers are officially available.
Nobody believes the actual armour is that thick on a modern tank.
Modern armour has replaced thick and heavy steel with something lighter which provides the same,
or better, protection. The latest Abrams weigh a little more than a King Tiger but with vastly improved armour.
If we hadn’t solved the armour-weight-maneuverability equation with improved armour the tank would either be history or weighing in at around 100 tons or more (more armour → more weight → more engine power and fuel → more volume to protect → even more armour → even more weight → …)
@Frenchy- thank you for those photos- they are very interesting designs. I’ve always been intrigued by quad track systems, probably as a result of playing this game as a kid!
@Uncle-Heavy- I get what your saying there- the strange thing is, that Bundeswehr prototype does not look particularly big- why would a vehicle quite that small need what looks like such a complex track system? Obviously on a bigger vehicle it would make sense as you mentioned but what is the benefit if the vehicle is relatively small? I guess we will have to wait and see how it progresses in trials.
Yeah I recognised Jenny McCarthy as‘Tanya’, from Red Alert 3! Best cast ever in a game I think- future Oscar winner JK Simmons, Tim Curry and George Takei to name just a few.
Also thought I would mention that I’ve just started my build log for the kit here.
Hell March- Soundtrack, dont forget the soundtrack. Many like to steal Hell march to promote there videos.
I love building kits off video games. Did the Warpig abrams from Call of Duty, And will do the Tiger one also one day. there is a nice one on the net another builder did. They did a great job.
Watched Old Guard today and might do the huey out of it.
This is one of those. China you might wanna look away. Hmm, Russia had some experience over the last 50 years, China, yeah, thats not gonna go to well either.
on the far right of the art work. Surprised the box art doesn’t have the three flying “starship troopers” riding flying robot sharks with lasers on their heads. However, if they take that thing into a bad hood they’ll get carjacked. Park it over night, they’ll find it in the morning sitting on cement blocks missing wheels and tracks.
