Thanks Tom - I’ll build it anyway but the Campaign-ethos might make me stick to it a bit more(!)
It was a very innovative design; fuel tanks were incorporated into the rather sleek hull. Where I think I’ll sort of Sovietize it - wrong word but you’ll know what I mean - is to add those equipments we normally get used to seeing: headlights, IR lights, a “normal” 30mm cannon, not the over-sized one shown in the concept, a replacement gun barrel (which would not need a fume extractor with the weapon outside the crew, but I thought for a prototype they’d use one from 125mm stock) and the ubiquitous fuel drums on the hull rear. I imagine it would also have been very fast; automotively it was based on the T-64 and that didn’t hang about; sans turret I imagine it would have been exceptionally mobile.
As I’ve hinted above, I plan to produce a model as if a prototype or two, were made, and show it on trials. This would all be around the mid 70s I think; I would imagine, were it accepted, it wouldn’t enter service until around the early 80s, whereupon as I believe Morozov himself prophesied, “NATO will have puppies!” - as indeed they might have. By then, an in-service vehicle would probably have a few more extras (smoke dischargers certainly) and probably a 130mm gun which was within the original concept.
I’ve amassed all the accessories I think I’ll need, and as I thought I’d portray it on trials, some crew figures having a break; surely even Soviet soldiers stopped for lunch? Anyway, I’ve identified 3 x figures (crew of 3 only) from these two sets:
That’s the plan; however, there’s the Bundeswehr What-If stuff to complete first.
Given my painting speed, that alone puts this project back two or three months.
