Well...................It does take a few days for the sprues to dry.

Wayne, I'd love to have you join in on my reality. I did have to cut out the drive sprockets to answer a question as to the fit of the tracks to them. I glued on a shim, but didn't do any other fitting of parts. PLA is pretty tight lipped about it's equipment, but I figure that allows me a lot of room to create. I'll be adding quite a bit of applique to the turret and hull front. The object of the ZTZ 96 is to fill in with numbers. Weight is kept down for ease of transport, and construction is simplified. The ZSL 92B just arrived, and may be joining it in the occupation.

My background story is fairly simple. Military overextended overseas. Bad economy leaves many cities cutting back, with police forces becoming drastically undermanned. Political and civil unrest, inflation, food shortages due to drought/flood and high transportation costs, the economy tanks. National guard forces that are still here can't really handle the situation, so the president calls in the UN to help maintain order. Some of the "peacekeeping" forces end up taking more control than was anticipated. We'll see where it goes from there.

My vehicle will be marked UANA, as in Utah Arizona Nevada Alliance. I'm thinking up a flag type marking as we speak.

I took a minute to drive south toward Hoover Dam today and scouted the terrain a bit. Boy when you really look at the scenery with the intent to paint a model you get a whole different view.

It's very rocky and what vegetation there is appears dark green/gray from a distance. There is a distinct pink hue to the earth in sunlight, and the rocks are dark volcanic like stone. In the shadow the peaks appear gray/purple.

MERDC desert will work, but I may switch up the yellow for something else.

The plot thickens..............................

G

@Jeremy , a few posts back you asked me for my pics of the finished E-10, I had them on a photobucket account,







For this campaign I'll do a E-25 or E-50, but I want to add some modern gizmos, slat, ERA or some M60 passive armour type.
Or be real kinky, E-50 chassis with a Merkava turret...

As a "Zonie" I love your idea for an alliance. Have you thought of a flag yet? Maybe the javelina would be a good symbol for your new nation.

You're fine bud, as far as I'm concerned you all can unbox and wash your kits. You can even cut the parts of the sprue, just don't build anything yet

Wow John, that 152mm makes that little E-10 look like a battering ram with a howitzer on it! Thanks for posting the photos here

Hello all! I've just joined, and got some ideas. I have a couple of wrecked models i want to change into something different. Lets see what happens!

Right here's my change of plan and background story........ (Warning may contain JellyFish)

When Jeremy first posted about this campaign I jumped in and said I was going to build a IDF Hetzer, well after a lot of head scratching and so forth I gone for my other project an IDF Panther G.
WHY...... well after seeing Nito74 = John's E-10 (nice model and I am in no way putting it down) I realized that my Hetzer would still look like a Hetzer with a bigger gun, or look like a Swiss Hetzer in IDF colours.

So the Panther gets the green light, original I was going use a Dragon Smart kit as a base, but I realized i was going to be doing quite a bit of modification so I got hold of Tamiya Panther Type G Early Version of the every faithful fleebay.

Mods will be 105mm main gun, .5 Brownings & FN's, Reactive Armour, a modified turret with M60 optics etc (thanks to MMeier for that idea) and other IDF mods etc, etc from an alternative 1980's

Right Ho background story......

Fact.... In the 1950's Israel approached the Czechs about purchasing Hetzers from them the deal came to naught as the Czech's kept playing around and altering the price so the IDF went to the French and bought Shermans from them.
The Hetzer's ended up being sold to the Swiss Army about 160 odd of them.

What If.... the deal goes through and as a sweetener to keep the Isrealis on side the Czechs throw in all the Panther they have about 200 or so including about 15 BergePanther ( Did you know .... the Czech railways used BergePanther up and till the 1980's)
The French even keener to get the IDF deal back on with them offers up all their Panther along with plenty of wrecks for spares to get the deal for the 800 plus Shermans the IDF will eventually buy of them.
Other panthers are source from various places and various means?

Both deals happen and the IDF ends up with a force of about 300 Panthers along side its Shermans and are first used in the Sinai War and although there are allot of breakdowns the tanks perform well. The Panthers are up against the T34/55 and JS3's and in capable well train hands (against a not so well trained enemy) make for a feared presence on the battlefield actually out waying its actual performance, but because of this and other factors the IDF decided to keep them on.

Even as Centurions and M60 are bought the Panthers soldier on fondly regarded by their crews ... upgraded over the years into the final mark of Super Panther with Detroit diesel / Auto transmission and a Royal Ordnance 105mm main gun.
Latter as the Panthers really begin to show their age they are pensioned off into reserve forces with about 50 Hull's being converted into a 'Achzarit' (style) urban combat vehicle.


There you go, I got everything ready to go so roll on the 15th.

Regards Duncan.

Matt: Glad to have you on board, don't forget to post a backstory for you project

Duncan: Had a good laugh at your opening disclaimer Nice backstory, looking forward to seeing your Panther

Nice background story Duncan, sorry to ruin your original one..

Jeremy these were hard to get, I had lost all passwords from the photobucket account, the kit itself is at my old house (along with all the other finished kits and half my stash...)
The E-10 was build a few years ago, back when I was building 2 kits/month.. and I looked at the original gun and it looked like a toothpick, I had a spare 152 gun from a JSU 152 that carried a metal gunbarrel, so I used the Zvezda kit original gun, it fitted quite well.

For this campaign I wanted to add a Weapon remote station , maybe AFV Club might be ok, or those remote .50 cal guns on IDF tanks, I don't know if there's any AM set with these ?

At first I was thinking Arizona/Nevada Alliance, and considered the emblem to be a mix of both states. I was specifically thinking of Arizona's "sunshine" flag, but done in Nevada's silver and blue colors.

Then I tossed Utah into the mix, thanx Russ , so now I'm a bit stumped. I will definately consider the Javelina. Your thoughts?

G

John: Double thanks then for getting those photos up!
The AFV Club .50cal remote weapons station is available as a seperate kit, dont' know about the IDF one though.

G: How about you throw together some ideas and post them here for us to look over?

There's the rams head, for the desert bighorn, or the rattlesnake as well. I've been going through photos thinking of camo. Red, orange, sage green, darker green for juniper, sand/ochre, and brown, with streaks of gray. If you've set up a local defense force, you could make the camo very specific to region. I figure regular military units would be present as well, having withdrawn to strongholds. My ideas are much larger than my budget, as I would like to include a Leopard or Leclerc and an Abrams.

Oh darn it Russ now ya got me thinking. Scary thought I know.

I have two M1A1's in the stash, one is definately slated as a USMC build to complete my USMC armor series.

The other? Hmmmmmm

I'm diggin' the local/govt differences in vehicles. The local LAV would surely be painted area specific regarding camo.

G

John!

As far as I know there is no Samson RCWS kit on the market but You can learn some good tricks from Captain Caveman's IDF Achzarit IFV project. He scratchbuilt some of these weapons. http://armorama.com/forums/165203&page=1

As for my background story. That is not a big deal. I read an article a week ago that proves that the IDF was actually desperate to purchase the Chieftain tanks which was the best protected tank and had the most powerful main gun at that time. But the British Foreign Office didn't want to sell any of these tanks to Israel (who was actually depending on Britain for tanks) because that would put some risks in the Middle East if the sale went through. But later the British sold their tanks to the arabic countries so Israel was furious and had to look for other options to replace their old Centurions.
In my version the Chieftain was designed in a cooperation with the Israeli experts so there was no chance for the British to dance back.

So,I need a back story.Am thinking about some type of Indiana Jones kinda thing.How does that sound to you guys?

This is what I plan to build,the name alone is long enough to be the back story Ready....set......... Wait a minute! This is a what if campaign right? What if I started tonight and did not wait untill tomorrow?Would that mean I am not in?What if I had not signed up? What if I had not started building again after almost 35 years? What if I had not found this site?What if I had not found Sprue Brothers?Holy tank tread Batman! If none of things had happened,I'm sure the course of human history would change Don't worry, you will get a back story..If you're any thing like me,you will be awake at around 4A.M. getting started Happy buildeing gents

G: Quit teasin' us and just commit to something man! LOL, just messin' with ya bud

jtucker: I grew up watching Indiana Jones, always loved the concept. Lookin' forward to what you come up with
*edit: Good grief man, are you trying to rip a hole in the time/space continuum and get rid of all of our hard work on here?

What if, What if, What if pigs flew and monkeys jumped outta my butt?

I'm going to do the Hobby Boss kit as a UANA vehicle staged to protect the Hoover Dam. Here's an interesting scheme that I think will fit the bill with a bit of tweaking.



Looks like Sand, Tan Yellow, and Lt. Earth/Khaki to me.

I'm thinking Tamiya Buff lightened a bit, Desert Yellow, Lt Earth, and Panzer Gray in a MERDC type scheme.

Thoughts?

G

Here is a link to the campaign gallery. Post the images of your final build there.
What If 2 Gallery

No,No,No, nothing like that.But that gives me another idea What kind of havoc do you think Dr. Brown and Marty Mcfly could disperse if they showed somewear driving one of these?A flux capacitor powered panther?Hmmmmmmm.........

Alright guys, we are officially kicked off! Now let's see some crazy progress!

Gary: Thanks!

G: LOL, and I like it, buff is a good choice methinks.

jtucker: A Flux Capanthicitor?