was Re: Help for Oerjan (no, not the nationalistic part of it!)

Someone (K.H.Ranitzsch?) wrote:

>>>I see our good friend Oerjan has the problem of having gamers
>>>who've seen the US, ex-sov, German, and Swede hardware. Try showing
>>>them some of the obscure vehicles out of Africa or South America - 
>>>some of them are quite neat looking (as you well know *lol*).
>>
>> Main problem with those is to get models... I can bash existing
>>kits, but I'm not up to building stuff from scratch :-(
> 
>The TAM (Tanque Argentino Medio) looks like a Marder with a Leopard
>1A5 (?) turret - the Leo 1 turret with the angular plate armour. 

The TAM hull doesn't just look like a Marder; it *is* a Marder (though
somewhat up-armoured and up-engined). The turret is similar to the Leo
1A3 one (the A3 was the first version with the angular turret), but
lower and "flatter" (with poorer gun elevation and depression abilities
as a result). Yes, I could easily build passable TAMs by combining
Marder and Leo 1 kits - no problem.

Unfortunately it doesn't solve the current problem. What I was talking
about, and what I think Tom meant as well, was to take bitz *from*
models of exotic modern vehicles to build believable *SF* ones - not to
take bitz from *well-known* modern vehicles to *build* exotic modern
ones...

Returning to the TAM example, Marders and Leo 1s are both pretty
well-known in my gaming circles. If I put a TAM model on the table my
opponents would immediately identify it as a Marder with a Leo 1
turret. (They'd probably make that ID-ing even if I put a real TAM
model on the table, too :-/ ) Nothing wrong with that if the game is
set in the very near future (2000-2030 or so) - after all, there are
similar "light tank" variants in the Warrior and CV90 IFV families as
well - but an 23rd century or later vehicle? Nope.

Some (but by no means all!) examples of vehicles which could count as
"exotic" where I live, and thus be useful as a basis for building SF
vehicles, are 

* Pz68/88 with the new 120mm turret (only used in Switzerland, so not
that well known here)
* Zulfiqar (indigenious Iranian MBT)
* Cadillac's Stingray II
* The turret from an M60A2, but not the hull
* MAGACH-7 (-8, Sabra) turrets (but again not the hull (M60))
* just about any South African AFV (except the Buffalo, the G6 SP
howitzer and the Oliphant MBT... the Oliphant turret could work, but
not the Centurion hull.). (Though I don't know if I'd call any of the
SA-built vehicles "neat"... "weird" is more like it <g>)

Unfortunately I've never seen any modelling kits of these (again except
for the Buffalo and Oliphant), which makes it kinda difficult to use
them as a basis for kit-bashing SF vehicles... 

>And, at least in 1/300,  the mini makers produce some pretty exotic
>stuff.

Oh, I know. But we were talking about 15mm (1/120, though 1/100 works
OK too), not 1/300 :-(

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry