Fennek recon vehicle ideas

[Weaver]

Okay so with the Revell 1/72nd Fennek currently going for £3.00 in the MZ sale, I dare say a few of us will be wondering what to do with them shortly (I'll be wondering what to do with three of them personally..... )

This is the thing in question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennek



The Revell kit looks pretty good in the box. It makes Dutch or German versions, the sensor mast can be posed retracted, level with the roof or extended on it's pole (pity they don't include the tripod for remote ops:
instant diorama) and it comes with a 0.50cal M2HB, a 7.62mm MG3 and a 40mm GMG, so some nice goodies for the spares box however you build it. On the down side, the windows have to be cut out of a strip of clear film supplied in the box on the basis of tiny and dubious drawings in the instructions: a curiously backwards step IMHO. The wheels dont look brilliant either.

So what to do with it?

Over on the MZ sale thread, Mossie suggested fitting a turret to it, and that gave me the idea of "de-evolving" it. It's a very modern vehicle with its EO sensors and remote weapon mount, so how about taking it back to an earlier age? Replace the big windows with solid plates with vision blocks in them and fit a conventional one or two man armoured car turret. Don't know where you'd get it from, but one of those one-man single 20mm turrets as seen on HS-30s and Hotchkiss carriers would be perfect.

Of course, the spare cupola with RWS and the sensor mast would be idea for updating an MBT....

Anyway, over to you....

[Go4fun]

Three kits you say? Sounds like 2 six wheelers in the works. And why not go whole hog and build your own turret(s).
At this price I might be interested.

[rickshaw]

Turret?  Put the WWII German SdKfz 222 light-weight open topped 20mm turret on it and open up the hull roof.

[Thorvic]

How about possibly putting a plug in it to stretch the chassis and turn it into an air-trasnportable ground support vehicle in an updated form of the GSV intended for the TSR2 ?.

The Fennec features look like it would go well with the Colonial Marines APC from Aliens as a possible recon element so you could explore that with a automated turret sliding back over its rear on rails.

[Weaver]

Turret?  Put the WWII German SdKfz 222 light-weight open topped 20mm turret on it and open up the hull roof.

Heh - I hadn't thought about taking it that far back, but actually that's an excellent idea. You could have a companion vehicle for a dismounted recon team that just had the roof off entirely and a couple of MGs on a skate rail , a bit like the M3 Scout car.

Another thing I thought of was to use the whole body shell, with the wheel wells filled in, as the cab of a much larger vehicle: something like a SCUD TEL, an MRL or a high-tech version of a gun truck.

[Army of One]

Mmmmmm....if I could bring myself to do it....butcher a hind n gut it.....leaving the nose section and have some for of clamp to carry the vehicle.....a-la Aliens style but not enclosed.....maybe keep the stub wings somehow, as yer always gonna need rockets/missiles.....gonna have to get a pad n Pencil out....

[Old Wombat]

Hmm? Stretched? Eight wheels? 20mm turret? Wicked!



Guy

[Mondria]

Anti tank missile launcher/turret, bit like the Dutch Stinger version, at that new recoilless 30mm gun RMK30

[Weaver]

Mmmmmm....if I could bring myself to do it....butcher a hind n gut it.....leaving the nose section and have some for of clamp to carry the vehicle.....a-la Aliens style but not enclosed.....maybe keep the stub wings somehow, as yer always gonna need rockets/missiles.....gonna have to get a pad n Pencil out....

If you don't want to butcher a Hind, how about using a 1/100th scale Revell Skycrane fitted with a 1/72nd gunship front end from a cheap Cobra/Apache/Commanche?