Recent additions to Honduras armour.

[chrisonord]

These two are my latest armour builds, for the what if Honduras army. The M109 WAS A PiTA to build, for some reason the instructions seemed a#£e about face, and quite a few parts were badly fitting. Anyhow, it looks crap but am I bothered. It is the 1/72nd scale revell kit. The AMX 30 Roland os one that has been in the as and when box for some time as I put together parts to build it. The paint is very thick on the hull, to try and flatten off any parts that stand out too much. The donor vehicle is the Heller 1/72nd scale AMX 30 tank, of many moons ago, with something elses tracks, as the originals are absolutely garbage. Lots of pats bin stuff and scratch build has gone into this thing, and I van say it is finally done.

[NARSES2]

Look good Chris 

[chrisonord]

Look good Chris 

Thankyou Chris very much appreciated.

[Wardukw]

Why haven't I seen these before ...this has been up since the beginning of the year dang nab it 
Well I've seen it now .
Very very nice work Chris 👌 👍 👏
The Honduran military might want to hold on to the M109..that's a bloody rare vehicle today with the little gun 😆
I was there was more 35th Roland AA systems out there..oh the fun mounting on that other than a AMX30 chassis .

[chrisonord]

Why haven't I seen these before ...this has been up since the beginning of the year dang nab it 
Well I've seen it now .
Very very nice work Chris 👌 👍 👏
The Honduran military might want to hold on to the M109..that's a bloody rare vehicle today with the little gun 😆
I was there was more 35th Roland AA systems out there..oh the fun mounting on that other than a AMX30 chassis .

Cheers
I do like obscure, non run of the mill armour, but my fingers and eyes, are starting to dissagree.

[Wardukw]

Why haven't I seen these before ...this has been up since the beginning of the year dang nab it 
Well I've seen it now .
Very very nice work Chris 👌 👍 👏
The Honduran military might want to hold on to the M109..that's a bloody rare vehicle today with the little gun 😆
I was there was more 35th Roland AA systems out there..oh the fun mounting on that other than a AMX30 chassis .

Cheers
I do like obscure, non run of the mill armour, but my fingers and eyes, are starting to dissagree.

Ahh huh..yep ..mine also are doing their best to try and head south aswell..luckily 35th scale is still working build wise ..so far anyway 😃

[Weaver]

Well done Chris, they both look good. I especially like the AMX-30 Roland. Is it a kit of that vehicle or did you kitbash it from others?

The Honduran military might want to hold on to the M109..that's a bloody rare vehicle today with the little gun 😆

IIRC the original kit is a German Army one (note the MG3 on the roof hatch). They hung onto their short-barrelled M-109s much longer than most. The REALLY diddy one is the M108: same hull and turret, but with a short-barrelled 105mm...

[Wardukw]

Well done Chris, they both look good. I especially like the AMX-30 Roland. Is it a kit of that vehicle or did you kitbash it from others?

The Honduran military might want to hold on to the M109..that's a bloody rare vehicle today with the little gun 😆

IIRC the original kit is a German Army one (note the MG3 on the roof hatch). They hung onto their short-barrelled M-109s much longer than most. The REALLY diddy one is the M108: same hull and turret, but with a short-barrelled 105mm...

Yeah I couldn't really figure out the M108...it's a hell of a lot of vehicle for a 105mm gun and it's like the 155 wasn't ready and to get it into service it was a case of 'that will do for now' 
The shortness of the barrel was another thing..the standard M101 105mm towed piece would have the same range and it's pretty damn mobile too.
The 155 gun addition was not only smart but 100 present necessary .

[chrisonord]

Well done Chris, they both look good. I especially like the AMX-30 Roland. Is it a kit of that vehicle or did you kitbash it from others?

The Honduran military might want to hold on to the M109..that's a bloody rare vehicle today with the little gun 😆

IIRC the original kit is a German Army one (note the MG3 on the roof hatch). They hung onto their short-barrelled M-109s much longer than most. The REALLY diddy one is the M108: same hull and turret, but with a short-barrelled 105mm...

Hya Harold,
The AMX is a kit/scratchbodge, made from a Heller AMX 30, plastic card  and bits from the spares boxes. The missile launch system took a bit of thought, and the missile tubes and their mounts took several attempts to make them look right. I used plastic tubing and styrene bar carved and shaped. Severel times before I was happy with it.

[Weaver]

Well done Chris, they both look good. I especially like the AMX-30 Roland. Is it a kit of that vehicle or did you kitbash it from others?

The Honduran military might want to hold on to the M109..that's a bloody rare vehicle today with the little gun 😆

IIRC the original kit is a German Army one (note the MG3 on the roof hatch). They hung onto their short-barrelled M-109s much longer than most. The REALLY diddy one is the M108: same hull and turret, but with a short-barrelled 105mm...

Hya Harold,
The AMX is a kit/scratchbodge, made from a Heller AMX 30, plastic card  and bits from the spares boxes. The missile launch system took a bit of thought, and the missile tubes and their mounts took several attempts to make them look right. I used plastic tubing and styrene bar carved and shaped. Severel times before I was happy with it.

It's a bloody good job then Chris - I was honestly struggling to figure out if it was a kit or not! 

[Weaver]

I'll tell you what you could add for a bit of extra realism Chris: two long, missile-tube-sized roof hatches either side of the launcher. The Roland launcher reloads automatically from two four-rund drums inside the hull. The arms go horizontal, then swing down on eccentrics to pick the next missile tube up. It's be easy enough to cut two rectangles of thinnest plasticard (or even Evergreen strip if it comes in the right width), then stick them on with a couple of little bits of strip and rod to represent hinges.

You can see how the system works in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khzQCqmFaHU

Funnily enough, the US Army was originally going to buy Roland on an M-109 chassis, so your two builds here are kinda related.

[chrisonord]

I'll tell you what you could add for a bit of extra realism Chris: two long, missile-tube-sized roof hatches either side of the launcher. The Roland launcher reloads automatically from two four-rund drums inside the hull. The arms go horizontal, then swing down on eccentrics to pick the next missile tube up. It's be easy enough to cut two rectangles of thinnest plasticard (or even Evergreen strip if it comes in the right width), then stick them on with a couple of little bits of strip and rod to represent hinges.

You can see how the system works in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khzQCqmFaHU

Funnily enough, the US Army was originally going to buy Roland on an M-109 chassis, so your two builds here are kinda related.

In all the pictures I have looked at of these vehicles, when working out how to get it as right as possible, I never even noticed the hatches on any of the pictures. I think I need to start wearing specs   .

[Weaver]

I'll tell you what you could add for a bit of extra realism Chris: two long, missile-tube-sized roof hatches either side of the launcher. The Roland launcher reloads automatically from two four-rund drums inside the hull. The arms go horizontal, then swing down on eccentrics to pick the next missile tube up. It's be easy enough to cut two rectangles of thinnest plasticard (or even Evergreen strip if it comes in the right width), then stick them on with a couple of little bits of strip and rod to represent hinges.

You can see how the system works in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khzQCqmFaHU

Funnily enough, the US Army was originally going to buy Roland on an M-109 chassis, so your two builds here are kinda related.

In all the pictures I have looked at of these vehicles, when working out how to get it as right as possible, I never even noticed the hatches on any of the pictures. I think I need to start wearing specs   .

That's okay: relatively few pics are from a high-enough angle to see them, and it's rare for a land-based SAM system to have warship-style automatic reloading anyway.

The French later added two extra tubes to the launchers, but these DID have to be manually reloaded because they didn't line up with the doors. You can see at the start of that video how two crewmen had to manhandle a tube up onto the roof using temporary steps/rests just to drop it down into the drum. Presumably on the four-round version they'd then have had to hoist it up again onto the side of the rail. There was also a proposal (don't know it it was adopted) to replace the two extra Roland tubes with four Stinger or Mistral tubes, to better allow the launcher to deal with saturation attacks. Obviously those would have been much easier to hand-reload.

[chrisonord]

I'll tell you what you could add for a bit of extra realism Chris: two long, missile-tube-sized roof hatches either side of the launcher. The Roland launcher reloads automatically from two four-rund drums inside the hull. The arms go horizontal, then swing down on eccentrics to pick the next missile tube up. It's be easy enough to cut two rectangles of thinnest plasticard (or even Evergreen strip if it comes in the right width), then stick them on with a couple of little bits of strip and rod to represent hinges.

You can see how the system works in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khzQCqmFaHU

Funnily enough, the US Army was originally going to buy Roland on an M-109 chassis, so your two builds here are kinda related.

In all the pictures I have looked at of these vehicles, when working out how to get it as right as possible, I never even noticed the hatches on any of the pictures. I think I need to start wearing specs   .

That's okay: relatively few pics are from a high-enough angle to see them, and it's rare for a land-based SAM system to have warship-style automatic reloading anyway.

The French later added two extra tubes to the launchers, but these DID have to be manually reloaded because they didn't line up with the doors. You can see at the start of that video how two crewmen had to manhandle a tube up onto the roof using temporary steps/rests just to drop it down into the drum. Presumably on the four-round version they'd then have had to hoist it up again onto the side of the rail. There was also a proposal (don't know it it was adopted) to replace the two extra Roland tubes with four Stinger or Mistral tubes, to better allow the launcher to deal with saturation attacks. Obviously those would have been much easier to hand-reload.

I'll tell you what you could add for a bit of extra realism Chris: two long, missile-tube-sized roof hatches either side of the launcher. The Roland launcher reloads automatically from two four-rund drums inside the hull. The arms go horizontal, then swing down on eccentrics to pick the next missile tube up. It's be easy enough to cut two rectangles of thinnest plasticard (or even Evergreen strip if it comes in the right width), then stick them on with a couple of little bits of strip and rod to represent hinges.

You can see how the system works in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khzQCqmFaHU

Funnily enough, the US Army was originally going to buy Roland on an M-109 chassis, so your two builds here are kinda related.

In all the pictures I have looked at of these vehicles, when working out how to get it as right as possible, I never even noticed the hatches on any of the pictures. I think I need to start wearing specs   .

That's okay: relatively few pics are from a high-enough angle to see them, and it's rare for a land-based SAM system to have warship-style automatic reloading anyway.

The French later added two extra tubes to the launchers, but these DID have to be manually reloaded because they didn't line up with the doors. You can see at the start of that video how two crewmen had to manhandle a tube up onto the roof using temporary steps/rests just to drop it down into the drum. Presumably on the four-round version they'd then have had to hoist it up again onto the side of the rail. There was also a proposal (don't know it it was adopted) to replace the two extra Roland tubes with four Stinger or Mistral tubes, to better allow the launcher to deal with saturation attacks. Obviously those would have been much easier to hand-reload.

I want to in future make some more mobile SAM systems, and I think stinger or mistral eill be much easier to scratch build too, as a pair of right diameter and length tubes will do the job. A lighter vehicle will do the job too.

[Weaver]

I want to in future make some more mobile SAM systems, and I think stinger or mistral eill be much easier to scratch build too, as a pair of right diameter and length tubes will do the job. A lighter vehicle will do the job too.

Stinger is just a tube with a few rings on it.
Mistral has an 8(?) sided faceted glass nose like a Firestreak AAM.
RBS-70 is a plain tube, a bit fatter than Stinger.

Starstreak is a plain enough tube, but it fits in "sleeves" on the 8-round mobile launcher (Stormer platform) which are corrugated and quite an odd shape. The Lightweight Multiple Launcher (LML) version just has the bare tubes though, and it can be mounted on vehicles. It looks like the UK is going to buy some more Starstreaks on 4x4 light vehicles, but they'll be more like a cut-down version of the Stormer one with 4 rounds.