Tuesday 17 May 2011

Grav/Hover/Wheeled/tracked APC concept ideas

Hi guys, I'm after some ideas, I am building elements of a Colonial Marine Independent Recon Battalion (not really based on the Colonial Marines from Aliens, but I use them as inspiration for their look and tech level) I am at the stage of thinking about AFVs, as I love scratch building, I have decided to make their AFVs from 1/72 kits rather then buying them pre made, as they will be mid tech I think Hover, wheeled or tracked would be more appropriate then Grav for this force, some of the models I am choosing between as donor kits are listed below, at this stage I am thinking choice 1 and 2 are good, but I'm not sure of the rest.

1) Stryker - This is pretty large for 15mm, so suits med/large tank, would look good, wheeled, hover or grav.

2) Saracen - perfect for a medium APC, probably look best as wheeled or hover.

3) LAV - good size for a med/large APC, this would look great as a grav APC.

4) Scimitar - nice for a light tank, hover is the most likely choice for this.

5) sheridan - good for a med/large tank, again hover is the best choice.

6) Bradley - not sure I will use this for this force, maybe for the NI, grav or hover.

7) Merkava III - good for a heavy/super heavy tank, tracked would make it look to much like is donor kit, so hover or grav.

My real dilemma is whether to go hover, tracked, wheeled, or grav, here's my train of thought

1) Wheeled - for this force I would prefer wheeled, however, the Saracen and Stryker are already wheeled, while this seems to make the conversion easier, it actually will make it harder, because I don't want the final vehicle to resemble the original to closely.

2) Hover -this choice makes sense for a mid tech force, an easy way to have an all terrain vehicle without the tech level or price of Grav, and it will look scifi rather then modern.

3) Tracked - I think this would look very cool putting tracks on a Stryker and Saracen, but the reality is that it would be fun to make 1 of each, but I want at least half a dozen of each, and I would need 2 donor kits for the one vehicle, so would be expensive.

4) Grav really is to high tech for this force, but I think I could make them look really cool, I might save this for my NI force.

Have a look at the attached picts and let me know what you think, these are only very rough concepts and will change a lot.













3 comments:

  1. Nice concepts there Dan.

    Im a Grav Man myself but having said that my collection encompases air/Grav/hover/tracks and wheels.

    forces created using GZG kit is generally one thing or other.

    With Old Crow I adopted a different approach. The teeth tanks and MICVs were Grav, recce wheeled and arty support (MLRS) - hover. This gives it a very 'real world' feel - "we couldnt afford to upgrade everything" - and represents a transitional force of the future.

    The Stryker is always cool wheeled. The Sheridan is a good Grav tank too.

    i like the idea of the hover Saracen - may have a go at that myself when i pick another up. Eli (I See Lead People) has a cool hover M20 armoured car.

    Cheers
    Mark

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  2. Hi Mark, mixed is something I have considered, I was thinking maybe a grav recce platoon and everyone else in wheeled, I may go down that road.

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  3. Keep it real go wheel, or tracked.

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