TANKS The Modern Age: Custom Unit #4

After I took a closer look at the BTR-80 apc by Zvezda in the last posting, I made a custom unit card for it, as I did for the Zvezda M2 Bradley too. Once again a new custom unit card for "TANKS The Modern Age" was created.

This new unit is a reskin of the US LAV-25, with the same values, it offers a high initiative AA unit. Compared to the original tank, the values are not accurate, but I wanted to give the Soviet player a new unit as I did for the US forces before. I think you can not have enough choices to choose from.

As the 3 units I created before this one, you can find the PDF file with the new card at my google drive by following this link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YcvFV4eeOjZTdmv7-6RmBngo77FHWbvw/view?usp=sharing

For the moment that are all custom units that I created until now. To give you a litte foresight, there may follow a German artillery unit in the future, but for the German version of the M109 I will have to do some modifications to the barrel of the Zvezda M109 kit.

Zvezda 1:100 Soviet Personnel Carrier BTR-80

A closer look at the Soviet BTR-80 armoured personell carrier model kit. This 1:100 kit is produced by the Russian manufacturer Zvezda for their game "Hot War - Battle for Oil". But as all 1:00 Zvezda model kits, this model could be used for any game with a matching setting.

As also the Bradley, I got this one for a discounted price. So let us see, what Zvezda has to offer with this modelkit:

The kit comes in 2 sprues. The cast is good, without any issues. A minimal amount of mouldlines has to be removed, but there are no sinkholes. 

This BTR-80 is made up from only 8 parts plus the 8 roadwheels, the turret is casted as a single piece.

Also included is a set of generic numeric decals. These decals are printed in good quality, there where no issues when they were applied.

Note that this is a different decal sheet than the sheet included in the 122mm "Gvozdika" howitzer.

After a look at the parts, it was time to get this model built:

Building this tank took me about half an hour. See the finished model on the pictures above, also you can see all tools which I used to complete this kit.

This is another nice kit by Zvezda. It could be built without the use of glue, the fit of the parts without glue is excellent. There are 2 things I do not like about this kit, first, the wheelhubs have almost no detail. Second, you will have to careful with the turret, the main gun is very fragile, but this is a matter of scale.

Overall, this is another nice kit from this range. 

But be aware, some of the "Hot War - Battle for Oil" kits are not as nice as the kits I already showed in previous closer looks at.

TANKS The Modern Age: Custom Unit #3

The Zvezda Bradley which I showed in the previous post offers a good base for another custom unit for "Tanks The Modern Age". 

The new unit card is based on the Soviet BMP-2 tank and offers the same values, also included is a weapon card for the TOW launcher, which can only be equipped by this vehicle. At the moment we did not find the time for a playtest, but this should work fine.

The PDF including the new cards is available from this link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dUV45YQemgKF8rwEUKqF1NzE-39w2DFF/view?usp=sharing

A good moment to mention, that the two previous made custom unit cards were redone and now published in PDF too.

The 4th and last custom unit, at least for this moment, will follow tomorrow.

Zvezda 1:100 M2A2 Bradley

A closer look at the US M2A2 Bradley APC from Zvezda. This Russian producer not only makes scalemodelkits, also it has several ranges of wargames with mostly simplified models, usally, like this, in 1:100 scale.

This kit comes from Zvezdas "Hot War - Battle for Oil" wargame.

Normally the modelkits from this range cost twice as much as their "Art Of Tactics" counterparts, but I had the opportunity to pick up 3 of them for half the normal price.

This offers the chance to take a (closer) look at this kit:

This kit comes in 2 sandcolored sprues, containing 14 parts to complete the model. All parts are nicely sculpted and casted, I did not find any sinkholes or visible ejectormarks on all 3 kits. There is almost no flash, but minimal cleanup is needed before putting this thing together.

This kit can be built without using glue, the fit of the parts is very good.

The decalsheet seems like it is printed in the same good quality than the M-109 sheet, I had no time to test them at the moment, but there should be no issues with them. But both include the same set of generic tank numbers and tactical signs.

Also there is a mistake in the spelling of Bratley, spelling it Bredley as you can see on the picture above.

All in all once again Zvezda offers a nice, easy buildable model with this Bradley. One minus are the frontlights which are casted as solid blocks without any details, but otherwise I could not find any issues with this kit except for the fact that it comes will all hatches closed.
Compared to their first 1:100 gaming pieces, this is a step forward, especially the tracks got more care by Zvezda.

Anyway, this kit is a nice addition to any 1:100 cold war/modern US army.

After about half an hour, this kit was built. Even when I built it only temporary without any glue, there are almost no gaps which would need filling. A rough measurement shows that is kit probably hits its scale. I would like to mention that this model has slight differences compared to the picture on the boxtop.

I like its look and will have a proper use in the future. You should have read it in the post above.

My Method To Apply Camouflage Netting To Tanks

Building a kit out of the box makes fun, painting the finished kit gives you something special, but adding some extras and modifications will make the finished kit to a true unicate. In this post I will show you, how I apply camouflage netting to tanks. This method was found some years ago in an old forum, which does not exist anymore, now I had the time to test it for myself.

You do not need much to do this modification, you will only need a model of your choice, some Greenstuff and a needle.

First I mixed the Greenstuff, then I applied a flat patch over the designated spot. For this demonstration I used an old Italeri JS-2 fastbuild kit. It comes from the testbox, where I have some old models on which I test new methods of painting and modifications.

After that I used the needle and started to push little holes in the flat surface, you do not have to worry about this process, just keep pushing. Whith the needle you can trim the form of the net if you want to.

The whole procedure took about 5 minutes and the result is promising. Please note that this is only a testpiece, do I did not put too much efford in this.

On the picture below you can see a slightly modified 1:100 Zvezda M2 Bradley APC (inspired by this blog) with some camouflage netting applied and already basecoated, with a layer of paint this already looks great. I am curious how this will look when all colors and decals are applied.

As you can see, some modifications for models do not take too much efford and look great in their results. The Bradley above will get his NATO woodland camo pattern, then I will decide in which colors I will paint the new applied camouflage.