Sunday 17 November 2013

Leopard 2 and Lynx attack of the cats

Well hello to you all! and I bet some of you are thinking what is Gowan going to post this time? well this may come as a shock but models are in the post today (crowd in disbelief). yes it's been too long but finally I have some thing to show you and I think it is a well rounded post including a Kit, Diecast and a figure, but also, a vehicle, an aircraft and and infantryman.

Well lets start off with my personal favourite the Tank! the Leopard 2 A6(M) according to the Revell box. But as with nearly all the tanks it's Oronegrean built and bred.  The kit was a bit of a hassel to build certainly the solid tracks were not nice to put together and I failed misserably at doing the whole warming and bending thing. (one worked OK but the rest snapped and have been glued into place). Another problem was the garage clear out that took place half way through construction meaning that the decals were lost and now are possibly out with the rest of the rubbish. So the tank has no markings or licence plates that would have been nice to add but one problem can be another opportunity. This tank because of its unique camouflage can be an Oronegrean tank, a German one or another nations tank. certainly what decals would have given the tank aesthetically is made up with new found usability.
a soldier for scale purposes... no decals but that doesn't bother me. it just makes this all the more usable.
This being Oronegro, the tank is clearly Oronegrean built so this is the Leoplard O3 with advanced gun, a lighter varient of the same nigh impenitrable armour of the Oronegrean Challengers and Abrams. Not to mention a ridiculous engine that makes the advanced hydrogen fuel cell of the challengers look sane. this tank is Nuclear powered! (extreme disbelief) now, now don't you worry not all are so powered many have conventional internal combustion or hydrogen fuel cell power plants but a few of these tanks incorperate nuclear powerplants... which I'll explain later and (as with the challengers) back up diesel engine.
this one was an interesting build with all the many parts... not the hardest kit I've made but not an easy one

noo the table is showing I thought I had got all shots with only white background

from behind
 Right lets talk about the engine as we're at that end of the tank (previous photo). it is nuclear but uses an element that does not exist on the normal periodic table, this element decays very slowly but gives off lots of energy, three rods are placed in the reactor which is shielded by a casing of ridicolouslydenseium  which shields the crew (though the reactor manager does wear an NBC suit for extra safety). only one of the three rods is ever active at one time, all three would potentially cause a meltdown. in case of an emergency or one of the rods going out of control the rods can be automatically loaded into special shells and fired out of the main gun (which has a shieled autoloader) these shells, if loaded into armed shells (there are two types eject, for emergencies, armed for using them as weapons) explode with a reasonably large nuclear blast. should all three rods be ejected the diesil engine can let the big cat limp away at a stately 15km/h.
the required "propoganda" shot
 Next up is a Lynx this is an advanced version based on the AH7. this one is built (wait for it) by AgustaWestland NOT IN ORONEGRO (more disbelief) this lynx has been given the most powerful, reliable engines on offer so that it can reach the top speeds of the fastest models, i.e the fastest of all helicopters. equipped with the TOE missiles (advanced version of the TOW) and a door gunner occasionally opens the door to cover the side (mostly they stay inside, its unnerving flying low at such high speeds)
Now this lynx came with helicopter magazine... I had a difficult choice as I had to choose between the lynx or a German eurotiger (would have gone well with the Leopard) but as I have an apache kit I thought another transport would be better and the missiles gave this one the edge. Now I do have a comparison shot later of both Lynx (what is the plural?) so you can see the difference.
this is a nice diecast, although I have had to cut and glue a few things here, I clearly got the runt of the litter.
 Now for the figure. Sorry about the photo's as I didn't get the lighting right. This man is Oronegrean Special forces (haven't decided which... marine?) who unusually for my figures has the Oronegrean flag painted on his shoulder. he's one of a few figures I have been working on for a while, real mixed quality as some of the figures had unexpected flash (strange for caesar figs) and were primmed with nasty Tamiya primmer (really thick sticky coat) but many are also conversions so it's interesting to see how they're turning out.
sorry about the lighting

still too dark but you can see the camo pattern reasonably well.
 Now for that comparison! Scale difference is minimal which is nice although clearly the new lynx is of better quality. I don't have any british forces in Oronegro but they along with many NATO forces were involved, so perhaps down the line I should get some. have the helicopter but no-body for it to support to transport. the old lynx is pretty generic though and despite its either Soviet or Polish origins its not too bad compated with the new one IMHO.
from above

different angle.
 All together now.
Rebels beware more forces have joined the goverments cause.
Well thats it for today.

8 comments:

  1. Nice additions to the Oronegrean military inventory, Gowan. By the way, when speaking of the animals, the plural of 'lynx' is 'lynx'. For some reason, though, that doesn't sound right when speaking of multiple units of gyrocoptic hardware. Nor does 'lynges' (carrying on the phalanx/phalanges pattern). Methinks one can scarcely go wrong with 'Lynxes.' There: that's my Sheldon Cooper moment for this afternoon...

    Oh, hang on - that surprisingly stable, high atomic number, energetic radioactive element: I suggest it is the only stable isotope of Ditchburnium, named for its ... discoverer?/inventor? - created by bombarding blocks of U-238 with high-energy alpha, beta and gamma radiation to form every higher atomic numbered isotopes and elements.

    Speaking of which: have you wondered about the scientists' excited response to the discovery - using the Hadron Collider, say - that when little things collide with each other at close to light speed they are apt to bust? Then they name all the little bits of wreckage they find. Apparently no one has yet found a Higgs boson among the detritus... 'Curiouser and curiouser,' said Alice...

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    1. well as for the element I like to think of it as part of a parrallel periodic table which includes elements similar to our own but with special properties such as the Mithril element, anamantium and many other elements which if I was to name would cause me to be sued by many different companies for breach of interlectual property. :-D

      as for the Higs perhaps the problem is when you smash stuff perhaps you also abliterate what its made of. for instance if I was too smash glass I would not end up with sand all over the place but smaller shards of glass. perhaps by colliding particals you can never find the higs because it is like the sand in glass a key element of particals but not released when they're broken down.

      Well I think that lynx and lynxes are both good plurals for Lynx but a more important one has to be lotus... is the plural lotuses or loti (lotii?) is we are to follow the octopus octupi, latin plural pattern?

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  2. Oooh, goody: the chance for another Sheldon Cooper moment! The plural for 'octopus' is not 'octopi'. That is because 'octopus' is of Greek etymology, not Latin. If tou want to be pedantic, 'octopodes' is the 'correct' plural, though I use the perfectly acceptable 'octopuses'. 'Octocats' is going too far. The plural of 'lotus' is 'lotuses' (again Greek - the 'lotus eaters').

    Your explanation for the missing Higgs Boson is bery persuasive... even assuming it exists in our familiar 4-dimensional universe.

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  3. google swallowed my comment the buggers.... I'll try again.

    ok. English is a nightmare of a language, probably the only thing we can onclude from our (interesting) discussion of plurals. Sure the english language lends itself to poetry and song but that is purely the aesthetics of it. In Graphics (visual design and communication) we look at both aesthetics and funtion. functionally english it bizzare... its like a building made from many different materials joined together in a veriety of ways. It has its own charm and it may be stable but it is not going to win any prizes for being a feet of engineering.

    the higs is an interesting thing. Although I have heard a detailed explanation of the higs I have forgotten it and so my knowlege is extremely limited. (actually I have probably forgotten everything). another analogy I shall use for why what their doing ot find it may be wrong is this...

    ... the quest to find the Higs is like physics crossed with archeology. Where in archeology do you use smashing? in archeology you wouldn't use dynamite to discover some ancient ruins. you use a trowel and a brush to carefully expose the ruins and any finds hidden within it.

    So instead of using the dynamite and smashing out atoms perhops a more enegry intensive slower process used to pry apart the atoms is required.

    x,y,z,time four dimentional, but how do we know that it is the same x,y,z thats moving through time? not an innumerable about of 3Dimensions existing for every moment of time, so we are living not in a 4 dimentional universe but a huge number of 3 dimentional ones and the transition between each creates the sensation of time? Now I have just gone mad and I am sure some physisist somewhere is coming to kill me.

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    1. H'mmm... A cinematic Universe; a stop motion existence... intriguing...

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  4. Great vehicles, I really like the helicopters.

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    1. thanks, although I cannot really take credit for the die-cast

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    2. Please do more of this modern combat.....i need something to work against!

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