What if the Cold
War never ended? What if the Second World War had gone on many more more
years than it did? What if the Soviet threat had been on a much larger scale
in the early 1990's? What if the Red Army had made it's way onto American
soil? Kind of scary if one thinks about it.
The thought of nuclear war, invasion, the end of democracy and the opening of WW
III to begin the first chapter of the 21st century. Remember the movie
'Red Dawn'? That movie still touches me to this day. It also is very
inspiring. During the early 1980's, many Americans were very paranoid that
Russia was going to attack the United States or Europe. Red Dawn could
have very well proven to be a real live possibility in those days. The
film is what has inspired me to build a model based on this scenario and is also
one of my favorite war films of all time... though a little corny, it
remains vivid in my mind - seeing Russian paratroopers landing in small towns
and Hind gunships patrolling the mountains for American freedom fighters.
I wanted to build a "what if" Mi-24 Hind and I found this subject to
be perfect for my taste. I hope it fits your taste as well.
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images below to see larger images
The kit
is from Minihobby which is the same mold as the Monogram kit. It
does have shortcomings... the details are not as crisp and alot of them
have been omitted, making the model look kind of crappy compared to the
that of the Monogram kit. However, it doesn't have the raised panel
lines like monogram. It has some rivets in some areas that I think
look good. The canopy was crap and completely misshaped... just toss
it. Another Monogram canopy came to my aid, thanks to Larry Englesh...
Appreciate it, Larry!
I built the kit pretty much straight out of the box,
except I got the #2 weapons set and the twin-barrel cannon conversion from
Cobra Company. This is a wonderful set that really brings the Hind's
arsenal out. I recommend staying away from the kit's cannon setup.
The weapons include two, triple mini-gun pods, two land mind pods, and
four wingtip rockets. I used the resin wheels, but I didn't use
aftermarket stuff for the cockpit, as I chose to use crew and close the
canopy. However, there are some good PE parts available from Eduard
for those of you wanting to super detail a Hind in 1:48.
As far as painting goes, I wanted to use colors that would depict a winter
assault. The way I see it, the Soviets hit Alaska first, and worked their
way down south. I used Russian light gray, followed by Russian dark gray,
and then Soviet armor green over the top. I left the fuselage bottom the
same base color as the rest of the helicopter. I thought the dark green
and gray would go good with the snowy terrain and pine trees that litter the
cold zones of the United States. I meant to paint the interior the typical
Soviet interior blue/green but I accidentally used USSR underside blue and didn't
realize it until it was too late... Oh well, happy modeling anyways! I
added the red marking by hand painting it on the left side of the aircraft
indicating the "Excellent Maintenance Award" for this particular bird.
I used the decals out of the box and they seemed to work out fine.
Overall I am happy with the way it turned out.
Would a helicopter like this actually exist? Probably not... But, it is
good to remember that this is all from my imagination and with the help of some Hollywood magic. Who knows what the Russians would have done had the
Berlin wall stayed or had they not financially destroyed themselves in the last
years of the Cold War. But hey it sure makes a good novel or a war flick!
Cheers and Enjoy,
Ben
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