The still ongoing Syrian civil war is the longest remnant conflict as triggered by the Arab spring. Since 2011, hundreds of thousand civilians perished and millions were displaced to neighboring countries like Turkey and Jordan, but also to Europe.
Describing the conflict in more detail would lead us too far here, but today, there are many groups still fighting each other and Syria seems to have earned the unfortunate status of a chessboard on to which international post-cold-war war games are played. In short, Russia supports the existing regime of Bashar al-Assad and so does Iran. The other warring factions are supported financially and logistically by Western powers, including Turkey but sometimes fight in-between themselves.
To me, it is one of the most tragic civil wars in recent history, also because I studied together with Syrians in the past (from Homs), so it is rather personal...
I wanted to build a T-72B variant as employed by the Syrian regime and visible in footage if several nature on the internet, like this one:
This is the first modern tank I built since childhood, when I built a 1-72 Chieftain at the age of 9 as far as I remember.
As a kit, I decided to bash the MENG T-72B1 out of box, not using any AM parts. I will add additional features, but this will be a scratchbuild invoving an actual kit. The main task at hand with this build consists in the research, the painting and weathering and finally, a short dio build.
The status is that I built the chassis, which involves a working torsion bar suspension in this scale. I also installed most parts on the upper hull and featured the turret of the Kontakt-1 reactive armor blocks. Yesterday, I finished the tracks using the jig featured with the kit. Off my hat: This kit is very well researched and beautifully engineered... It does however contain a lot of parts, not to mention the single link tracks which are in fact workable (if you do your best nit to handle them to rough, that is).
No offense to MENG but my kit seemed to have a few sprues missing, fortunately, the after sales service works well. If the corona virus was not around, I would probably already have received the missing sprues. Since I may have to wait months for the extra parts, I ordered the same kit again and will mix them later so the build can continue.
As for the weathering, I want to end-up with a bruised-and-battered look like this:
Although the T-72 variant in these pictures is an M or AV variant (I'm not 100% sure also because it had a rough time in the streets apparently), you get the idea.
These tanks are directly used in an urban context, where the reactive armor is a matter of life and death for the crews, who come under regular RPG and TOW missile fire. These crews must be unbelievably stressed in such an environment, where firing the 125mm main gun is by default at point blank range while the prospect of a violent death literally looms behind every wall and past every corner...
I want to make a small
disclaimer here, given this is an ongoing conflict: The selection of this particular vehicle or environment does not reflect my personal views or preferences as such in this or any other conflict. I am a modeler specializing in armor since many years and my intentions are solely aimed at representing the actual selected vehicle and environment in scale, as accurate and realistically as possible. Modeling armor belongs to the arts and crafts domain within a hobby context and should at all times be considered as such nonpartisan activity.
I will keep you updated on the progress.
Comments are encouraged!
Happy modeling.
