Messages

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Work In Progress / Re: New Project of the Month - July 2021 - Soviet ZIS-150 / ZIL-164 4x2 4t Truck

« on: July 08, 2021, 09:11:20 am »

Likewise, I'd rather a Zil-157 or even a Zil-151. Widespread use, especially on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and could be used as the tow vehicle for an SA-2 SAM, if you ever decided to go down that path.

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Work In Progress / Re: Soviet BTR-60PA/B APC TS1 Test Assembly 210625

« on: July 08, 2021, 09:03:57 am »

From reliable Vietnamese sources, the Soviets had supplied "used" BTR-60PB to the PAVN towards the end of the Vietnam War.

Here are a few video captures of the BTR-60PB moving towards Saigon on the last days of the war.  From what we were told, these videos were Vietnamese documentaries that had not been seen outside of Vietnam until recently.







Enjoy!

Very interesting! I stand corrected.

I've had a bit of a search through online on Vietnamese sites and it seems that indeed a few were in service late in the war. There's even a suggestion of a battalion's worth being used in the Ho Chi Minh campaign by the 23rd Mechanised Battalion. The earliest depiction or reference I can find is a photo purporting to be a BTR-60 converted to act as the carriage for Ho's coffin, so that would date usage to 1969. Model can't be identified from the photo but as the PB had only just come into service in the Soviet Union, I'm guessing it's a PA or possibly a converted command variant.

That said the overwhelming majority of published photos on line show Chinese Type 63 (K-63) and BTR-50 variants for the '72 and '75 campaigns so I'd suggest that whilst it seems that BTR-60s were present in 1975 they were still not especially common.

It's funny, in the wake of the Sino-Vietnamese War, Vietnam went to some lengths to publicly down play the extent of Chinese  aid during the Liberation war. They even changed the public record to show that a Soviet built T-54 was the first tank to enter the grounds of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, despite contemporary photographic evidence showing it was in fact a Chinese made T-59. Despite that contemporary photos of Chinese built APCs abound.

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Work In Progress / Re: Soviet BTR-60PA/B APC TS1 Test Assembly 210625

« on: June 30, 2021, 05:09:46 pm »

Hmm. If you read down that Wkipedia entry you will find the following under the Vietnam entry for current users.

“500 BTR-60PBs were ordered in 1978 from the Soviet Union and delivered between 1978 and 1980 (the vehicles were probably previously in Soviet service)….”

Which, if you are a student of history, is the year that the Soviet Vietnamese Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation was signed. Vietnam had already pivoted away from China as its major arms supplier as relations between the two rapidly declined in the aftermath of the war. The Soviet Union was still supplying Vietnam with T-55 and T-62 in the 1980s.

I’ve yet to see a single photo of a BTR-60 in Vietnamese service that predates the Vietnamese-Cambodian War. That includes visits to the major Vietnamese military museums in Hanoi and HCM City.  No mention that I’m aware of in US reports following the 1972 Easter Offensive, which saw the largest concentration of armour by the PAVN prior to the final offensives in 1975.

It’s entirely possible that there were BTR-60 in PAVN service pre 1978. in fact one wargaming site makes a claim for a handful in 1973 but they cannot have been very prominent as no visual record seems to exist. On the other hand I have seen photos of BTR-60PB in Vietnamese service in Cambodia in the 1980s. In fact I believe they handed a few down to the Kampuchean Army.

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Introduce Yourself / Re: Introduce Yourself Here...

« on: June 29, 2021, 08:54:22 pm »

hello,

Long term gamer and modeller and proud owner of a dozen or more Rubicon kits. Big fan of Rubicon's work, beautiful little models that are superbly engineered, which makes them a pleasure to build. Very excited that rubicon is branching out into post-war kit, which is one of my main areas of interest.

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Work In Progress / Re: M113A1 APC Drawings Update #3 210214

« on: June 29, 2021, 08:50:58 pm »

A request for Australian M113s with the M74C turret as well as the more well known T50 turret. Lesser known and something of a failure, the M74 turret actually saw as much service as the iconic T50 version. The South Vietnamese also used a few experimentally I believe.

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Work In Progress / Re: Vietnam War - NVA Sprue Layout & Sculpts 210507

« on: June 29, 2021, 08:47:09 pm »

Have you considered doing a sprue, in pewter or resin perhaps, of heads in Mao Caps? The Viet Cong are rather too well armed for local forces but these would make ideal Khmer Rouge.

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Work In Progress / Re: PBR 31 Mk II Patrol Boat Prototype 210507

« on: June 29, 2021, 08:42:03 pm »

It looks great!

Minor point.  That grenade launcher is actually a Mk18 not a Mk19. The Mk18 was a hand cranked item that used the same ammo as the M79. The Mk19 is a bigger, blow back operated item that fires a different 40mm round.

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Work In Progress / Re: Soviet BTR-60PA/B APC TS1 Test Assembly 210625

« on: June 29, 2021, 08:34:03 pm »

The BTR-60 was not in Vietnamese use during the Vietnam War. The earliest operational use of the BTR-60 by the PAVN that I am aware of is in Cambodia post 1979 as part of the Vietnamese counter-insurgency there (Vietnam's Vietnam as some would have it).

Whilst it is a very useful vehicle and the forthcoming kit looks fabulous it is a fairly strange choice for a Vietnam tie in.  File it alongside the fantasy M203s for the USMC box.

If Rubicon wanted a PAVN APC that saw some actual use prior to 1975 they probably would have been better off with  a BTR-50 or the Chinese Type 63, which was the most prevalent APC in 1972 and 1975. Probably a bit more of a niche item, they did see quite a lot of use in various Middle Eastern conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq War, Gulf War and the Invasion of Iraq.