Military Model Scene
Robin Buckland's
Unimog S 1.5 tonner 'S', in 3 parts...
...Militarfahrzeug Specials Nos 5066, 7 and 8, new from Tankograd
Title: Unimog 1.5 tonner 'S' - Part 1
Author: Ralf Maile
Publisher: Tankograd
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This new Militarfahrzeug Special from Tankograd, number 5066 is the first of three parts to cover the early 1.5 ton version of the famous Unimog. Just as a reminder, Tankograd have already done a similar set covering the later 2 ton versions. This first part of the trilogy tackles the development story of the Unimog 1.5 S, the prototypes and the competitors. It won the contest for contracts of course and with 36,638 examples being built in the end, they were in service with the Bundeswehr for some 50 years, and are still in use by a number of countries around the world. Filled with archive photos, detailed manufacturers diagrams there is a fantastic level of detail included here, particularly regarding the chassis. All the illustrations also have helpful and informative captioning, which, just like the whole book, is presented in both German and English languages. One or two of the photos also show the extreme flexibility of the suspension on this 4-wheel drive chassis. A particularly impressive one shows two of the trucks slung underneath the fuselage of the large Skycrane helicopter.
As well as the basic details of the chassis and the development story, it goes on to include all round coverage of both the standard GS cargo body, along with a walk round of the box-bodied version as well.
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Thanks to UK stockists Bookworld for my examples.
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Robin
Title: Unimog 1.5 tonner 'S' - Part 2
Author: Ralf Maile
Publisher: Tankograd
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The second part of these Militarfahrzeug Specials from Tankograd, is number 5067. This one looks at the Cargo versions, of which there are one or two changes between early and later production versions and we see photos of these along with an interesting variety of different equipment packs that were fitted into the flexibility of these flat bed bodies. There are also the centrally mounted seats for use as a troop carrier. It also includes 1/35 scale drawings and a diagram of the pattern for the three colour camouflage scheme.
An interesting variety of special equipment fittings, such as snow blowers, dozer blade, AA weapons, rocket launcher as well as the tubular framework for fitting a machine gun ring over the cab. There is a pictorial representation of a German army unit as equipped with Unimogs and the final section covers the double-cab variant used for driver training. Useful again for the modeller as a set of 1/35 scale drawings are included for this one as well.
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Robin
Title: Unimog 1.5 tonner 'S' - Part 3
Author: Ralf Maile
Publisher: Tankograd
Number 5068 rounds off this set of three Specials, packed again with a great variety of good clear photos, many in colour. This time they deal with another interesting variety of body types fitted to the common chassis. While most are still fitted with soft-top cabs, that is not the whole story as a number of these ones also feature the use of a closed hard-top cab.
The first major section of this one looks at an assortment of box body variants, particularly communications types before moving on to Ambulances. This is followed by a section looking at Dummy Training Tanks, where a dummy tank superstructure is fitted onto the chassis, and representing a couple of different patterns. Nice to see a set of scale drawings for one of these which will I am sure tempt a number of modellers to have a go at. The final two, short sections, deal with Fire Engine variants and as some are bright red, these could offer a very colourful conversion. Then lastly, though they did not result in orders, some prototypes and the story behind those prototypes which were built with fully armoured bodies
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Robin
