Italeri 1/35 BMP-1 - and OT-90 conversion kit

[RangerNeil]

First of the "hidden" kits to go through the completion progress is the Italeri BMP-1. As I used to own a Czech OT-90 - based on the original BMP-1 design I also got a "Panzer Shop" resin conversion for the OT-90 conversion the Czechs carried out on the real thing.

First the history lesson:
The original BMP (Боевая Машина Пехоты 1; БМП-1 in the original mother tongue) - literally fighting machine of the Infantry - resulted from an in-depth analysis carried out by the Soviet Forces of the various tactics used for getting infantry into battle during WW2 and just after. It was realized that the best way and most effective way is to have the troops move with the tanks. The original transports of the 1950's - the BTR-40 and BTR-152 were effective at actually transporting troops on and off road but lacked real armour protection on the sides, were totally exposed to aerial bursts and had no NBC (Nuclear, Biologicical, Chemical) protection. A grave failing in the nuclear age!! Several design projects were put forwards by various design bureaus in response to the Defence Ministries request - wheeled, half tracked, tracked, hybrid etc Of all these Ob'yekt 764 (codename Object 764) was chosen as the path to follow because the front engine design allowed rapid disembarkation of troop either out of the roof hatches or the two rear doors. Weapons ports down the both the sides starting with a "D" shaped port for the RPD squad machine gun then followed by 3 tear drop shaped ports for the AK's. One more AK port was provided in the Left Rear door allowing the infantry to fight from within the vehicle. To aid this an extraction system ran down each side connected to deflector cover plates by rubber tubes. These clipped over the breech on an AK47 or 74 and served a dual role in deflecting hot spent cases down to the floor instead of the next guys face as well as extracting the cordite fumes out every time the weapon was fired, Another rail run above this with short spurs on, tipped by rubber cones- this was part of the NBC system The actual system itself was basically a massively over pressure design that forced air out rather than letting it in as it was designed to cope with the weapons ports being open in an NBC environment (switching the system on with all hatches closed produces an agonizing pain in the ears within seconds) the second rail though was a stepped down system that provided fresh air to the troops gas-masks. The hose for the GP-5 mask gets removed from the filter cartridge in the usual bag and fitted onto the rubber tipped spurs
Additionally the engine and transmission added a layer of protection to frontal attacks for the gunner, ammunition and troops. The vehicle first saw the light of day in 1964 for development testing, as a result of that the design morphed into Ob'yekt 765 and was first issued to the 120th Guards Rifle Division who carried out in-service testing. Actual production started in 1966.
A note here of Soviet testing methods - they varied greatly from the West. At the time we tested armour plate by putting sections taken from production lines and using bloody great swing hammers to test them for hardness. Not so our friends behind the curtain. They took an actual vehicle and fired live rounds at it testing it literally to destruction. Based on that - if it performed as expected - they took another vehicle, put a crew in it and repeated the live fire testing up to the design level of protection. If the crew survived all well and good. If not... Most Soviet armour of the 1960's and 70's had the advantage of being tested in live battles somewhere in the world because they sold it to all their allies and satellites. In the BMP-1's case it first saw action in the Middle East with Egyptian and Syrian forces in the 1973 Yom Kipur war. Lessons learnt there were applied to Soviet vehicles right up to the 1980's Afghan excursion where the limitations of the BMP-1's turret - particularly the angle of elevation of the main gun were a critical weakness. Shortly after shipping the design team out to Afghanistan the BMP-2 came into being with a better turret incorporating a high angle 20mm cannon in lieu of the 73mm smooth-bored "Grom" anti-tank gun of the BMP-1. The current iteration is the BMP-3 which remains one of the most effective IFV's in the world.

Fast forwards a few years from Afghanistan to the SALT talks of the 1990's where limitations were put on the number of anti-tank guns signatory countries could have. The "Grom" cannon was classed as an anti-tank gun and a lot of users opted to scrap the complete BMP - some stripped the turrets and made them command, recover or ambulance types whilst others scrapped the entire vehicle. Not so the Czech - an eminently practical country. They looked at the situation and through "We have the 8 wheeled SKOT-64 coming to the end of its service life that has a still practical and useable turret mounting the 14.5mm KVPT heavy machine gun in a high angle mount - and we have these BMP-1's with turrets we can't use but excellent hulls. So they stripped the original turret off the BMP-1, welded a hexagonal base on within the original turret ring and then mounted the SKOT-64 turret onto that - and thus the "Obreney Transporter" or - literally - Armoured Transporter, the OT-90 was born. Some other modifications were made - like adding a second shock-absorber onto the second set of roadwheels to improve the ride and handling but basically the hull remains a BMP-1.
For more information on the OT-90 have a look here: http://rangerneil.com/Military_Vehicles/OT90_index.html

The kit
As this is a mostly built kit there is no point is providing the sprue photographs because they are in the main empty but this is the instruction sheet:












The kit itself goes together well - but as you can see from the instructions it is pretty basic by modern standards - no interior detail at all, no PE at all. Externally it is quite good as it goes with not much needed to be added - the unditching log secured above the rear doors springs to mind as well as the canvas covers for the entire vehicle that is usually stowed in straps on the rear of the turret.
If there is one part of the kit that is a right PITA it is the tracks - they just push together to form the continuous links and these links do not hold well at all. As I have found - in the past and yesterday - one good tap on the hull by mistake can result in 90-odd pieces of track link laying around the road wheels on each side of the vehicle. And a couple of frustrating hours work putting them back together again..

As it stands now before work resumes this is the state of play:
The base hull


The BMP-1 turret and Malyutka


The Panzer Shop OT-90 conversion


BMP-1 configuration


OT-90 configuration


Tracks and return rollers

[RangerNeil]

So - time for an update on this one..... I've been having to fit bits in here and there due to family commitments but...
The hull, turrets, turret plinth and hatches have all have a coat of Vellejo Model Colour Russian Green. I couldn't justify the cost of ordering the AKAN kit for the BMP from Russia as I had this here and it is a damn good match for the original that I had.
The figure that should be in the BMP turret has been assembled and painting has commenced - but theres a long way to go there yet.
Right now I am concentrating on the rear access doors - the hinges are fiddly and about as good as the tracks for staying in one place so I intend to assemble them fixed in the closed position. The interior faces are poor in relation to the rest of the kit. Its fairly common knowledge that the rear doors on a BMP are hollow (and yes some idiot in the Russian equivalent of the MoD DID authorise making them into fuel tanks) but as you can see in the photo below the model doors are 1 dimensional, lacking the interior bulge for containing fuel. I could make up some moulds and heat some plasticard up but its a complex job as one has an AK port in it and the other has a shelf fr the vehicle first aid kit - and as there is no interior detail whatsoever its pointless. I did intend scratch building the interior central spine and outward facing seats but for some reason long forgotten I have cemented the top of the hull in place. Doh!!!!!!!
This means the upper troop compartment hatches will also be secured in the closed position - unless I get hold of some Soviet Afghanistan era figures I can put in place to block the view and represent the crew I used to carry from the Red Alliance living History group.
Rather than bin the BMP-1 turret I have some photos - somewhere - of the frame used to support such a turret off the vehicle for training purposes so I'm going to have a go at scratch building one of them to put the turret on in a separate display.
Anyways - onto the photos of the work so far...

The hull with its 4BO Green


The BMP Turret


And with Malyutka loosely placed


The OT-90 turret and plinth - turret from a SKOT-64, also used on BRDM-2's - the early PanzerShop conversion (later ones included some PE)




The additional shock absorber from the PanzerShop kit


Rear doors and hinges






The assembled vehicle in OT-90 configuration




The crew figure....

[digger303]

Only just caught this and must say I found the history of this vehicle a great read. Not sure I'd want to be a Russian though for the live fire armor tests. I'd be curled up in a ball behind the other guy until I was confident nothing was going to penetrate the hull.
Looking forward to more on this.

[Hawkmoon]

Looking good Neil and nice work

[RangerNeil]

Onward and upwards Spent a couple of hours today fiddling with the hinges and hatches. I played with the idea of having the rear doors open - but the hinge design made that virtually impossible, so they are permanently closed:



The upper hatches DO open - but again the design is poor. The rear most hinge slides along the pin with only a very short stubby forward hinge. So as you open the hinge the hatch tends to slide backwards and comes out of the front hinge.... They could have done with making the forward pin longer so that it could be flattened with a hot blade to retain the hatch on the hinge.



All is now painted green so the kit is virtually finished. Just the turret plinth and turret to mount - which is where I need to get creative as the PanzerShop conversion fit did not include a pivot pin. I am thinking of using a chassis screw from a computer with a dab of super glue in the turret hole so that it can't undo and fall out.
Then there is the decals to go on and here I need to find some appropriately sized/shaped numbers - my vehicles hull number was 151 and there aren't enough 1's in the kit to make it up.

This is (was!) the real thing:

[RangerNeil]

Been doing some searching today for the Czech roundels and numbers for the sides and rear door. What a Nightmare!!
I need the roundels and the lettering in between 4mm and 5mm dia/height - no more than that to fit on the sides of the hull. The markings in the kit:
1) Are - according to Italerie - meant to go on the turret.
2) Roundels are too big and missing the blue circle around the edge.
3) Insufficient to make up the hull number "151"

So I found the Czech roundels on the modelhobbies.co.uk web site - actually 1/144 scale but the pattern is the same and they come in 3 sizes, the middle of which @ 4.6mm is the perfect fit.

I also found Soviet style letters and number on the armata-models.ru web site - but - they are currently out of stock with no restock date in sight yet. So I was wondering - has anyone used dry transfer lettering on a model before - I found these on Amazon that would do the trick -https://www.amazon.co.uk/APLI-DDB6F-Whi ... 5FHPE181S6 - but I've no idea how they would react to having a coat of varnish over the top??

[RangerNeil]

The postman came today and delivered the lettering and the Cxech roundels so I cracked on with finishing the build. First off I gave the areas the decals were going a coat of gloss varnish and let it dry for a couple of hours. Then dug out a photo of my old girl to get the decals as close as possible in the same place. I think it turned out no too bad considering it was abandoned for about 5 years.
First to go on were the roundels as they were waterslide - didn't take any photos of these stages as, stupidly, I'd let the phone battery go flat.
Once these had dried it was time for the numbers which were dry transfer - first time I've ever used those and this can be seen - especially on the rear door set.
Gave it another hour or so to drive then gave it a coat of satin varnish to seal them and protect them.

Kit Summary
For an Italeri kit it was a bit of a disappointment - compared to the DUKW I bought at the same time the moulding are not as crisp or as detailed which makes me wonder if it was a re-boxed kit from another manufacturer. There are some glaring omissions for a BMP - most notable being the two large straps above the rear doors for the unditching log and the fact the rear doors are not just concave shells. As the doors were meant to open it would not have been so hard to mould the inner shells. On the other hand it had a nice little feature in that the base for the aerial had an inset moulded in for a length of material - I used wire - to be glued in and look the part.
The Panzershop conversion was quite good comprising the Turret itself, the turret base, the frontal mantlet anad the KVPT and PKT machine guns plus the mounting plinth, All very nicely detailed. Later versions included a small amount of PE for the carry-handle on the KVPT barrel and the straps on the rear of the turret. The spotlight on the roof is an OE kit part. Oddly enough though it did not include a pivot pin to go from the turret base through the plinth. I - think - that was corrected in later editions as well.
I plan in the future to fabricate those straps and either get hold of, or fabricate, a log of the correct length. I also need to do the straps on the back of the turret that secure the canvas transit cover in place when not in use. Also I want to experiment with some weathering - but these will have to wait until money permits.
When that happy day comes I think I would like to try either a Zvezda or Trumpeter offering on the BMP-1 as well. Maybe complete the set - BMP-1, BMP-2 and BMP-3.

So - here is the actual real life vehicle:



And here is the finished model - the first two were taken with flash on and appear "washed out".:

[BigWall]

Very nice and too cool that you are building something that you actually owned!

[Tomcat64]

Nicely rescued and finished off mate - great job!

[digger303]

Good finish nicely done

[RangerNeil]

Good finish nicely done

Thanks Digger - much appreciated