M70A2 Krueger
Komentarzy
39 11 March 2020, 14:58
Jörg LutherNice scratchbuilding and convincing no-slip surfaces. The headlight guards on image #2 could need some more sanding. Walter Krueger?
11 December 2021, 19:04
Jakko Thanks 🙂 I think I did some more work on the headlight guards after taking the picture, but that was about two years ago so I don't actually remember …
And yes, named after Walther Krueger, who seemed an appropriate choice to name a German-American tank after 🙂
11 December 2021, 21:10
Robin (WhiteGlint)Impressive work on an interesting project.
I really like the turret's shape. Following. 👀
20 December 2021, 16:38
Jakko Thanks 🙂 I have to admit, I'm quite fond of the shape of the turret too — it looks far better than the plump MBT 70, if I say so myself 🙂 And to think the only reason it has this shape is because that's the only thing that will fit if you want flat front faces and not lose internal volume.
20 December 2021, 18:12
A.J. MadisonAwesome idea. I want to do a late 1970's US MBT-70 cold war warrior, with a MERDC paint job. See if I can confuse a model contest judge.
25 December 2021, 22:01
Jakko Thanks, and if you ask me: Go for it 🙂 The main thing, IMHO, is to make it a plausible real vehicle. Don't just take a prototype MBT 70 and paint it as a tank in service, but think about how it might have been improved in minor (or major) ways had it been adopted. And then build those improvements, of course 🙂
26 December 2021, 09:43
Karel DoležalPerfect modification models. Incredible amount of changes and details compared to the standard model.
26 December 2021, 10:08
Robin (WhiteGlint)A mean machine! 👍
The mine plow makes the tank look even more aggressive.
26 December 2021, 11:44
Jakko Thanks 🙂 The Dragon kit is missing a lot of details even if you build it to represent a KPz 70 prototype (you can't built an MBT 70* from it without a fair amount of conversion: engine deck, hull rear, headlights, front stowage bins, smoke launchers and more) so I felt I had to add those to this model too. Basically, it's part speculation and part adding missing details of the real tank.
* "MBT 70" was the American designation, "KPz 70" the German one. The Dragon kit represents a late version of the latter, not the former.
26 December 2021, 16:22
A.J. Madison@Jakko I saw that you swapped out that ridiculous 152mm Shillelagh weapon for the 120mm Rheinmetall Rh-120. So that's the first thing I will change on my US MBT-70. In my what-if, the Shillelagh/152mm was determined to be deficient/inadequate by the time the US MBT-70 was committed to production. So the MBT-70A1 would be upgraded with the Rheinmetall 120mm. Haven't decided what the mantlet would look like tho.
1 22 February, 01:43
Jakko My line of thinking was that for this one, it went more or less the other way around: in the 1970s, Chobham armour was the thing to have, so they upgraded the M70 (basic MBT 70 with some improvements) to have that — which necessitates the angular turret, because it's very hard to make Chobham armour in a curve (see below-the-turret-rin..s-and-fiction-1.html). I then envision them replacing the increasingly outdated 152 mm gun-launcher by the 120 mm gun that Germany developed for their KPz 70, because the Germans already wanted some percentage of their tanks armed with a true gun anyway (that last part is RL, BTW).
In my case the mantlet is so big and forward because of the need to accommodate the Chobham armour. You may (or at least, I did 🙂) also want to consider that the 120 mm L/44 gun's trunnions are quite far back (inetres.com/gp/military/cv/weapon/M256.html) so if you just stick a 120 mm barrel to the original kit gun mantlet, it will actually be set too far back into the turret.
22 February, 18:51
AlexanderAmazing scratch-building, and the result looks top! Also agree that the mine plough makes it more aggressive looking - which I really like in this case! 👍👍
22 February, 23:04
Album info
What if the MBT 70 had been adopted by the US Army and seen service in the 1991 Gulf War?
An extensive conversion of the Dragon KPz 70 kit to represent a possible American version as it may have appeared following upgrades with a 120 mm gun and advanced armour.
The basic idea is that the MBT 70 would have been adopted as the M70 Krueger, then received upgrades in the form of Chobham armour on the turret (and possibly hull), giving it an angular rather than rounded appearance and side skirts, the M256 120 mm main gun to replace the 152 mm gun-launcher and had the 20 mm anti-aircraft cannon replaced by the 12.7 mm M85 machine gun. Add some smaller improvements, like a wind sensor, M250 smoke grenade launchers and more extensive stowage racks, plus the ability to carry the mine plough that was used with the M1 in the Gulf War.
