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Sunday, July 11, 2010

What the FUCHS?






Here are some images of Revells 1/35 scale TPz Fuchs (Fox) armored personal carrier. From Wikipedia "TPz (Transportpanzer) Fuchs (fox) is an armoured personnel carrier developed by Daimler-Benz and built by Thyssen-Henschel (now Rheinmetall Landsysteme) in 1979. It was the second wheeled armoured vehicle to be fielded in the Bundeswehr. It is used for various different tasks including troop-transport, engineer-transport, bomb disposal, NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) reconnaissance and electronic warfare. By mixing and matching the different models and retrofit kits, today more than 90 different combinations are possible, 32 of which have so far been produced. The TPz Fuchs is thus also referred to as a "retrofit platform".

The vehicles engine is a Mercedes-Benz Model OM 402A V-8 liquid-cooled diesel with an output of 320 hp. It has a max speed of 105 km/h and a range of 800 km. Fuchs is 7.33 m long, 2.98 m wide and 2.37 m high. It weighs 18.3 tons with the capability to carry an additional 6 tons in equipment. The 6x6 APC is characterized by high performance over all terrains and low noise. Its rear-mounted propellers and 360° turning range, enable the vehicle to take water obstacles in its stride at up to 10 km/h. There was so much flash on this kit that I almost gave up on building it. Plus parts didn't fit very well particularly the undercarriage. Plus with a complete lack of an interior (maybe the interior was classified at the time of the kits release) it's no wonder the kit was so cheap, $20 Cdn. Mind you it did come with rubber tires. But perseverance pays off and in the end produced an acceptable specimen.

2 comments:

Edward Hollett said...

I'll have to send you pictures of my NBC version slightly modified to represent a Brit vehicle from around the time of the first Gulf War.

-Warren Zoell said...

I would love to see them.