Subject:
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New MOC: Mi-24 Hind-D SOV (Special Operations Variant)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.build.military
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Date:
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Fri, 5 Apr 2002 07:42:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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543 times
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As you can probably tell from the relatively austere photos, I'm not quite
finished with this model; the tail profile and engine block still need some
work, along with the mundane rifles and fanciful 30mm gunpod, but I've made
enough progress that I'd be interested in hearing some feedback about what I
have so far.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=14842
A brief design history:
The Mil Mi-24 Hind was the world's first helicopter specifically designed to
fill the emerging requirement for a heavily armed and armored close air support
helicopter...in other words, a gunship. Protected by heavy steel armor and able
to carry up to eight armed soldiers in addition to 1,500 kg of various anti-tank
weapons at a top speed of 199 mph, the introduction of the multipurpose Mi-24
Hind-A in 1976 caused an unsettling stir among Western military circles.
Subsequent variants improved on both firepower and protection, leading to the
Hind-D specialized gunship; instead of troops, the Hind-D's crew cabin carried a
single technician and a spare loadout for its external weapons, beneath a total
armor coverage roughly equivalent to that of an A-10 Warthog. As gunships
became ever more technologically sophisticated, however, the concept of placing
an infantry squad aboard, something not done since the Hind-A's time, was
completely forgotten.
The concept of modernizing the Mi-24 in a secret, limited production run first
occurred to Soviet officers in the late 1980s as a means of quietly inserting
intelligence personnel into member nations of the Warsaw Pact. Although the
project was quickly approved, turf debates as to its black-budget financing
delayed initial construction work until shortly after the Soviet collapse, and
the project was canceled...but not until five prototypes had been constructed.
The first three were incomplete systems testbeds, which were dismantled and
stored at undisclosed locations; subsequent attempts to reassemble them have
failed due to only 40% of the original aircraft components remaining in their
warehouses, probably the result of black-market corruption which runs rampant
through the Russian Army today. Only two actual Hind SOVs were constructed, #4
(forest camouflage) and #5 (arctic camouflage). Both prototypes were secretly
assigned as "stock" Mi-24s to a Russian Far East GRU (Soviet Military
Intelligence) unit under the command of SPETSNAZ (Soviet Special Forces) colonel
Sergei Gurlukovich.
Constantly monitored by their creators, the two aircraft performed beyond
expectations, until disaster struck: during a joint-forces exercise at a U.S.
base on Shadow Moses Island in Alaska's Fox Archipelago, the #4 prototype
suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure, killing both crew members.
Investigators remain uncertain as to the exact cause of the crash, but some cite
severe metal fatigue in the main rotor gear as a solid explanation. This tragic
accident left the #5 prototype as the sole surviving aircraft, but effectively
doubled the program's budget for improvements; as a result, many additions cut
for lack of funds were implemented aboard #5. Only Soviet secrecy could keep
the SOV a total secret even within the military, and in recent years the gunship
and its crew have become a "gray" unit akin to the U.S. Army's Delta Force.
The key to the SOV concept is an organic integration of its operations with that
of the embarked infantry squad, a team of handpicked SPETSNAZ troopers with
proficiency in skills not common to the organization. Despite its reputation
SPETSNAZ is primarily a tactical-combat force, designed around the Cold War
mission of seizure and destruction of nuclear weapons and airfields in a first
strike against western Europe; as such, it lacks the flexibility and training
associated with their Western counterparts. Although the SOV's team has been
carefully selected for their proficiency in hand-to-hand combat and infiltration
techniques, their primary weapons mix betrays the nature of their training. At
last report the #5 ship remains based somewhere on the Kamchatka Peninsula, near
China and other potential hot spots in the region.
Actual Hind profile:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/mi-24.htm
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Updates to SOV Photos!
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| I'm pleased to announce the completion of my Brickshelf uploads from this weekend's SOV photo shoot: (URL) sections are significantly expanded, and I've created two new folders: a Technical folder containing the first of quite a few more images (...) (23 years ago, 9-Apr-02, to lugnet.build.military)
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