Just a short story for tonight – thanks to Kagero publishing.
Amazing, what a journey for such a small vehicle…
Read and see more pictures here.
Historic FT-17 to return to Poland from Afghanistan
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Tag Archives: Afghanistan
9th Company
On a topic related to my yesterday’s post (actually now it is already the day before yesterday’s post as it is past midnight when I am finishing this one) about the new BTR-60 kit… If you would be looking for inspiration for a project using this model, try movie 9th Company.
As usually, I have found this movie accidentally when browsing the shelves in HMV. Since I have not heard about the movie before, I was quite intrigued – Russian movie about Afghanistan…?
To summarize my impression of the movie – I was really impressed.
The movie was directed by Fyodor Bondarchuk, son of a famous russian director Sergey Bondarchuk. In addition to being director, Fyodor Bondarchuk also played one of the key characters in the movie. Since the movie is Russian, I have found it very unique in capturing and developing the main characters through story, which did not feel as written by a Hollywood scriptwriter.
The movie tells the story of a group of young recruits in the Russian airborne unit, starting at the recruitment center, showing their training, arrival to Afghanistan toward the end of the conflict as well as their experience of the war. The main characters are well portrayed, movie shows different personalities and different life stories coming together.
In terms of historical accuracy, the battle depicted at the end of the movie is based on a real event, though its depiction is not 100% accurate (well, what movie is?). In spite of this, battle scenes are very well made and feel very authentic. I watched the movie in Russian language with subtitles and would strongly recommend this, it adds to the authenticity (I admit I understand quite a bit of Russian, so it might be more difficult if you don’t).
From the technical accuracy standpoint, the movie also passes the test – most of the vehicles shown were actually used in Afghanistan, with the exception of the battle tanks, where more current T-72 or T-80 were used in the movie, which of course have not seen service in the Afghan conflict. Unlike many other Hollywood war movies, 9th company is not a showcase of special effects, there are some very good ones, but they are not overwhelming.
As mentioned at the beginning, I was quite impressed by this movie, it shows the Afghan conflict from a perspective, which is rarely shown and even more rarely so well depicted. In my opinion in ranks together with the famous movie the Beast as one of the best war movies in general.
I noticed you can watch the movie on YouTube, but quite frankly I recommend to watch it on bluray, it’s well worth it.
Trumpeter BTR-60PB – first impressions
Trumpeter has recently released another of their modern Russian armor kits – BTR-60PB. I was quite pleased when it was first announced and grabbed one when it has finally appeared on the shelves some days ago.
Of course I was wondering about the quality of the kit, Trumpeter has recently improved quite a bit, so the expectations were there. Overall I think this kit has not disappointed, as far as I can say without actually having tried to build it.
Canadian Forces Combat Camera
For those who haven’t heard about it, Canadian Forces Combat Camera is unique online source of images documenting operations of Canadian Forces since 1990. It provides wealth of imagery in excellent quality and with minimum time delay. Pictures show the life and activities of Canadian soldiers during their operations.
I have been following Combat Camera primarily for its excellent coverage of the deployment of Canadian Forces of Afghanistan. In my opinion these images are some of the best sources of reference and of inspiration for the modern armour fans and modellers that can be found.
Source of the pictures shown below is the Department of National Defense website, which can be found here (Pictures were resized, please visit the Combat Camera site to see the full resolution images). Images shown are just a small selection from a much larger collection, that Combat Camera provides, I have selected primarily the ones depicting armoured vehicles. Images below are the ones from the year 2011, I will also be posting some older pictures in the future.
