Quickie: DM 53 APFSDS projectile in 1:12 scale

[Jakko]

On another forum, a group build that ran until today had the theme of “movement”: build a military subject so that it gives the impression of motion. I wanted to join but had no real idea what to do with that in a way that wouldn’t take ages, but eventually got the idea for a modern tank gun projectile while it’s in the air — hoe much more movement could you want?

After finding some photos and drawings, I decided on 1:12 scale because that meant I could build it around a length of 2 mm rod:



The nose cone is from a 1:35 scale tank gun round, the wire is copper and the fins are 0.25 mm plastic card. The whole thing is fitted to a length of 0.4 mm spring steel wire as a stand.

But this isn’t movement, so I took a Games Workshop “biker” base and glued plastic card over the top:



Followed by semi-random pieces of plastic strip:



Once the glue had dried, I cut and filed the overhanging parts to conform to the base shape and painted everything:



The projectile is silver with Tamiya Smoke over it, then matt black for the nose and tail. The base is an earth brown with some sand-coloured areas (deliberately not covering well), then a layer of Army Painter Soft Tone for shadows and a quick drybrush with sand; that done I painted two bits of strip green, added a wash of Army Painter Green Tone and a yellow-green drybrush, and finished

 

[scottie3158]

Jakko,
Looks good but if you could mimic the sabbot leaving the round that would really make to look like it was moving.



cheers
Scottie

 

[Jim R]

Very clever Jakko

 

[Jakko]

Looks good but if you could mimic the sabbot leaving the round that would really make to look like it was moving.

That was my first idea, yes. But I don’t see how I could make three sabot pieces without a lot of work — and that would turn this from a quick-and-dirty, “cool idea, let’s do this” type of model into a very involved one. Well, 3D printing would do the trick, but then I might as well have used that for the projectile too.