Hey,

While browsing through the list of upcoming modelling events in my area I noticed a nearby club is calling out a special contest category for "demilitarized vehicles in civil use" this year.

While I like the idea itself I have absolutelly no idea what one could build for such a contest category so I thought I'll ask you guys and ladies outthere to see if we can toss around some ideas and images.

Taking this a step further it might even be a good idea for a campaign.

I'd be glad to hear/read any insight you might have on this!

Thank a lot!

These few came to mind:






This last one would be impressive in 1/35!!



John

Couple more DWs:





John

London's famous DUKW Tours:





T-34 water cannon!



More on the T-34 here:
T-34 firefighter

Lots more stuff here:
Demilitarized vehicles

John

If you ask Google about "GMC pompier" you will get a lot of images of the Deuce dressed up as a fire fighting vehicle.

I like this one:


A really simply way could be this one:


The french fire brigades also used Willys jeeps, the Dodges and also surplus M54 and maybe a few M920 (images of the M54 and M920 series as fire engines are more difficult to find).
French ex-military vehicles were also used I suppose but those are a lot harder to find models of ...

Any military wrecker truck can be "civilianized" with some gloss paint, a company name and some minor detailing to adapt it to civilian road regulations about lights and stuff.


A rather radical conversion, can't tell if they used a 4x4 chassis or shortened a 6x6 and rebuilt the suspension to be single rear axle. With this as reference I would say that almost anything is possible. Go wild and use your imagination ...



A lot of M26 (Dragon Wagon) were used to haul heavy stuff in France, both the armoured and unarmoured versions. Sometimes they got rebuilt cabs to get better visibility, some of them with large windows by the drivers and co-drivers feet to be able to see the edge of the road just in front of the steering wheels ...







Rebuilt upper part of the cabin, re-engined (Mercedes ? or Berliet), new wheels and rims?, maybe new heavy axles as well? It's possible to use some "artistic licence" with this type of truck since they were often rebuilt/modified by the owners ...


Almost forgot: some circus companys used surplus US vehicles in the early fifties since they were cheap and there were a lot of them standing around in France, some of them almost unused with very low mileages ....

GMC and a Willys working for the Pinder circus:


other end of the GMC


and a Dodge :-)


Water tanker used by Pinder as a fire engine ?


Charles Thurstons amusements ??


/ Robin

Oh wow!!! Great stuff!!! Thank you! Keep it coming if you have more

I also like this PMG-72 on a T-72 chasis:



By the way, is that dozer blade the same as the one in the Meng T-90 kit (TBS-86)? It does look very similar to my eyes...

In Bulgaria MT-LB and MT-LBu are used as emergency vehicles, I think BTR-60 is also used but I couldn't find any pictures. I can assume that other ex-WARPAC countries would have put a number of their MT-LBs in a civilian service as well.

Thanks Ian! Another very cool idea! What keywords should I use for more such images? I tried a couiple but not much turned up.

VT-72 as Czech fire brigade recovery vehicle:
one minute and 18 seconds of boring intro first ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7gu6RVkvZc

and a T-55 ?? based one painted blue ....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY7Qm6bPKUE

Red T-55 recovery tank (Panzershop resin, not a cheap solution)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-DIQ9bi_3Q
Our "hero" enters the scene at about 3:37,
lot of 2-stroke diesel sound and smoke (almost like a forest fire ...)
/ Robin

Hi Cristian, I just noticed that there's a walkaround of the MT-LB from my previous post : http://scalemodels-bg.com/?frame=walkaround/85/ . As for keywords - I think пожарный would be a good idea combined with vehicle names, an image search for бтр пожарный yielded a few pictures of easy conversions of BTR-60 to fire service and even a BRDM. I couldn't find anything worthwhile looking for emergency vehicles and the Russian and Serbian police seem to be fielding BTRs that simply have a different paint job from the military ones. Looks like the main occupation of the ex-military machines is forest firefighting. In Bulgaria the task the orange MT-LBs are mostly used for is getting supplies to people in areas cut off by heavy snowing and towing trucks out of snowdrifts in bad conditions by the former гражданска защита, but a search for that won't give you a lot of results. I did find this little gem, which is a small Bulgarian town's natural disaster response vehicle:



I've been thinking about building a BRDM for a while, looks like I found a good subject

A simpler conversion project for Tamiya's Goat



Source

Hisham

Google "Brush Breaker" and you'll get e mix of former military (as well as civilian) trucks in fire service (typically) used in parts of the North East USA.



A friend of mine has a In progress build of one here:
http://scalefirehouse.com/sfh_brd/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=7300

Breakers and tankers are definitly what I would say are the most common use. There are brush trucks literally all over the US that are built on government surplus vehicles.

Charlie is the gold standard of scratch builders. His work is without a doubt the most intricately detailed stuff I have ever seen. Doesnt hurt that I live 25 minutes away and catch him at alot of the same shows LOL.

Your friend Charlie has real talent! Got me beat by a mile!

MAZ-543 AA60 Airport Fire Truck:



MAZ Construction crane truck:


Rock Hauler:


Log Truck:

He used some 3D printed Ujoints for the driveshafts I did for him. I've also done a couple tires for him as well.

Photos used here for discussion purposes only.

German-built Tagebauhilfsgerät HG-125 :





French-built heavy crane on a Panther chassis :



NASA Emergency Hazardous Materials Response Vehicle :





M706-based firefighting vehicle :




H.P.

Matt do you sell regularly?

My thought exactly?????

French surlus GMC and Dodge trucks were often converted into low-budget wreckers :













Artistic licence :





H.P.

Hello,

Nice subjects. This surely has its military roots:



Panther wheels as base for benches in Romania.

Quite recently a campaign of a similar theme --A Very Civil Campaign was ran over at Aeroscale. I'd be up for another round if this Demilitarized theme takes off.

Cheers,

Tat

How about APCs used by police departments for SWAT or other special unit vehicles?










Or a NASA rescue vehicle.


Mike "Redleg 12" DelVechio did a very nice model of this already.


Other "armored" rescue vehicles.

What about a "Tour de France" jeep ?





or a M29 Weasel converted into a polar expedition vehicle ?





H.P.