Small Scale Military Headquarters

It looks like all the asking is doing some good. Word today was that FOV will issue the current Action series M-109 Paladin, AAV and LAV in the Enthusiast grade sometime end of 2005 or first of 2006. As always the dates are subject to change at this early date. There should be more on this in OCT. Hobby Show. The Enthusiast version will have more
accessories and soldiers and be have a more elaborate paint scheme than the Action Series version as in the past. Tom C (fetco)

Great news! Thanks for the update!

I remember seeing the LAV to be released in enthusiast grade months back along with the M113. I think it was on The Motorpool or Michigan Toy Soldier web sites.

Hello Zartan,
I think these vehicles were on everyone's site before Unimax changed its mind and made them available as exclusives to Toys R Us. We spoke briefly with Unimax today about the products and here's what they said:

"We are in discussions right now to attempt to be able to offer these [in] early 2006."

Apparently, their Hong Kong arm calls the shots regarding product placement. Early 2006 seems a little far off considering the product has already been made and was available for sale this past Xmas. Sounds as if there are contractual arrangements that have to be looked into first before they go ahead and offer these vehicles to a wider dealer audience.

Lightning2000
www.themotorpool.bigstep.com

SWEEET!!!

This is the new I was hoping for!

I found the LAV and SPG (Paladin) at TRU last week! Great looking vehicles, and it seems that the quality of the paint and application is MUCH better than the FOV series 1 action grade "Desert Storm" vehicles (i.e. M1A1, Bradley, Hummer).
I have a few questions/issues to air out, though.
A. With the LAV, how do we know if it is Army or USMC? The woodland camo says "Army", and I doubt this rendition was used in "Iraqi Freedom".
B. With the USMC AAV (which I haven't found yet), why is the paint scheme desert sand? I remember from the 03/2003 telecasts that the USMC AAVs were all olive drab.
C. Was the SPG used during "Desert Storm" (1991)?
Stryker

The Army doesn't use the LAV-25. They do use a much different evolution - the Stryker ICV. The M-109A6 Paladin variant slightly post-dated Desert Storm.

lightning2000, thanks for clearing that up. I guess they might retool them a bit, especially the Paladin as the tow cable shovel and other accessories are just molded to the turret/hull when enthusiast grades have removable accessories.

Hello Zartan,
I haven't seen the TRU exclusives up close so I couldn't comment about possible model upgrades necessary to bring them up to Enthusiast specs. I'm hesitant to think that this won't be addressed - rather they'd want to give the vehicles a new, more realistic paint job and add some accessories/figures. To add entrenching utensils to the sides of the vehicle rather than use the pre-existing molded-on parts might be problematic since the tooling is already completed. But hey, maybe that's the reason why it would take so long to bring them to market as Enthusiast grade products. I'm more inclined to believe it has something to do with contractual arrangements, but that's just my take on the situation.

Lightning2000
www.themotorpool.bigstep.com

Hello again everyone!
OK, I found a photo on the web of the USMC LAV that is done in "Woodland" Camo. Can anyone find a photo of one in Iraq during March 2003?
However, I have yet to find a photo of the USMC AAV that is done in basic desert sand WITHOUT an overlaying camo pattern. Can anyone find a photo of this water-beast in Iraq during March 2003?
I found photos of the US ARMY Stryker ICV, but I think the USMC LAV looks "cooler" with the rotating turret on top armed with a 20mm cannon. However, the Stryker ICV has dual remote 50 cal. MGs with grenade launchers.
The Paladin SPH entered service in 1994, and Israel has some too.
BTW, has anyone else noticed that Modern US Military equipment & vehicles looks more like German WWII equipment/vehicles than Allied WWII equipment/vehicles?
Of course the Germans didn't have anything like an AAV, though.

Amazing thing about the Stryker is that it is slightly more than twice the weight of the LAV, but is just as vulnerable to RPGs (that why all of the ones in Iraq look like they're wearing a hamster cage). The Stryker was supposedly super air-transportable, but is so heavy that a C-130 is hard-pressed to carry the lightest model.

Sgt Stryker, A quick response to some of your questions as to paint schemes on OIF vehicles: I was with an AAV unit for the attack and saw 1st hand, we had a mix of paint jobs both woodland and desert tan and just kept them as they were (no time to repaint) for all vehicles involved from Abrams to Humvees. This is in regards to Marine units so I can't speak for the Army vehicles. Tan ones tended to come from the MPS ships (pre positioned equipment in Guam & Diego Garcia) as far as I know. I also noticed some Abrams in desert tan with 1 or 2 green roadwheels or sprockets, etc, and vica versa, spare parts being hung as they came out the box it seems. Can't guess at the ratio (green vs tan), a lot of both and no real consideration for keeping different platoons "pure". Currently deployed vehicles may have achieved some uniformity but I'm certain we had both.