What-if: T-55BMP (re-armed and renamed)

This is of the what-if persuasion, in the Privateer category. When I got back in to the hobby a while back, I dropped by the hobby shop and walked out with an Iraqi T55

and a BMP-1. They were in Hobbycraft boxes. I think I paid $30 for the both of them. The kits were old Trumpeter molds, repackaged for Hobbycraft as part of a Iraqi Freedom line of kits.  I built them. The T55 has had bits of it used for two other tanks. The BMP has just sat there. I decided to make something out of it or toss it in the bin. I kicked around some ideas and went with a SPG. There were a couple of designs pondered over. The first two were fixed casemate designs. One was like a Marder, while the other was more like a Hetzer.  I settled on a turreted version using a spare T55 turret I had. I'm out of 100mm guns so I had to go with the 122mm.

So the background is that this vehicle was built as a training vehicle for T55 crewmen and was armed with the 100mm gun. The turret was cast aluminum to save weight. After all, this was a training vehicle and it was a BMP.

During the Third Danusk Rebellion, the President (For Life), General Jean-Paul Herbert pressed the training tanks in to battle against rebel forces, mostly partisans. The move turned the tide and became a propaganda hit. The Soviets began refurbishing old BMPs to mount the turrets as SPGs. Most are the SU-100-BMP, armed with the 100mm gun. With the discovery of a warehouse of WW2 era 122mm guns, the SU122-BMP was offered.

The 100mm version proved to be adequate as a mobile antitank gun. It was thinly armored and was never intended to slug it out with actual tanks. Ambush and defensive tactics were stressed.

The 122mm version proved to be a horrible match for the T55 turret. The gun was horribly inaccurate, ammunition storage, rate of fire was slow, and the running gear was not strong enough. The 122mm version was short-lived. Surviving examples are used as reserve units.

The first thing to do was to rind down the periscopes and other raised details on the rear. I'm probably going to box out the rear and not worry about trying to keep that sloped rear. The elephant in the room...the screws holding the roadwheels on. I got lucky and found some wheel hubs in the spares. I think they were for the Tamiya Challenger tank. If memory serves, the mk. 3 version used different centers so the kit sent both versions. I built mine as the mk3.