The right way up this time! How cool are
these . . . oh, yeah! I've done that!
They're squat, they're heavy, they're
ballistically protected, they're mean looking; they might be Kaled? Supplied by
Waltii Industries*, they appear to
have two smoke-generators either side on the sloping armour, but they might be
retro-upgrade, killersonic audiodeath-weapon, speaker-covers?
There's a large hull-mounted kenetik-kannon
to the right of the turret which is itself, equipped - of course - with a
death-ray! And six hypersonic,
depleted-uranium rod, multiple-warhead, rocket-launching tubes lie behind the
low-profile turret.
There's a small automated MG cupola atop
the turret and a forward-firing .50-Cal! Of course there is; .30's, .50's,
MG3's and GPMG's will be widely used across the five galaxies in 2525, due to
their reaching the pinnacle of small-arms development in the 20th century back
on Old Smokey, called that because in 2525 'Terra' will still be smouldering
from its man-made demise, five-millennia earlier!
Both were in the plunder pile from Chris
Smith and I've posed them with a figure from the same lot, he's one of the
little polystyrene Italian-made troops later copied in soft polyethylene by the
Spanish sobre issuer Montaplex.
While both have been on the Blog, I don't
think we saw a complete grenade thrower? His helmet is half rebel-ship troops
from Star Wars I - The Start Of The
Franchise and half beegly-beegly (or whatever the hideous little robot-boy
was called) from Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century - R2-3PO-and-a-half?
Now - the 'unknown' bit. I wondered if they
might be old soviet-era toys, but they have certain elements of Hong Kong about
them too. Chris used to carry a lot of Eastern toys but his thoughts are as
mine, he says he had them in the Russian zone of his collection but moved them
to the Hong Kong section!
As HK usually marks something this size and
the Russians would normally have a Ruble or Kopek price engraved in them
somewhere; the fact that there are no obvious markings anywhere leaves us still
firmly in the dark!
We have two stars on the port hull side, astern,
to go on, they don't help either as the Russians and Americans both use stars,
HK would liberally place stars on war-toys, as did the Soviet toy makers!
I would like them to be Russian, as they
would be doubly unusual and the single moulding with no carpet-wheels is a
quite Eastern European 'novelty' or pocket-money toy thing too . . . however, I suspect they are HK for three
reasons;
One - I think I have a little turret in the
spares box, which probably came-in with a bag of HK stuff when I was a
dedicated small-scale collector. Two - the .50-Cal! And Three - the track-guards/side-skirt
armament/plates are more Gulf-war Challenger add-on . . . than Dalek!
Suggesting an influence on/by the sculptor
which precludes (post-cludes?) excludes (!) the Soviet era, therefore I suspect
they came with some of those rack-toy copies of Galoob Space Marines (or
something similar) and probably a dinosaur or two! Can anybody confirm one way
or the other? But they are brilliant, for cheapies - whoever made them!
*Remember space-generals - Other space tanks are available and the human
cost of intergalactic war can go up as well as down! Failure to adhere to the
scheduled maintenance program could affect your space tank's warranty. Your
planet is at risk if you do not keep-up repayments on your space tanks. Waltii Industries reserve the right to
pass your customer details to affiliated .50-Cal salesmen, Kaled envoys or the
enemy! Any killersonic audiodeath-weapon technology retro-fitted could affect
the mental state of the product's crew, for which Waltii Industries accept no responsibility. Waltii Industries after-care package is; we don't care, go, pink
monkeys; kill, destroy.
