Hi all,
despite I'm stuck with the turret interior I tried to have some progress with this kit.
I shifted to the upper hull. Basically AEF hull is a re-molding of Dragon one with the rear hatches properly aligned.
But doing so AEF forgot some Dragon inital mistakes. Moreover AEF missed some details present on the Dragon kit.
Here are some pics to show what I did

At first, I corrected the front access hatch location. I filled the former one with CA glue and engraved a new one. It's not perfectly straight though ! The hinges are still to be added.



Then I modified the position of the rounded thnigie with bolts on its top. I enlarged the bolted hatch near the turret and repositioned and hollowed the small air vent on the right.



I cut off the vision blocks and repositioned them all. Dragon and AEF got it wrong with the vision blocks. Their position and alignement were off.



The next picture shows the details present on the Dragon hull that AEF missed.



As you can see, I've still a long way to go ! But the exterior is a pleasure as compared with the interior. I begin having a clear idea of the troop compartment and the driver station. The turret floor is growing clearer too but the sights locations are still to be guessed !!

Olivier

Very good start. I am glad to see you trying this out and it looks like a good model will come out in the end. It also shows just how far off DML was on the BMP kits...and why they need a nice new fresh kitting!

You're right and if the general rule confirms, as soon as I complete this model a brand new plastic kit will reach the shelves !!
So cross your fingers that I finish it

BTW any pics or drawings of the turret interior are welcome.
Olivier

I don't know if you have this link: http://www.thetankmaster.com/ENGLISH/afv/bmp-2_01r.asp but there are 47 pics of the exterior of BMP-2

Thanks Alex, I already knew this excellent site. I got your mail, thanks for that too

Olivier

Hi all,
having found some interior pictures (thanks Alex) I started to detail the turret floor. In fact, AEF have oversimplified it. I deleted the seats supports and a kind of electric box. I made from scratch the ammo storage boxes all around the floor and added the poles that link the floor to the turret ring.
The empty sheel case (?) and the co-ax ammo magazine (the beam-like part) were modified as well. First, the case misses the front panels so I made them with plastic card. Then I thinned the co-ax magazine so that from a square section it turns into a rectangular one.











In the same time, I started modifying the turret exterior. To put in a one word, this is scrap !! The turret is wrong in many respects and fixing that needs a considerable amount of extra job. So I decided to fix only some tweaks.
First, the hatches holes are to small and ill-placed and mis-shaped ! The vision blocks must be moved forward on the left station.
The smoke dischargers are too aft and will be moved rearward. To start with, their location holes are filled. The armored cable is removed, it will be replaced later.







Comments welcome.
Olivier

PS: stupid question maybe, but where does the gunner sit ?

Hi, Olivier
Looking great! Honestly, looking at the page of AEF instructions you sent me, I am surprised how anyone can built anything using them?!




The crew consisted of only three people.
Page 65 of the Manual, illustration 29:
7) brackets for gunner/operator's sit
14) brackets for comander's sit
Illustration 30 - the sit itself

Gunner sits on the left, commander sits on the right.

IIRC, in the BMP-2 the infantry commander (dismount squad commander) sits behind the driver.

Thanks Alex and Jacques, you confirm what I thought. I was not sure as looking at the interior pics I have, the commander station appears much more fitted with sights and controls than the gunner's one.
I think I'll finish the work (mods) on the turret exterior tomorrow and post pictures.

Olivier

Small update,
I added some details on the exterior, re-locate the left vision block (nearly cut off one of my finger with my dremel doing that ).







I also started to fit the AEF parts inside A lot of dry fitting, sanding and reference checking. Fortunately when it's complete, the inaccuracies won't be that noticeable.

Olivier

Here I am again.
I started to fit AEF turret interior parts. Trying to guess their location on the poor instruction set, I finally gave up and shifted to the TM sketches to help in the process.
The TM and the Kagero book show many parts omitted by AEF so I decided to add some of them. All the white parts are scratchbuilt.
I had to make a second control unit for the turret at the gunner station, I added some radio and electronic device in the turret "bustle". With the help of pictures, I did the back of the 2A42 gun from the wrong AEF part and added the co-ax PKT. Next step will be the Konkurs control system and a spare missile on the turret floor near a kind of bottle (extinguisher ?)

Here are the pics













Some parts on the turret floor are just put in place with Patafix (kind of Blutac). The painting of the floor requires to have the seats and the PKT ammo magazine apart.

Olivier

Hi Olivier,

you have done some serious work! Do you consider to add some additional wires? Keep up the good work.

Hi Jurjen,
I will do but only the most visible ones as the turret interior will hardly be seen from the hatches. I have some black wire for homemade jewelry that will do the trick and save me some extra painting job

PS: @ Jacques, I do hope Sergej's upper hull is correct dimensionally wise. I just noticed that AEF one is too short approximately by 2mm and that the sides are not at the right angle and so the hull does not sit on the lower hull in the right way
Olivier

The best answer I have is this link to the SAAM sight showing one I built a while ago.

I would say that it is a improvment over the DML details, and the length was perfect for use on the DML kit, but as for angles and such, probably not. This is Sergej's dilemma: He knows how bad the DML kit is compared to the real thing. Recently he discovered that the DML and Esci kits are both probably 5mm too wide! But this woudl involve a whole new lower hull as well as upper hull...along with all the other known problems, such as running gear, tracks, etc... Sergej is discontinuing both kit 118 and 128 as he is having a heck of time casting the upper hulls without miscasts, and he is not selling very many upper hulls. He will keep kit 123 and 124 in production until the molds wear out. But he wants to concentrate on more lucritive areas of modelling, like the T-80 series.

Anyhow, you are doing very good work and I hope it inspires Miniarm to finally come out with their complete resin kit, but...

Hi Jacques,
I knew of your page about Sergej's hull. On your pics, it looks OK but one can never really know from pics and if you made some fitting work. Obviously, AEF one will need some. Maybe the upper hull width has been fixed, it's narrower than Dragon one by 2mm at the rear, but same width at the front ?!
Miniarm are on their way to a full BMP-2 but I'd rather see Trumpeter popping up with a plastic one ... not at the BMP-3 and T-62 speed however

Latest update with the turret interior painted. I tried to dryfit it to the hull and faced some issues I'll address later on. To put it quickly, the turret will pop up from the hull roof if I don't shorten the support poles. I followed AEF instructions by cutting rods of 3cm long which is obviously inappropriate.
I added some details to the AEF parts : the gun rear part, the coax MG (nearly invisible !), the gunner controls (AEF only give the commander's), the Konkurs missile control (not accurate as I had only one drawing of its left profile, I "guessed" the right one).

To the floor, I added the fire extinguisher and the missile. The stencils are masking tape bands painted black with some silver to represent the letters.















Olivier

I think you are doing great work on this rather mediocre piece of resin. Keep it up

Nice work on those details! Is such a red color common on Russian AFV's?

Lars

Hi,
thanks for the comments. Lars, the red should be a little more orange in fact. It acts as a warning about the hazard that are the rotating parts. This is for the troops in the rear compartment. The VC and gunner should know where they sit !

Hello,
not much time for modeling those late days but I managed to make some progress with the BMP interior.

First I had to cut the sides and build new ones with an angle. Unfortunately I didn't cut low enough. So it doesn't angle that visible.







Then I started to add some bits to the hull top. AEF give the vision blocks and the firing ports. Many of them come with air bubbles so I used CA glue to fill them and thin plastic strips to redo the lip outside the firing ports.

I also added a kind of tubing that runs on both sides of the roof just behind the vision blocks.
The large resin block is the NBC filter. It had some small bins attached to it. I had to remove one and thin the remaining one as it would not fit inside the space designed for it.







Olivier

Looks good!

Thanks Nikita,
I've been a bit busy those days so I could not do anything new to the BMP.Hopefully, I will have some good modeling time this coming week-end, cross my fingers !!

Look Super Great Olivier
Keep up with the good work
Cheers
Seb

AEF's width looks right, DROON's is wrong, BMP-2 is wider than BMP-1

So much work on detailing of this thing...
Olivier, are you planing to make it all visible somehow? Like removable roof of the hull or something?

The turret will be removable and I intend to let all the hatches and doors open. The fit of the AEF upper hull onto Dragon lower one is awful and prevents any kind of "remove-something" option.

Olivier

Here is where I am today.





I added various straps, the AK muzzle supports, the missile stowage brackets (mentioned in AEF instructions but absent from the box !)
I also made the driver seat supports as they were missing too. I still have to create the bench seats supports that, once again, AEF omitted. I reasonably expect to get this finished this week-end !

PS: I'm seriously thinking about rewriting the review I made of this kit. My 60% rating was really high now that I have the experience of its building !

Olivier

Here is my Sunday update. I painted the interior and put the turret floor just to see what it will look after completion. Still have to add some details to the spare missiles but very little will remain visible !
Some weathering as if my BMP was in Afghanistan and I'll close the lid ! Quite a lot of work to do so as AEF upper hull does not sit correctly on Dragon lower hull. I guess nobody 's surprised with this.









Olivier

Are you saying that Dragon's BMP-2 kit is wider than its BMP-1 kit or that the real BMP-2 is wider than the BMP-1?

AEF's upper hull is based on the DML kit parts. They did not make a new master. So if AEF looks correct, DML's should be too.

My current understanding, since I have not actually been around a BMP-1/2 to measure, is that DML made the BMP-2 kit hull 4-5mm too WIDE, but the correct length.