80's Joe Vehicles in Real World

[Tolan]

Added info on Water Moccasin.

An airboat is more likely a direct influence for the air skiff.

The water moccasin is an airboat ONLY in name. You have to acknowledge hydroplane and drag boat influneces.

[Rooster3D]

I wouldn't say "ONLY in name" at all. An airboat is distinguished by the fact that all of its power and control are removed from water contact, which is totally the case with the Water Moccasin. Hydroplanes/drag boats are nearly the polar opposite of that, such that the control and propulsion are nearly the only thing that contacts the water. I don't know if you noticed, (but there is a big fan on the back of the WM). Just a little hint there. There are suprising very little things the WM has in common with a hydroplane. Clearly, the look of the front end is somewhat akin to the drag boat, with the low driver position and the split hull, but that is where the similarities stop. I imagine the WM has some sliding capacity and can travel on really shallow water, or even ice and snow, just like an airboat.

However, I will agree with you that the air skiff is clearly influenced by the airboat in visual design, indeed. In functional design, it utilizes hydrofoil technology rather than hydroplane. The former being that there is a submeged 'wing' if you will, that allows the craft to come up mostly out of the water, but the wing stays under the surface. That is what happens with the Moray, as well.

I should note here that an airboat is technically a subclass of hydroplane anyway.

[Bryce]

Everybody take a look at this.
http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/AC/airc...sWing/AD-1.php
Scroll to the bottom.

Also the Water Moccasin isnt like a hydroplane or a drag boat, it is simply a catamaran.

[Rooster3D]

Technically speaking, you are right about the WM being a catamaran. But that should be a secondary classification, since it is more of a side effect of the designer's allowance for the torpedo under the hull. If it were an intentional catamaran, I think the gap would have been much more pronounced. As it is, the inner hulls are not as deep as the outer hulls. Sitting in water, the gap between the hulls would likely be submerged as well, thus nullifying its catamaran categorization completely.

Good find for the Skystorm! In that concept drawing, it looks much more like GI Joe's X-wing chopper than Sikorsky's final take on it, as seen in the original post's link. It wouldn't surprise me if there were other concept drawings made for that craft that look almost exactly like the toy (except with less exaggerated cockpit size).

[AmbroseKalifornia]

Nice find, Bryce!

[cyko]

This is a great thread; I've always wondered about a few of the Joe vehicles (Cobra vehicles generally looked made up). I'm going to have to dig around myself: 1989, I had picked up a copy of Popular Mechanics for the planes on the cover (drawing). The article was about two or so companies who were experimenting with rear-prop plane designs. I was knocked over when I got the Mudfighter a month or so later as a gift from someone on a whim!

Dunno what it means in the toy's blueprints about "forward & reverse power modes" though... Doesn't seem very aerodynamic from the back.

[Rooster3D]

This is a great thread...

...Dunno what it means in the toy's blueprints about "forward & reverse power modes" though... Doesn't seem very aerodynamic from the back.

Thanks! We've tried pretty hard to scour for the truth. I found out recently that there was another thread here, many moons ago, which attempted to do the same thing. The contributors were not all as adamant about it as we have been this go around, and to me their 'finds' seem to have been the most obvious ones. This time there have been some real gems of discovery. I am personally most proud to have stumbled across the Mauler match-up, because not only is the RDF-LT a very rare real-world tank, but also because it looks nearly exactly like the Mauler. Finding that is what made me start to compile the list and really start it off strong with my other vehicle knowledge. I think if I only had five obvious items, it would have fizzled out just like the other thread. Some of the contributors here had made their input on the other thread, but they seem to have had much more fun with this one. I sure am! I love geeking-out about all this stuff.


I think for the most part you are right about Cobra assets being made up in design, but not usually in functionality and/or role. The Rattler is one of but a few exceptions.

This is total speculation, but the reverse mode for the Mudfighter could be for reversing on the tarmac (or mud-mac, lol), rather than flying backwards. This is a feature that most prop planes inherently do not possess. If mud is its runway as well as its battle zone, then perhaps it needs that extra bit of maneuverability for positioning take-offs.

[cyko]

I was wrong about the "Popular Mechanics" cover article coming out just before the Mudfighter. May have been a different magazine, but my original source is long gone by now. Suffice to say, rear prop planes were getting some exposure in '89.

Got a BattleForce 2000 Dominator snow tank recently; I've wanted it since I was a kid. I was curious about its armaments, since it lacks typical BF laser weapons and seems small for what the blueprints claim is a 152mm gun/missle launcher. A quick search for 152mm gun leads to the M551 Sheridan. The Sheridan looks nothing at all like the Dominator, but the M.O. (recon/assault) fits. Crew size is off (the Joe vehicle seats 1, the Sheridan 4), but the vehicle size is comparable. Then, I'm investigating the covered bins on the Dominator main vehicle inside and find what look like flares (photo attached). While reading about the Sheridan, there's a picture of the 152mm ammunition with sheathes for transport. It's the same ammo! Though the Dominator looks nothing like anything I can think of in real life (skis nor 6-wheeled), the creator seems to have studied the Sheridan as the armament model.

Also, stats wise, the blueprints list the forward guns of the "battle emplacement" (outer shell) as 7.62mm machine guns, but they seem like they should be larger. The guns on the main vehicle inside could be 7.62mm, but the outer ones could almost be 30mm cannons. If we stick with machine guns, maybe 50cal (the Sheridan has one). What do you think? The blueprints skipped the inside guns altogether, so I'm thinking there's a mixup.

[Rooster3D]

There are plenty of mix-ups on several blue-prints... but I think they are done on purpose, to sort of "beef-up" the vehicles. The Dragonfly comes to mind. The Mauler also. Ugh. It seems like the "125mm" cannon on the Mauler should have been the length of the shell, rather than the diameter. The real-life mauler, the AAI RDF-LT, had a 75mm shell/cannon diameter, while the shell length was 120mm. 75mm is not monster, but it's still a really big friggin' projectile. There were cannons that were in excess of 150mm, but these were huge vehicles they were mounted on... or just solid ground. Even the US M1A1 uses "just" a 105mm cannon, also found on modern Germany's MBT. These huge cannon sizes claimed on the blueprints are just too much to take seriously, IMO.

I am trying to think of a way to incorporate your find. Sometimes GI Joe vehicle ordinance specs are derived from real-life vehicles, even if the GI Joe vehicle is totally fictional. That seems like it might warrant its own category. I'll have to think about it.

[cyko]

Not to derail the vehicles thread, but I spent too much time looking this up not to share. I'm okay with liberties taken with toys for the sake of market, but this one bugs me: "...with Laser gun/rifle". On my shelf, a white accessories version of the Baroness's rifle is filling in for Iceberg's gun (HMG), and I'm trying to remember, what was that gun? So I look up the carded Baroness figure, but can't read the details. An hour of Google searching gets me nowhere until I remembered they used her rifle in Robocop 2 as the "Cobra assault rifle". Fiction, but the real gun is either the Pauza P50 or the Barrett M82. I'm leaning toward the Pauza, but the Barret usually has the scope. Kinda makes the Baroness extra badness when you think of her sniping with a whopping 50cal semi, eh?

And my yojoe searches didn't find anything either. If I missed the "real life weapons" thread (or if nobody cares), just let me know.

*Pauza link updated. Gotta see those videos of the gun firing!