80's Joe Vehicles in Real World

[Rooster3D]

I'm finally back. After a while of being absent, and then not being able to post for at least a year. Lately, I've been working on a Sky Hawk 3D model. I'm re-imagining it, but not overly so. Anyway while doing this I began looking at all kinds of aircraft for reference material and finally noticed something about the original toy. It must have been kit-bashed from an Apache, a 747, and a Russian helicopter whose nomenclature eludes me at the moment. The models would also have to have been different scales, but hey that's how we got Star Wars. The Apache provided the canopy and the triangular cockpit section. The 747 (or perhaps any airliner) provided the outset engines, and the Russian heli provided the oversized tail fins. It's probably also influenced by an F-14 Tomcat's Gatling design, but doubled.

[Rooster3D]

That was my thought too, except the soft top always bothered me. Then I thought "why not a truck?" Check out the Pinzgauer 6x6 http://www.army-technology.com/proje...erallterrainl/ The nose isn't quite as pinched (could be rationalised as after-market add on armour) and the armament is different, but there are clear similarities.

There's definitely a similarity there. Usually, you can't pin one specific real vehicle to the GI Joe version. They almost always have something extra or just off. When I was a kid, I didn't know much about military vehicles, but now I see how certain configurations, like a soft top APC, are ridiculous. Another ridiculous config, and GI Joe is inundated with this: double-barrel the vehicle weapon.

[LowTech]

There's definitely a similarity there. Usually, you can't pin one specific real vehicle to the GI Joe version. They almost always have something extra or just off. When I was a kid, I didn't know much about military vehicles, but now I see how certain configurations, like a soft top APC, are ridiculous. Another ridiculous config, and GI Joe is inundated with this: double-barrel the vehicle weapon.

Welcome back!

If APC stands for Armoured Personnel Carrier, then I agree that a soft top is ridiculous. But it stands for Amphibious Personnel Carrier. That makes it more like a truck, so the soft top isn't so strange. Also, while I agree that the twinned guns is overdone, it's not that uncommon in real life. Twin machine gun mounts are common for the GPMG and M60 (I think it's been done with .50s too), and both weapons can be modified specifically for this purpose so that the right-side gun feeds from the right instead of the left. The ZU-23-2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZU-23-2) is the largest twin gun I'm familiar with, but there might be others.

[Lifeguard]

I'm from near the Wisconsin Dells area. And the WWII DUKW "Ducks" amphibious version of the deuce and a half always seemed like the basis for the Joe APC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DUKW

The skirts around the sides are not armor, they're a hull for flotation. If the APC were made out of even the aluminum armor of the M113 APC, it would sink. There's just too much. Now it wouldn't be the first time in the Joe line that physics was broken with Joe equipment. But most likely the light armor of it was only fragmentation and pistol round resistant, but no better than canvas against rifle rounds and up. Plus the canvas top allows the troops in back to pull it up and use their weapons to either side. But the most practical use of the Joe APC is a battle taxi to move troops to an area near the engagement to dismount and fight as infantry, with the driver and gunner in the APC providing fire support from behind their front cab armor.

Oddly enough, I bought my APC from Circus World in 1983 with the Whirlwind Twin Battle Gun. So that covers both the double weapons systems and the APC. But as I recall, anything with twin barrels was either anti-aircraft or mounted on aircraft to throw as many rounds as possible at fast moving aircraft to give the best chance of hitting it as it passed through that "wall".

[Rooster3D]

Circus World!! I forgot about those. I think one day I went to the mall and there was suddenly a store called Kaybee where Circus World used to be. I don't know if they bought them out, just took over the same retail space, or if it was the same company all along just changed their name.

Anyway, it seems those DUKWs are more of a validation or proof of concept (of a topless or soft top amphibious vehicle) rather than any visual influence, but it's some kind of an influence indeed. I don't know what kind of armor allows real APCs to stay buoyant, but it's not just corrugated sheet metal. Let's face it: the real reason for having a soft top APC is because it is better from a marketing perspective. Kids will want to fill a 28-spot (more if you single peg some of the standing spots) vehicle with more action figures, or if they already have that many then this would be great to buy for storing all your Joes. Floating is a bonus. With a soft top, your Joes can be on display in the APC with its top removed, and no one would think it looks strange because it's a soft top. With a hard top, it would probably carry fewer figures, and removing it would (maybe) be less convincing. I speculate that's what 80's toy marketing execs would have convinced themselves of.

As for twin guns: It's not unheard of, for sure, and it is more typical in AA systems. I stand on my reasoning that it's not common - at least not as common as Hasbro would have us believe where nearly every vehicle or station has the dual (or more) barrel setup.

Kudos to the APC for not being afraid to have a single-barrel weapon. In fact, it's a single weapon vehicle as well - just one gun up top... sitting on canvas. LOL God bless 'em.

[Lifeguard]

Circus World!! I forgot about those. I think one day I went to the mall and there was suddenly a store called Kaybee where Circus World used to be. I don't know if they bought them out, just took over the same retail space, or if it was the same company all along just changed their name.

Anyway, it seems those DUKWs are more of a validation or proof of concept (of a topless or soft top amphibious vehicle) rather than any visual influence, but it's some kind of an influence indeed. I don't know what kind of armor allows real APCs to stay buoyant, but it's not just corrugated sheet metal. Let's face it: the real reason for having a soft top APC is because it is better from a marketing perspective. Kids will want to fill a 28-spot (more if you single peg some of the standing spots) vehicle with more action figures, or if they already have that many then this would be great to buy for storing all your Joes. Floating is a bonus. With a soft top, your Joes can be on display in the APC with its top removed, and no one would think it looks strange because it's a soft top. With a hard top, it would probably carry fewer figures, and removing it would (maybe) be less convincing. I speculate that's what 80's toy marketing execs would have convinced themselves of.

As for twin guns: It's not unheard of, for sure, and it is more typical in AA systems. I stand on my reasoning that it's not common - at least not as common as Hasbro would have us believe where nearly every vehicle or station has the dual (or more) barrel setup.

Kudos to the APC for not being afraid to have a single-barrel weapon. In fact, it's a single weapon vehicle as well - just one gun up top... sitting on canvas. LOL God bless 'em.

Circus World was a chain that ended up being bought out by Meliville corp in the '90s, which also owned KB Toys. So most stores were renamed. It was bought up by Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, in classic private equity strategy where they buy stable companies past their growth phase, borrow money against it which they pocket, downsize the employees and cut everything to the bone to maximize short term profits, and then leave the company a shell with massive debt when it sells it or just declares bankruptcy on it. KB Toys apparently was the second oldest operating retailer in the US, founded in the 1920s. Thanks a lot vampire-capitalists.

You need aluminum armor for swimming. Steel armor won't cut it. But aluminum armor is easily pierced by heavy rifle rounds and spaulding when hit by anti armor. So it gets weighted down by Supplemental armor and looses it's ability to swim.

Most recently the M2 Bradley IFV was designed to swim:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV69JgFA6uo

The LAV is still in wide use as a swimmer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAN15ndvljk

The M113 is a classic swimming piece of armor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voCd5UJNrXQ

The Sheridan light-tank/recon-vehicle was a swimmer took, but I couldn't find video of it:









The usefulness of the swimming armor is that you don't have to have the Engineer Corps come in and build a bridge, telegraphing your intentions and movement to the enemy. Just cross the river or lake. No need to wait for Tollbooth and the Bridgelayer when you have the APC or Warthog.

[Rooster3D]

...The usefulness of the swimming armor is that you don't have to have the Engineer Corps come in and build a bridge, telegraphing your intentions and movement to the enemy. Just cross the river or lake. No need to wait for Tollbooth and the Bridgelayer when you have the APC or Warthog.

Or if the width of the water is larger than the span of the Bridgelayer bridge. However, if it becomes a regular occurrence to use APCs as forward movement prerunners (attempting to clear an area for the rest of the equipment which must rely on Tollbooth, et al), it might telegraph even more obviously that there's more to come. Any opposing force would then be on the look out for convoys near the narrowest parts of the river (for example).

[RedSkullCobra]

We all know what separates the A-10 Warthog from the COBRA Rattler/G.I.JOE Tiger Rat is the VTOL wings.
Has the U.S. military ever tried to make Rattler wings for the A-10?

[Lifeguard]

My father's anti-armor unit got to ride in one of these freaky tilt wing craft back in the early 60s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiltwing

I sent him an email to find out if he can remember which one his unit got to test. I know he said a Jeep would fit inside.

There were some tilt jet craft designed, but I can't find an instance of a tilt wing with jets on it. As I understand it, the tilt wing was too unstable, that's why the Osprey ended up with a tilt-rotor design.

[Lifeguard]

Ok, got a email from my Dad who confirmed it was the Hiller X-18 tilt rotor that they were demonstrating with his Recoilless Rifle company in Germany. It was over there to show it off to NATO, and they got easy duty with it. Loaded and unloaded their recoilless Jeep into it, and flew around inside it. He said it was a lot of fun.