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AMX ELC bis - French Airborne Light Tank, 1957
At the outset of the cold war, one of the problems on the minds of all NATO member nations was how to counter the threat of soviet heavy tanks should war ever break out. For other nations the answer was heavies of their own, but France decided to pursue other methods. Enter the ELC project, which intended to produce very small, lightly armored but heavily armed tanks with the capability to defeat the heavy armor of soviet tanks at little cost. The AMX ELC was one such design to come out of this project, and was just as unique as the rest; a 2 man crew located entirely in the turret, only being just over five feet tall, extremely mobile, and mounting a 90mm gun that could fire a very potent HEAT shell. As with many such short lived designs not much documentation exists on the AMX ELC, and as such its not explicitly clear why the project was abandoned after 6 prototypes were produced. Miraculously, one prototype remains intact and on display at the Samur tank museum in France, and is more or less the sole reminder of an interesting footnote in french tank development.
This model take the title for being the smallest of the tanks I've made so far, and is otherwise a fantastic piece for any lego tank collection. Despite its size, this model still comes with a full set of features including rotating turret, elevating and depressing gun, and articulating tracks. |
$29.99
268 Pieces
Digital instructions set with step-by-step guide for the model displayed here and parts list for ordering pieces.
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