What if the Cold War never ended?  What if the Second World War had gone on many more more years than it did?  What if the Soviet threat had been on a much larger scale in the early 1990's?  What if the Red Army had made it's way onto American soil?  Kind of scary if one thinks about it.
The thought of nuclear war, invasion, the end of democracy and the opening of WW III to begin the first chapter of the 21st century.  Remember the movie 'Red Dawn'?  That movie still touches me to this day.  It also is very inspiring.  During the early 1980's, many Americans were very paranoid that Russia was going to attack the United States or Europe.  Red Dawn could have very well proven to be a real live possibility in those days.  The film is what has inspired me to build a model based on this scenario and is also one of my favorite war films of all time...  though a little corny, it remains vivid in my mind - seeing Russian paratroopers landing in small towns and Hind gunships patrolling the mountains for American freedom fighters.  I wanted to build a "what if" Mi-24 Hind and I found this subject to be perfect for my taste.  I hope it fits your taste as well.

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    The kit is from Minihobby which is the same mold as the Monogram kit.  It does have shortcomings... the details are not as crisp and alot of them have been omitted, making the model look kind of crappy compared to the that of the Monogram kit.  However, it doesn't have the raised panel lines like monogram.  It has some rivets in some areas that I think look good.  The canopy was crap and completely misshaped... just toss it.  Another Monogram canopy came to my aid, thanks to Larry Englesh... Appreciate it, Larry!
    I built the kit pretty much straight out of the box, except I got the #2 weapons set and the twin-barrel cannon conversion from Cobra Company.  This is a wonderful set that really brings the Hind's arsenal out.  I recommend staying away from the kit's cannon setup.  The weapons include two, triple mini-gun pods, two land mind pods, and four wingtip rockets.  I used the resin wheels, but I didn't use aftermarket stuff for the cockpit, as I chose to use crew and close the canopy.  However, there are some good PE parts available from Eduard for those of you wanting to super detail a Hind in 1:48.

    As far as painting goes, I wanted to use colors that would depict a winter assault.  The way I see it, the Soviets hit Alaska first, and worked their way down south.  I used Russian light gray, followed by Russian dark gray, and then Soviet armor green over the top.  I left the fuselage bottom the same base color as the rest of the helicopter.  I thought the dark green and gray would go good with the snowy terrain and pine trees that litter the cold zones of the United States.  I meant to paint the interior the typical Soviet interior blue/green but I accidentally used USSR underside blue and didn't realize it until it was too late... Oh well, happy modeling anyways!  I added the red marking by hand painting it on the left side of the aircraft indicating the "Excellent Maintenance Award" for this particular bird.  I used the decals out of the box and they seemed to work out fine.  Overall I am happy with the way it turned out. 

    Would a helicopter like this actually exist?  Probably not... But, it is good to remember that this is all from my imagination and with the help of some Hollywood magic.  Who knows what the Russians would have done had the Berlin wall stayed or had they not financially destroyed themselves in the last years of the Cold War.  But hey it sure makes a good novel or a war flick!

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