Tag Archives: Nuclear

Military Monday

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War is once again raging in Europe. However despite the shock of one country invading another in 2022, Europe has been involved in conflict almost constantly. From fear of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War (which this TLCB Writer fears may be about to return) to involvement in far-away combat, war is sadly never distant.

Today’s models remind us of this past, with the first (above) the undoubtedly beautiful but rather sinister Handley-Page Victor nuclear bomber.

Built as part of the UK’s nuclear defence in the late 1950s, the Victor was part of a long line of V-Bombers (that also included the incredible Avro Vulcan), before it was repurposed for high altitude reconnaissance and later air-to-air refuelling.

This wonderful recreation of the Victor comes from previous bloggee Henrik Jensen, who has recreated its amazing shape beautifully in brick form. A full description of the build and further imagery can be found at Henrik’s photostream, and you can bomb on over via the link above.

Today’s second military creation (below) recreates a scene from countless Vietnam War movies, with a Bell ‘Huey’ helicopter in front of a (superbly built) shell-damaged building. The Bell and background come from Nicholas Goodman, who – like Henrik above – has deployed a few custom pieces to enhance authenticity.

There’s more to see of Nicholas’ ‘Battle of Hue, February 1968’ on Flickr. Click the link above to fight a pointless war that ends in failure and retreat. In that respect we hope that history is about to repeat itself.

Under the Mask

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Most LEGO pieces can be used in almost infinite ways. It’s the very purpose of LEGO. However there are a few parts that seem to be defiantly single-use. The Primo ride-on elephant. Anything from the awful Galidor range. And the wearable Bionicle mask.

Designed so that kids could pretend to be defending Mata-Nui or something, the mid-00’s were clearly a difficult time for LEGO. And yet out of adversity comes triumph, in the form of Scott Wilhelm‘s magnificent ‘Mobile Reactor Transport’.

Wearing the life-size Toa face like a tortoise wears its shell, the until-now-pointless-part looks purpose-made for Scott’s half-track rover. Delightful greebling is visible through the mask’s orifices and there’s more to see of the build, including the epically inventive parts usage, at Scott’s photostream.

Click the link above to see what’s under the mask.

It Looks Like a Giant…

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We’re linking to that childish Austin Powers sketch today for good reason. Firstly because penis jokes are funny. Secondly because this Atlas-F inter-continental ballistic missile looks like one. And thirdly because it, and all the other fantastically pointless atomic weaponry developed during the Cold War, amounted to little more than chillingly dangerous willy waving.

The SM-65 Atlas was one of the USA’s numerous ‘my dick’s bigger than yours’ taunts, and being 85ft high and weighing 260,000 lbs it was admittedly pretty massive. But still completely pointless.

The Atlas-Fs were the first ICBM’s able to be deployed from underground silos, taking just ten minutes to launch. Six squadrons were armed with the F, with seventy-two of the things deployable at their peak (plus another fifty-seven of other variants), each armed with a warhead over a hundred times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

This marvellous recreation of a horrendous machine comes from Flickr’s Ralph Savelsberg (aka Mad Physicist, who is perhaps living up to his name with this build), and is – somewhat unbelievably – mini-figure scale. A neat launch pad, silo, and two mini-figure missile boffins are included and there’s more to see at his photostream. Click the link above to wave your willy.

Sky Warrior

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Lego US Navy A-3B Skywarrior

This amazing aircraft is a 1950s US Navy Douglas A-3B Skywarrior carrier-based nuclear bomber and its purpose was… well, chillingly obvious. Thankfully the Skywarrior’s nuclear bombs were never used in combat, as – perhaps worryingly – the US and the other nuclear-armed nations managed to shrink their nuclear bombs so that they no longer needed to be carried on bombers like the A-3B, but could fit on conventional fighter aircraft. Yay progress!

Such advancement saw the A-3Bs re-fitted as air-to-air refusing tankers to service those fighters, a role they fulfilled right up until the early 1990s, last seeing action in the first Gulf War of 1991.

This spectacular recreation of Douglas A-3B Skywarrior comes from plane building extraordinaire Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist who has recreated the historic bomber in glorious detail. With folding wing-tips for carrier storage, working landing gear, and an accompanying aircraft tug there’s lots more to see. Head over to Ralph’s photostream via the link above for all the images, plus you can read Ralph’s interview here at The Lego Car Blog as part of the Master MOCers Series by clicking here.

Lego US Navy A-3B Skywarrior

Go Nuclear

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Lego Technic Retrofuturistic Nuclear Car

The news is full of nuclear war hysteria at the moment, thanks to the orange leader of the free world and overweight North Korean despot Kim Jong-un. As a classy blog not interested in clickbait we’re seamlessly jumping on the bandwagon with this, Nico71‘s glorious Fallout 4 inspired retro-futuristic nuclear concept car.

Back in the ’50 and ’60s wild concept cars were all the rage, and were often powered by a variety of unusual fuels, including gas turbines, electricity and yes, even nuclear reaction.

Lego Technic Retrofuturistic Nuclear Car

Nico’s brilliant Technic concept car perfectly captures the ambitions of the age, and it’s clever too, featuring remote control drive and steering, electronically opening doors and a sliding roof canopy, plus working suspension and lights.

Control of the electrically-powered functions is taken care of thanks to a third-party BuWizz bluetooth unit, which allows graduated control via a bluetooth device and delivers up to 8x more power to the motors than LEGO’s own system.

Lego Technic Retrofuturistic Nuclear Car

You can see all of the build details and the full image gallery courtesy of Nico71’s excellent website by clicking here, and you watch the nuclear concept car in action (which is worth doing for the roof mechanism alone!) via the excellent video below.

YouTube Video: