u/Littlepip2277

Hi there folks. Today I bring you my BMO-T MOC. About a week ago I was researching T-72 variants because I wanted to play around with making a new MOC and thought it'd be easy to build off an existing hull. To no surprise at all, the Russians had the same idea and they came up with the BMO-T. Not their best idea, it was an attempt at making the T-72 into an APC. What they came up with wasn't a tank and wasn't an APC. As a result, the few they made are finding new lives as roadside attractions in Ukraine before they will doubtlessly find more productive jobs as razor blades.

On to the build. After settling on this as my next MOC I set out to research the BMO-T and studied drawings, renders, and photographs (most of which are the model's closeups after being featured in an FPV drone montage). After a few days of working it out I had the entire module built up. The hardest part of this endeavor was that I had to completely disassemble my Marder IFV MOC (which I've posted before) for the blocks and smooth plates. This was a difficult and emotional undertaking.

The bulk of this is all Cobi. The machine gun, black skirt plates, and Zwastika plate came from my Quanguan T-90A. Everything else is pure Cobi. The beautiful part of this build is that it required almost no modification of the T-72 hull. To be safe, I ordered a fresh T-72 model to use as the base (mostly because the solid-green hull would've clashed with my camo M1R). With the exception of a couple extra 2x5 plates and some modifications to the engine and engine deck the hull is original, and could be easily converted back into a T-72 should I wish. Seeing as how I already have the M1R I'll keep this as is and use the leftover parts for other MOCs and mods. Namely the gun barrel, they'll work perfectly as ATGM tubes.

I will mourn the loss of my Marder IFV MOC, as it was my first serious MOC and thus had sentimental value, but I'm very happy with how this turned out and wouldn't change a thing. And hey, with the Stryker coming out soon there's a chance Cobi will one day make their own Marder IFV (and Bradley. And Leopard 1. And T-64. And Chieftain...)

I haven't seen anyone else review this one so I figured I'd throw in my two cents or however much an opinion from some guy on reddit is worth these days. Not much, I'd venture.

This one's pretty straight-forward as far as builds go. Some steps, particularly the ones related to the rear end and the angled plates on the underside of the hull, are especially fiddly. The rear end is a little ugly with how crooked it ends up looking, and believe me I did the best I could to get everything all straightened out. This build isn't hard or anything, but there are some steps that bugged me. The final result looks good for the price. There are some visible studs at the end that I've covered up because visible studs make me more triggered than a tumblr user.

So here's the thing: the two sides of the hull are joined together by a central assembly, making it an H-shaped affair. The chassis with the wheels and tracks and such is assembled first, then you assemble the two sides of the hull and mate the two parts together before building the top of the hull and the front. This is step 79 of the manual. The core of the assembly conjoining the two sides of the hull is a 1x6 and 1x3 plate placed end-to-end to form a 1x9 base. This base then mates to three of the single-central-studded 1x2 plates placed side by side on the chassis. If you put the 1x6 and 1x3 plates together AS THE INSTRUCTIONS SHOW, the ends of the plates where they come together will rest ON TOP of one of the single-central-stud plates, instead of correctly snapping together like every other brick in every brick model ever. I spent 20 minutes fiddling with this crap trying to figure out why tf the main body refused to correctly mate with the chassis. There are other points on the H-shaped main body that mate with bricks on the chassis so it's not an unsecured build, but if you do it as the instructions show your hull's gonna be a little skewed on the chassis. If you reverse the order (place the 1x6 where the 1x3 goes and then put the 1x3 at the other end) every brick correctly mates firmly together. I swear I did everything correctly, the instructions are just wrong.

Other than that the model is fine and worth it if you're dying for WWI stuff (like me).