To compliment my home-brew Space marine chapter ” Galactic Knights”, ( you can read more here) I want to do an imperial guard unit of the Germania system too.

The system consists of three habitable planets and one Death world. The planets are called Ruhr, Germania Prima, Germania Secunda and New Berlin. Ruhr is a forge world, Germania Prima is a death world, Germania Secunda is a agri world and New Berlin is a hive world. Further out from the systems sun are two Gas giants near the Mandeville point. The System was once colonised by the Galactic Knights chapter after destroying an Ork force on Germania Prima. The dialect spoken in the system is German. Of course High Gothic is the language of the Administratum of the System according to Imperial law. The Regiment was raised on Germania Secunda a long time ago.

The vehicles and the equipment of the Soldiers is manufactured locally on the forge world Ruhr. Therefore it differs from the equipment of other worlds imperial guard units quite a lot . The infantry uses different helmets and body armor. The vehicles are build to the so called “Ruhr pattern”. The Ziege ( german for Chimera) is the Ruhr pattern Chimera vehicle.

I used a real world vehicle of the German Bundeswehr as template for the “Ziege”. The vehicle is called Boxer.

The armored transport vehicle, short GTK Boxer  is a wheeled armored vehicle. The special feature of the GTK Boxer is the construction of an eight-wheel drive module on which an exchangeable mission module is mounted.

The boxer can thus be equipped for different tasks such as transport, medical or armored personnel carriers. The driving module includes the all-wheel drive 8 × 8 chassis and the front housing with engine and driver compartment. The driver sits on the right and has a roof hatch and three angle mirrors, the middle can be replaced by a night vision device. From version A2 the driver is supported by a camera system. To the left of the driver is the engine room, which has a fire extinguishing system. A central tire pressure control system is standard. The driver’s compartment has a passage to the mission module, which closes gas-tight with this. This mission module can be exchanged for another within an hour and weighs up to eight tons. The different modules have an ABC protection ventilation.

I will build the model with extruded polystyrene and resin parts. I will make a mold for casting the vehicle in Resin later. There will be different mission modules so I can do a stand in for a Basilisk, Hellhound, etc from the same vehicle. I will magnetise the vehicle to make an exchange of modules possible. The main difference will be that it is 6 wheeled instead of the eight wheels of the real world Boxer.

So enough words here is the build of the prototype :

The basic shape. All parts are from extruded polystyrene .

 

Testing the wheel arrangement:

Adding details like hatches, engine room air-condition etc.:

The finished prototype with rivets etc.

The first module is the armored personal carrier one:

I the started doing the molds for the different parts:

The undercarriage prior to casting the silicone mold and the first resin cast in the finished mould.

The first cast of the undercarriage.

More to come have to do the other moulds next the test fitting it all. So watch this space for updates!