Earl Atkins’ Eagle Laser Tank

Space 1999 is known for its unique spacecraft and gadgets. And one of those is the Alpha Moonbase protection system consisting of a series of Laser Tanks. These “Tanks” can be carried on a pallet , by an Eagle, and set down anywhere on the Moon’s surface.

I had been looking at the resin aftermarket laser tank kits in 1/48 scale, on the net, and they are hard to come by, so I decided I needed to build something that would have the feel of the series vehicles, and somewhat represent the spirit of the series vehicles. It had to be short enough to fit on a pallet, between the shoulder pods, and the main truss, so I started with a 1/35 Tamiya M113 Personnel Carrier. Since I was only going to use the lower chassis, and running gear, I managed to whittle down a leftover command module half to use as the cockpit.

The rest was trial and fit , using sheet styrene, and a bunch of the leftover parts from the M113. Wheel centers were made from thin cut tubes, with a thin styrene cover, sanded smooth, and glued to the center of each wheel.
On the front of the vehicle, the headlights were made by drilling a hole for position, and then dropping 4 of the reaction thrusters from the lab pod into them. A black decal made the bezel. The door on the rear is from the extensions on the lab pod.

A laser cannon was assembled from Evergreen tube styrene, and a 3D printed dish antenna from Shapeways was added to the vehicle.

The pallet was assembled using the bottom of the lab pod, along with corrugated sheet siding from Evergreen for the floor surface. Tubing was used for the end caps, made into an “A” frame, and was modified to fold down on the ends. Corrugated sheet styrene was used as ramps for the tank to egress or ingress from the pallet.
The Eagle 2 kit was used for this build, although I regret using the kit’s springs, as they are too weak with the weight of the tank on board. They are in complete compression, and leave almost no space under the pallet.
The kit screws were used to fasten the pallet to the main truss.

My special mix of Eagle White was used on the laser tank & pallet – 1 bottle Testors Lt Gray / 2 bottles Testors Classic White. Eagle kit decals were used, as well as F14 Tomcat Rescue and scribbles were used all over.

Earl Atkins