Now here''s something different! Drabslab has submitted a unique mixture of historical overview and dramatic model photo-composites.

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

A very interesting and historical feature.
The photo-composites really bring the models to life.
Are there any plans for some more of the same.
Andy

..very nice feature ..thanks a lot !

I don't know if I am going to make more of these.

I made this article as a kind of "thank you" to Kitmaker and a few people here that gave me, in one case very substantial, help to get going again.

I dare to say that it was a lot of work, not only in making 3 model airplanes but mostly in reading information on this conflict and making the article itself sometimes weighing the words on a very precise scale.

Also, the photography and learning how to use photoshop took a huge bite out of my time. All together this project dominated my spare time for almost a year and that is quite an investment.

On the other hand, it was a lot of fun and it does express how making models fits in my general interest for planes, politics... and I do have several ideas for more "uncommon" articles.

So, I guess that it depends on the Aeroscale users themselves.

If people find it interesting to see model airplanes put in a real-life context of any kind then surely, I would feel inclined to make more articles.

If there is no interest in this then I naturally don't see the point to continue producing things that no-one wants to read.

;-)

Hi Drabslab!

Don't be hard on yourself! I hope you will continue to write such interesting and well researched articles!

As producing things that nobody want to read... why not? I wrote articles that were successfull and other that almost gathered no interest. My Aircraft in Comics episodes usually generate around 600 hits. This is way below the average score of an Aeroscale article. Yours for exemple made 500 so far in 5 days while one of mine made only 600 in 5 months!

But you know what, I will continue to do my Aircraft in Comics serie because I like it and I know some find them interesting. Maybe not many but enough for me. So if you are having fun making your articles, please continue and you will find your readership over the time (I think you already did).

There could have been more feedback in this thread about your article though. But I noticed this is a trend since a few months here at Aeroscale. Articles and On Displays are published but members don't leave messages about them. Maybe our readership is becoming more and more passive and less active. A lot of people read the articles but don't participate anymore. Is this good or is this bad, I don't know, but we live in a consumers world I'm afraid...

Jean-Luc

Thanks for the article - I've read it with interest

I don't agree with some of your conclusions though. For instance I can't say that russians "gave up" and retreat... and I definitly can't say that they "lost the war". You wouldn't probably say that americans lost the war in Vietnam, would you? It all depends on a point of view...


But you are right - too bad this war is allmost forgotten now aswell as its veterans.

Thank you for the well-written article on an interesting subject, and for the photos. But I have a question: Did any of the Soviets' Warsaw Pact allies participate in the Afghanistan War?

Sorry for the late reply, I only recently noticed that there was a question.

As far as I know this was a Soviet Union invasion only (please correct me if I am wrong) and there was no active (or publically known?) involvement of the other Warsaw Pact members.

The Warsaw pact was started as a reaction to the establishment of NATO with more or less the same ambitions and more or less using the same model. Its primary (official) aim was for the members to support each other when being attacked by a third country.

By 1979 the Warsaw Pact had already suffered badly from internal difficulties like the invasion by the soviets of Hungary and Czechoslowakia. This had caused various members of the pact to withdraw or openly criticise the actions of the soviets.

Hence, I assume that the members of the Warsaw Pact would not have been very enthousiastic to help invading a third country on basis of a treaty that was not covering such actions in the first place. Moreover, the polish "solidarnosc" union movement that gained momentum around 1979-1980 was openly distanciating itself from the Soviets. Forcing the Warsaw Pact members to participate in the Afghan war could have forced other members to join this "new rebellion".