Dragonfly over NAC?

VAMP over... Uhmmmmm... Well... NiteOps Humvee or Desert Humvee?

Maybe I should re-do the pool with multiple choices. It's surfacing here that for COBRA all people are in the more unrealistic/futuristic like HISSes, and for Joe all people are more for realistic.

Realistic. I think even Cobra is better grounded to some level.

I do like many unrealistic offerings, but the problem was in later years, the unrealistic vehicles also became impractical and silly looking. Too many armored vehicles with glass canopies, overuse of the "splits in mulitple vehicles" gimmick, plus bad colors, weapons with no apparent ammo sources, missiles stuck to everything...in the 90's, vehicles seem built around gimmicks, like the gimmick came first. The Rat's crap, but it's just a shell for some stupid spinning blade launcher anyway. ATF fighters were jets built around water guns.

They overdid the Land Battleship concept that began with the HAVOC and peaked with the Rolling Thunder. They kept going with the Raider and the Avalanche and the Battle Wagon. All of which were over-armed, yet under armored with exposed crew and/or glass canopies. They sometimes seemed to be lacking enough crew to operate all ithe weapons (like the Avalanche). The Battle Wagon had an absurdly high profile. Of all of them, the Mean Dog is probably my favorite, and the closest to being "real", splitting feature aside.

Cobra had some of them, too. Sort of. The submarine tanks, which were too nautical in nature to go toe-to-toe with Joe land cruisers. Destro's Demon and Razorback come close, as does the Rage, but the Rage seems somewhat more down-to-earth in design, aside from too many tacked on weapons and an undersized turret. The Razorback's weapons seem limited compare to the mutiple guns and giant missiles of the Raider.

Cobra in general became too sea-oriented, maybe due to Cobra Island. From 1987 onward they got at least one new sea vehicle every year until 1991, while the only GI Joe sea items were repaints like Tiger Fish, Tiger Shark and Night force items. It felt a bit unbalanced.

I prefer the realistic but mostly for the joes, for cobra I prefer unrealistic like the hiss and destros dementor

Excellent point, G. The newer realistic vehicles are superior to the older realistic vehicles, and the Humvees, in particular, are just awesome. One problem with the older vehicles is that they always seem too small to fit figures in without almost breaking them. Try and fit a new sculpt figure (or even an 80's figure, for thet matter) into the Vamp or Stinger and you'll see what I mean.

Point well made about troop capability. My example of VAMP and Dragonfly were just for old favorites sake. If only I had the means (or the storage space) to start rolling in humvees. I did find a "Hammer" (circa 1989), but my boys removed the top and now it is more of a "covertable" concept. I would love either Humvee, but I'm content to just add figures now, as I really have no room for storing more vehicles. And I don't think I'm going to be able to use that as a rationale to move to a bigger house so I can have a "Joe" room.

I bought a Stinger off EBAY 2 yrs ago and tried to put a new sculpt in it. D'oh. So much for that idea! I was grasping at straws in trying to compare the VAMP to something. If Hasbro didn't have the humvees, I really don't know what it could compare to. Certainly not the the Brawler, Splitfire or Smokescreen. Not a lot of options after that. I like each vehicle on it's own but together, they just seem off.

I agree tho, if 2002+ never happened, I'd still be down w/ the old, original, vintage stuff. I had pretty narrow tunnel vision in terms of GI Joe around the movie and Cobra War days.

YTJ, I know that feeling only too well. Every spare centimetre of storage space is crammed with Joe vehicles and figures. Every time I get a new vehicle, it takes about an hour to rearrange everything to make a space for it. A bigger house would be nice, but that's a pretty drastic (and expensive) option to take just so I can have more Joes!!

As a nu skulpt DORK, I have space but due to an upcoming remodel, I've had to pack a lot of it away. Or store it elsewhere. I admit, I have 3 desert humvees. I found them for cheap in a store and I had them planned for a dio that fell apart. I know what you guys feel tho. I have a ton of new vehicles and am running out of places for them. Good thing I only have 1 ROCC.