You continue to be a fountain of information, Rob. I remember seeing the Blazer on shelves, but I don’t remember seeing the ESCI M-60A1/A3.
You have the explanation for that lol.
Thank you, again.
The A3 was the biggest seller. The A1 had the OD green and white star look, but it also may have had the old 7th Army MASSTER camouflage. I know the AMT/Ertl reboxed Blazer included the MASSTER pattern.
I totally see what you mean about having all of those in one box.
I do remember seeing that box for the A3. My father has built that one I think. That was when I was in high school lol.
Kit history is a bit of a side hobby for me. Multiple boxings for basically the same kit mystify me; back when Accurate Miniatures entered the market with umpteen Mustang kits, some fly off the shelves and others hit the clearance bin after years collecting dust.
But if they had released those kits with all options in one box, they all would have flown off the shelves. Instead, only a half sold and the unwanted versions didn’t.
The difference between the M60A1 and M60A3 kits are literally a handful of parts; gun tube, crosswind sensor, search light, air cleaners and the LRF blister.
Well, you have my ear. I love history in general, so this information is being well recieved, I promise.
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On a side note, I did get the mud holes cut into the drive sprockets.
I also got a little done on the lower hull, gluing on the tow shackles and tail lights.
All three of the original Esci M60 kits have been reissued in the 2000s. Italeri reboxed the M60A1 (#6397) and M60 Blazer (#6391), making the same mistake Esci did by not making a 2 in 1 kit.
Italeri took Esci’s mistake one step further by removing certain standard M60 parts so that if you bought the Blazer, you could not make a regular M60A1, only the IDF tank. Previously, if you bought either Esci’s M60 Blazer (#5042) or the AMT/Ertl M60 Blazer (#8864), you got all the necessary parts to make the IDF version or the US Army M60A1.
Interestingly to note, while AMT/Ertl gives instructions to make a US tank and provides the camouflage scheme for a 7th Army MASSTER tank, they do not give US decals. Only the IDF markings are provided and you are instructed to put those on the 7th Army camouflage tank.
Another curiosity is the box art. It shows a tank without the Blazer armor, but with the IDF thermal shrouded gun tube, .30 cal and .50 cal machine guns and Urdan cupola. So the box art mixes up versions.
Revell of Germany released the former Esci M60A3TTS, and they did it right. They released it as kit #03057 and included virtually every part necessary to make a US Army M60A3TTS, an OPFOR M60A3 and a USMC M60A1 RISE/Passive tank. They even included the deep water fording snorkel. This kit flew off the shelves and was very hard to find. They included four different marking options and three different camouflage patterns.
An unusual boxing of the Esci M60A1 is one that is very rare. Gunze Sangyo released it as the “High-Tech Model” M60A1 RISE PASSIVE TANK. When this kit came out, it was in the $125-150 range. Since previous Gunze Sangyo “high tech” kits were often Dragon or old Tamiya kits with multimedia parts added, many people who saw this kit assumed it was the Academy copy of the Tamiya M60A1. I’ve actually read “reviews” written by modelers who say it was the Academy kit. That just tells me they never laid hands and eyes on the kit.
I have one that I bought ten years ago for $35 + $13 s/h. It is Esci kit #5039 with white metal reactive armor, grenade launchers, air cleaners and some sundry detail parts. Even at $48 delivered, I over paid for the kit. A better solution to get this version of the tank would be to find the old Esci M60A1 or Blazer and then buy the ERA sprues from Tamiya USA. That way you don’t have to deal with the white metal parts.
That’s the long history of what was my favorite tank kit of the 1980s. I bought one when I was a young lieutenant in Germany and M60A3TTS tank platoon leader. It was either released in 1989 or 1990.
It’s amazing to me that Gunze had the balls to charge so much for a kit they didn’t even engineer.
So I got around to scratching up the hinges and latch for the turret box.
I also got all of the hardware attached to the lower hull. I cut off the tow hooks (solid one piece mold) from the tow mounts and drilled out the holes. I’m going to add some shackles later.
Mike: Looks good!!! [Y]
Rob: Thanks! I too found this an interesting history of the kit.
Thank you very much, Gamera!
I’m figuring where and how to place the hinges for the skirts next.
You’re welcome. I did an article for Boresight about this series of kits years ago. Before the more recent Italeri and Revell of Germany reissues.
That is feasibly possible. The IDF received replacement M60 tanks from US war reserves during the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Some very well could have been delivered in that scheme to Israel and pressed immediately into service due to their high battle losses. The same was true for F-4E Phantoms taken from USAF stocks in SEA camo instead of the the usual IDF camo. After that war ended and time permitted, IDF paint schemes were applied.
Mike: Looks good with the skirts, I’m interested to see how you do the hangers, bearing in mind the fenders are pretty flimsy. Stik: According to Michael Mass’ latest Magach book, none of the M60s received at the time of the YKW went straight into use, not arriving in time. I would have loved to do one in green, in the sand…
Russ, I plan on reinforcing the fender brackets, but theortically there will be some supports underneath as well. I don’t think I’m going to build them though because they won’t be seen.
Hinges, welds, and bolt heads.
Took a lot of measuring and time just to puzzle out how these skirts would actually function in the real world.
Your are one heck of a scratch builder my friend. Wowzers!!
BK
Thank you very much, Brandon! I can be when I want to. And for this vision I needed skirts. I have some in resin from a conversion kit (which I copied the shape of these skirts for) but the are from a Joffy kit and have a lot of excess resin that has to be sanded off.
Russ’s builds have inspired me to build my own tank and I have an idea of what I’m looking for. Thus, the need to scratch build my own details. I’ve even begun to sculpt simple items and that’s enjoyable as well.
Thanks for the compliment!
Those skirts look beautiful- she’s coming along great!
Thank you, Gamera! I think they’re shaping up well, also.
Looks good! I like the hinges, nice and busy.
Looks like to me, your building a theoretcial M60A4. Should match up with my M60A2E2 if I could stop breaking off pieces everytime I pick it up.