Here’s a couple models of a couple of my favorite weapons from the Vietnam war. One was seen once in a while and the other one was rarely seen by most of the base personnel. The first time I saw one taken out on patrol was during the 1972 Easter Invasion and those outside of our squadron acted nervous when they saw it for the first time.
The 90mm Recoiless Rifle:
Then there was the M-174 automatic grenade launcher. This is still a work in progress and both are 1/35th scale:
The M-174 was carried on all armored vehicles in the squadron along with two M-60 machine guns.
All otrher members of the Q.R.T. in the vehicle carried A.F. M-16 rifles, some equiped with the M-148 grenade launcher.
The driver/commander carried a G.A.U. with a 148 launcher as his standard weapon.
I have the XM174 almost done in 3D, in 1:35, but somehow I got stuck… Thing is XM174 is a really exotic weapon with like three or four photos on the 'net - that makes it kinda hard to make out some unclear details… But I guess I’ll have to press on and finish it, there’s no use in it laying around my hard drive, eh?
It’s good to hear from you, been a long time. I thought you were finished with it by now. I tried to get hold of you about getting a couple of yours. I have a jeep and a couple M-706 armored cars to do and at least one will have both M-60s and a 174 mounted somewhere. Most likely one gun front and one on each side mount. That means I will have to do the interior again, but what the heck, the model needs some correcting and a lot of detail added.
With some of our 174s they took of that weird gun mount and just used a regular type of machinegun mount, similar to and sometimes even taken from the old 30 caliber guns. This worked better with our vehicles and kept the bulky original mount out of the way.
My new problem is painting. Gun metal is too dark and I need to find a somewhat lighter color for the overall weapon. Like our other weapons and someof our equipment it would have to look like it was parkerized. The ammo clips were a slightly differernt color too and that could vary from case to case.
Any suggestions for a color I could pick up at the hobby shop?
Hey Pawel, let me know when you have your 174s finished, I’d like to pick up a few of them. I still need to pick up a couple interior detail sets for the 706 so I don’t have to do all those interior hatch details again. The padding, shelves, better seat details and engine compartment details were bad enough but the knobs and gun port covers were a bit of a pain.
I’ve made a resolution to finish that XM174 for you soon. I think I got the shape, now I have to package it for 3D printing:
The set will be most likely two XM174s and a few loaded clips. The pintle will be printed separately to make the gun poseable. I’ll let you know when I put it up in my shop.
Thanks for the update. It was sort of a weird, ugly design, but ir could put out a good deal of power on a target. Their low velocity made it easy to watch where the shots were going and to make corrections to keep on target or get a bit ahead of it.
When it comes to the M706 the interior set for it is kinda mandatory - I say that because it also corrects the underside that is really botched in the Hobby Boss kits. Unfortunately I’m a little short on funds to buy one or two for myself.
As for that gun metal, which brand of paint do you use? Did you try to mix some brighter colour in, like silver or aluminium? The gun metal from Humbrol (number 53) got lighter in the recent years, you might try this one out. Or maybe paint the gun lighter base and then dilute the gun metal and put it on really thin - that might give you nice shading as side effect. You might also try a paint from the Games Workshop company - it’s called “Leadbelcher”, that’s a very nice metal shade.
Hope this helps - good luck with your builds and have a nice day
Those things look great. I intend to order some sets once I figure out a few things. I hardly ever order things on line so I wonder what that postal code box is for as well as the paypal or bank transfer is. I’m assuming that paypay is the most common thing to ue now, but we got hit by a scam saying it was paypal so there’s a bit of mistrust about that now.
