The 3/35th Armor Battalion was part of the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division. We painted our tanks by hand. There was no stencels, you just looked at the tank next in line and tried to match the patterns. Not sure what type of paint we were using, but the Forest Green would fade out pretty quick, and you would roll throught the forest in a bright yellow and faded red tank. Stood out like a sore thumb. We painted the front slope; both top and bottom, rear grills. But never painted the side of the hull or road wheels. They just got muddy. Lettering was standard for the time. The US Army registration numbers were deleted from the sponson boxes. Also, black stars. The new Takom kit has the correct pattern. Hope this helps. I was a TC in 3rd herd Charlie company for 3 years. C-35.
This is quite true and the reason for the change to the rear suspension in the A2 version.
The A1 rear end was hinged along the frame and tended to fold under when releived of downward pressure, such as in a tight turn or if bounced over a rock due to the central articulation of the suspension arms, the lowering of one wheel relative to the frame would make the wheel move inward and fold under, effectively over-steering the vehicle and causing it to abruptly overturn. The M151A2, fielded in 1972, brought a significantly revised rear suspension with semi-trailing A-arms that greatly improved safety in fast cornering. They were hinged along the forward edge, perpendicular to the frame, so the wheel moved forward as opposed to folding under it.
You see? Almost every discussion about the M151 eventually touches the rear suspension. It’s a very important aspect of this vehicle and its history. That’s why I feel it’s important to have this detail of the model correct. But it’s of course only my opinion.
Thanks for reading and have a nice day
Paweł
Looks like young lad is holding a Colt XM-177. Cool looking little weapon.
Dont worry Pawel, I have two more M151A1s in my stash. On those I will correct the rear suspension, when I get around to building them.
Cool! Looking forward to see that!
It may not look like much progress, but I finished up the detail painting that I need to do before gloss coat for decals, washes, etc…
Looks really neat!
Well, discussion about the suspension is always pertinent when talking about the history of the end of this line of army jeeps. But as a scale reproduction model kit, it’s a portion of the model that isn’t as obvious unless you display the vehicle flipped over or otherwise expose the underside.
Yeah, many of the M151 kits have issues since the companies just made cosmetic changes to the base kit to backdate it into an M151A1. Many companies do this. We’d all prefer a fully accurate kit, but that’s not always an option.
The radio looks really nice looking forward to seeing the decals and weathering.
That looks really good! The camo came out great!!! [Y]
I feel your pain masking models with silly putty stickpusher. The camo came out great!
It is coming along very nicely. Great job so far.
The Tamiya M151A1 is pretty nice. It has an accurate rear suspension, correct wiper motor positions, correct rear wheel opening, A1 soft top, and a few other areas they corrected. It still has the A2 steering wheel and a couple other areas that could have been corrected as well. It is the more accurate M151A1 over the Academy kit. The Academy engine is nice though.
LoL. And if it were the average ship kit, especially a saling ship, it would be an M-38 or GAZ-56 just with different decals and box art.
Thanks guys. This is getting there and closing on the finish line… as intended.
Today’s progress update:
During the week, I airbrushed on a coat of Future in preparation for decals. This morning I broke out my ancient Superscale US Armor markings decal sheet - it’s basicly national stars in various sizes, plus two sizes of letters and numbers. The smaller size barely fit on the bumpers. For a 30+ year old decal sheet, they cooperated well enough, but took a long time to lift free from the backing paper. I also used the kit decals for the dash, and some decals from my spares for the serial number, black stars, and red reflector tape squares.
I went with the CO’s jeep for Echo Troop, 2nd ACR.
Looks great! Ready to drive
Nice work there Carlos, i do like that camoe scheme.
It is probably the most interesting camouflage scheme in wide use the US Army tried. Dual-Tex was more interesting, but was only used in one place and for the blink of an eye.
Its certainly more interesting than anything the British army has used. We’ve been useing green and black since the 70’s.
Another nice long reply lost by the FUBAR forum iOS interaction… I’ll reply later properly…
I’m so sick of this.