Okay, Okay I know this has been rehashed a few times, but I have a couple of quick questions for you abrams fans. I have some excellent echeleon Decals for OIF in 1/35. I want to represent 4 different OIF vehicles and have 4 kits, Tamiya m1a1 and A2, Dragon A2 and a trumpeter A1HA w/plow.
1st. is the trumpteer kit accurate enough for an OIF vehicle???
2nd. Can the M1A1 from Tamiya be modified to represent a HA variant??
I going to build these as M1a1ha instead of a2 because I guess from what I found that the A2 didn’t come around till later is this correct???
Thanks
Of the four you list, if the Tamiya kit you have is the M1A2 (35269) it will build into an Army M1A2, and Army M1A1HA and a Marine M1A1HA. It is the best Abrams kit on the market today (this may change in the next few months). The M1A2 did make a combat appearance during the end of the invasion of Iraq. The M1A2’s life goes back as far as 1991 when I saw one for the first time.
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The Trumpeter kit is accurate enough for an OIF tank. It just needs some updated fittings.
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The older Tamiya M1A1 builds into an early non-HA Abrams, but should not be too hard to update to an HA. There are some minor fittings on the turret that need to be updated. The most important item would be the new style tracks. Your Trumpeter kit comes with two sets and one can be added to the Tamiya M1A1 without trashing the Trumpeter kit. However, the older style tracks have been seen on current OIF tanks so not replacing them would not be wrong. Depends on how accurate you want to be.
This link will get you to an Abrams tweaks list a few of us worked on several years ago. It pre-dates the latest OIF versions and the Tamiya M1A2.
http://www.elccweb.com/MissingLinks/
Yes, (35269) is the kit I have, and is the basis on which I made my quick comparison which led me to this posting. My m1a1 is (35156) Other than the three caps on either side of the ammo blast doors on top, what else would be required to update the M1a1. It seems to me that I would have to rebuild the gun manlet on the M1a1 is seems to be shorter and the side detail is different. I also read somewhere that the turrent casting itself is different, I compared both kits side my side and it looks the same to me…
Would buying the photo etch sets for the M1a2 solve my biggest problems on both the Trump and (35156)??? I want a good representation, but I’m not going for a exact duplicate…
Thanks for you help
Tamiya has a newer modern armor set that would add the necessary CIP panels to the front, sides and rear of the turret as well as some more up to date stowage. The three caps are part of an ammo reloading system that was never used. They are not necessary to depict an M1A1HA. The history of the caps goes something like this:
Original M1A1 did not have them
First batch of M1A1HA had them added
Later M1A1HA had them welded in place
Even later M1A1HA had them deleted but the areas did not have non-skid coating in those areas
Current rebuilds (M1A1AIM) may or may not have them depending on whether the original tank had them.
Thanks alot for the all the info, what about the difference in the gun mantel, do I need to rebuild the whole thing or just add a longer top with a small hinged panel???
All you need to add to the mantlet is the hinged plate. The rest is correct. Here is another article that compares the different M1 kits out there, by Vodnik.
M1 Comparison article.
I found some photoetch updates from Eduard for what i need. I stumbled across exhaust updates for the tamyia and dragon models part# 35600, what is this??? is it necessary to add this for and OIF tank??? Thanks again for all the help, you guys are the masters!!!
Those were locally fabricated bar armor to protect the grill doors from RPG shots. Not all tanks had them, so it would be best to check your references unless you just plan on making a generic OIF tank.
wow, that was a quick response!!! Thanks for the info, I’m just trying to follow the tanks portrayed in the decal instructions from Echelon Part 4 US M1A1HA (heavy common) OIF.