M48A2
Thankee, Gino…
The photo or the Monogram kit? The photo is of the M48A5, the Monogram kit is an M48A2 gasser.
With the turret at the 11 o’clock position (over the left front fender), you’d have the gunner’s station right behind the driver. You’d see mesh screen with some hydraulic controls, etc. behind the mesh. With the turret at the 2 o’clock position (right front fender), the loader’s station would be behind the driver. Mesh with the 13 round ready rack (basically 90mm rounds stood on end pointing upwards) if the vehicle had ammo loaded.
Yeah, the model… An A2 Gasser, got it…
So if I show the ammo in the ready rack, the 90mm amm would be featuring some of these, yes? (Not the “rubber bullet” blue rounds), or is it too “early” to have the silver bullets in the load-out?
Not an expert on 90mm ammo, so I don’t know if the casing are brass or aluminum in color. If in Vietnam, I’d suspect that sabot and HEAT would be non-existant on the tank and the load out would be HEP, beehive and WP. Willie Pete needed to be stored upright in the 13 round ready rack when they were 105mm rounds. I assume the same requirement applied to the 90mm ammo.
Beehive tended to be stored upright in the ready rack as well. That way the loader could set the range before handling the round. If it was stored in the honeycombs, he would have to pull the round out, set it down, set the range, pick it up and load it. If it was on the floor, all he needed to do was set the range, pick it up and load it. Much faster.
While this is the ready rack of the M48A5 with 105mm HEAT and sabot dummy rounds, it would be similar for the 90mm ammo.
As far as the CEV goes, I know somewhere in my piles of boxed junk, I still have one of the volumes of the CEV -10 sitting around getting moldy and musty. I always hung onto it because it was my original MOS (12F) before I got commissioned Armor.
I trained on the M60 AVLB in AIT, but my National Guard company had an M48 AVLB. I wasn’t assigned to the AVLB and probably only trained on that vehicle maybe a handful of times after AIT. I do know that the driver’s hatch was welded shut and the driver’s compartment was relocated to the big circular area where the turret used to be. It was a 2-man crew, the driver and the commander who deployed the bridge. The vehicle wasn’t armed except for the crewmen’s side arms and I think we had a grease gun.
Ok, that makes sense about the ammo, since there wasn’t much of a threat of armor engagements with the NVA… (Knew about WP having to be stored upright since I’m an old Redleg. lol… ) Speaking of which…Does anyone know why that was so?
Well, I’ll tell ya, just because there’s somebody reading this that doesn’t…
There’s a lot of guesses out there as to why, the dumbest being that “the WP will leak out”… That would be bad, since Willie Pete spontaniously ignites and burns upon contact with air… It’s also quite unlikely that’ll it ever happen (but never say "impossible, because SOME Private, SOMEWHERE will prove you wrong…)…
The truth of the matter is that there’s an airspace (void) at the top of the round. WP is a solid, so it won’t “leak” out… Well, it’s solid most of the time… In climates like desert or tropical jungles, where high temps inside an AFV or turreted arty are the norm, it can be a bad thing since WP melts at 111 degrees F, and it can get a LOT hotter inside the tank… If the round is stored on its side in these temps, the filler can melt that moves the sirspace to the side of the round, which will throw off its ballistics all to hell and it’ll “wobble” as it flies though the air… This means that the round won’t hit what it’s aimed at, so it’s stowed in an upright position…
White Phosphorus is used as a screening smoke, marking smoke, or incendiary (meaning it starts fires). It is not, say again NOT a “Chemical Weapon”…
A tank’s WP round also contained high explosive. When fired at a bunker or prepared position, it smoked the bad guys so they couldn’t see you but it also made a big boom to reduce the position’s defense.
The quickest way to identify the tank as either an M48A2 or M48A3 are air cleaners on the fender. If you look at your Monogram kit, on the fenders just aft of the turret, you will see a couple of spots where there is molded on pioneer tools on the left rear fender and track jacks on the right rear.
On an M48A3 and an M48A5, those spots will house large, rectangular air cleaners (side loading for an A3 and top loading for an A5). An M48 and M48A1 have an entirely different looking engine deck as well.
Another way is that M48A2 have 3 return rollers and M48A3 have 5. An M48A5 could have 3 or 5 since the tanks were rebuilds and the number depends on what the tank started out as.
Ok… So I’m golden with calling this thing an M48A2 (for the name-plate), yes?
WP is a solid material with a low melting point. In air, WP burns so it is packed with a protective coating. The fear was if stored on its side and the ambient temperature was warm, the WP in the round would “deform” in the cavity and cause the round to fly irratically…sort of a curve ball.
Rounds Complete!!
That is what it is, that is what the box, both old and new, says it is, an M48A2. It’s probably the oldest 1/35 scale armor model kit that is still well regarded. Most likely because it hasn’t been superceded by a new tooled version. Many use the venerable Tamiya kit to dress it up with more refined detail parts, but the basic kit is a solid build.
Most kitbashes I’ve seen to upgrade this kit involve swapping the turret for the Tamiya kit, detailing the Monogram cupola with parts from the Tamiya kit, adding the suspension from the Tamiya kit, cleaning up the molded on tool details from a kit with a similar tool rack, etc. I’ve seen Eduard PE made for the Tamiya kit used to detail the headlight guards and fender supports, etc.
I’ve also seen this kit used with the Ironside M67 flame tank kit (basically an Academy copy of the Tamiya M48A3) to make that model more accurate since the flame tank was more commonly found on the A2’s gas powered hull not the diesel engined A3. It gets reissued about every 10-15 years. I think 1996-97 was the last time I saw it reissued in the original blue long box.
To5Q~~60_12.JPG){kind=link}
Original long box art work, also used for the mid 90s reissue:
){kind=link}
Box art from the 1980s reissue:
!(http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Monogram-1-35-mM-48A2-Patton-Tank-Model-Kit-6501-/00/s/NDIyWDYwMA==/$(KGrHqN,!h0E5dWLmqg+BOcr-HS(+g~~60_3.JPG)
){kind=link}
So, Rob,
If I took this kit, modified the barrel to resemble the flame tube, and painted it correctly, would this make a reasonably accurate M67?
G
I believe the gunner’s sight on the roof of the turret is significantly different than the standard gunner’s sight housing on a regular M48. The M67 really came in two version, an M67A1 based off the M48A2 and the M67A2 based off the M48A3. I do not know which one was more prevalent in use.
The gun tube is significantly different as well; shorter, fatter, with a phony muzzle brake to make it cosmetically look like a regular M48 gun tank.
Edit: Here is an excellent photo of an M67A2 (M48A3-based) Zippo. Notice the sight in front of the cupola, which is traversed over the right side of the turret. The sight is much different than the one on the Monogram or Tamiya kit.
Ok, thanks Rob…
Now one more question… The cupola has a regular M2HB .50 cal or is it that cockamamee M85 .50 cal.?
Rob knows it a lot better than me, but I heard that in the commanders cuppola was the regular M2 ma deuce. In Vietnam the boys often pulled it out and mounted it on a makeshift pedestal, sometimes made of steel plate and parts taken from the ACAVs, for more flexibility and field of fire. Hope it helps, good luck with your build and have anice day
Paweł
It’s an M2HB, but not a regular one. It is the same type that is used on the M1-series tanks and called the M48 turret type. It differs in that 1) it does not have a regular charging handle, it uses the M10 charging handle which is a fragile cable with a V-shaped metal grab handle at the back; 2) it does not have hand grips at the rear; 3) and since it it designed to be mounted to a cupola with a sighting system, it does not have any sights on the top of the machine gun receiver.
While the below picture is NOT a photo of an M48 cupola interior, it is a photo of the M48 turret type M2HB with M10 charging handle. This photo is of the machine gun in an ASV cupola, but that is the same version of M2 used in the M48 cupola (hence the name) and in the M1-Abrams series commander’s weapon station. The M85 is an entirely different animal of which I have no love for. I hated that thing almost as much as I hated the old M219 coaxial machine gun.
I’m not an expert on the M48 by any means; my time on them was limited to the M48A5 gun tank and the M48A5 AVLB and I can probably count the times I got to train on the AVLB on one hand.
It’s not as simple as pulling the cupola M2 out and sticking it on a pintle. It’d be easier to “acquire” a regular M2 from a destroy M113 or wherever the gun trucks found theirs and go that route. If you ever had to pull a charging handle on an M2, it would be impossible to do so from inside a cramped cupola. There’d be no way to get any leverage to pull it. That’s why the cable’s there, you pull it straight down. There is no wooden charging handle on the right side.
Ya got me confuse-ed…
!(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/HansvonHammer/Army Pics/Weapons/M2HB_9.jpg)
Ain’t the above an M1’s TC cupola? I see the spade-grips and a charging handle…
This site’s calling it “Machine Gun, Cal .50, Browning, M2, Heavy Barrel, M48 Turret Type”… (Even has the damn national stock number)…
http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/infantry/mg/M2.html
Or did you mean that there’s just no grips or “regular” charging-handle on the just M48’s Mother Duece? (BTW, is/was the coax an M1919-type .30cal?)
Also, is the pic you posted showing the sight extension for the .50 and would that be similar to the M48 TC’s sight-extension? And did the M48 use a similar set-up like that hose for catching the brass/links as the ASV does, or did they hang a bag of some sort, or just let the junk hit the turret basket floor?
Sorry to be a walkin’ question-mark, Rob, but this build is kinda like “Topsy” and “Just sorta growed”… I’m filling the turret with all kinds of greeblies; in the hull, I even scratch-built the gas-pedal, complete with holes…
Rob - I’m glad I wrote something, by correcting me you taught me some really interesting details. Thanks a lot!
Hans - good luck keeping the model detailed! I like your attitude on this one, so have fun!
Paweł