Tamiya 1/35 M113 APC #MM140 - Box not dated.
Picked this up on eBay without the figures for about 14 bucks with shipping. Took me a couple of weeks to finish and I just finished it this morning 8/21. I will likely go back and put the antennas on it once I pick up some supplies at Michael’s.
Enjoy, Jay
A realy grate build there man[tup][tup]
looks good to me. i see you to have been biten by the m113 bug. i am gonna do more of them over the winter
Nicely done, albeit you have some decal silvering… I like the VC flag inside… Nice touch…
Very nice piece of work! It’s motivating me to tackle the 2 I have in my “stash.”
Nice construction…I also see some major decal silvering—did you gloss the finish before applying decals? Looks like you did some dry-brushing w/ straight silver paint…IMO this is a “no-no”…it looks more realistic to knock the brightness your scratches down using a mixture of brown or raw umber w/ the silver…
Actually, it would be a brighter silver on the M113 series, MR. The M113 hull and hatches are aluminum.
That’s true, but IMO straight silver just comes across as too bright, especially for a scale model…I often mix raw umber w/ silver to get a “flat” aluminum color that I use for 35th scale insignia, buttons, etc. that looks much better than a straight silver…it really knocks it down but retains that metallic look…
The decals were in really bad shape and had major yellowing. With a little help from the sun the yellow faded. As far as the decal silvering goes - it’s frustrating when this happens. What is a good method to solve this problem?
For dry-brushing I used Testors Steel and applied it after I sprayed Dulcote. I then used pastels for the dirt etc. The inside was weathered prior to assembly via dry-brush, wash etc…
Just a little hint on the taillights. The slit like portions you painted red should be black, only the left side oval portion (not the right side) should be red.
a couple nit picking things here and there:
I noticed that there was no white star on the side of the track. But in the end the start would be painted either black or a very dark O.D.
without the ACAV turret I’d assume that it was a 1967 or earlier version (but still there were a few as late as late 1968). Anyway a track like this would normally be seen on things like road sweeping details (land mines). Even then you’d see at least one if not two M 60 machine guns in the rear. There will almost always be a string of smoke grenades near the fifty caliber machine gun. Also mark the water cans with either a “P”, “W”, or “PW”. Tracks never carried anykind of fuel on them. And don’t forget to put at least one case of pop and beer ontop, as well as an extra box of ammo for each machine gun nearby.
The side fender skirts were almost always removed due to issues with mud and doing P.M. on the tracks. It was also fairly common to see the front fording plate missing. So think a lot of mud and a heavy coating of red dust on everything.
gary
Just a few observations for your next one.
My God Man… you need some cushions on those benches and back rests! [:O]
I never thought about it, but the insides of that track would have several thousand rounds of ammo stuffed everywhere they could put it along with a couple cases of C-Rats
gary
Looking good. To add to the discussion, here is how the tail lights should look. This is a common error made by modelers. The model companies don’t help when they don’t correctly show how to paint them either.
Keep up the good work.
OK…besides what everyone else has said, I’ll look at Ma.
I know this is most likely the kit M2. I like to replace mine with the Academy M2. Drill out the barrel end. Ammo box open with belt of ammo loaded. Rear handles and charging handle black.
If your going to put antennas on, my suggestion is brass rod.
Don’t get depressed with all of us bolt counters. Just trying to help. It won’t be long and you will think the same way as you detail a build!!
Keep on having fun!
Rounds Complete!!
I just went back and took a look at those tail lights, and they’re not the kind used in RVN. They use a front and tail light combo that had vertical lines in them. The driver always tried to put the front vertical line on the backside of the front light inside the two vertical lines on the rear tail light. This way he always stayed exactly inside the track pattern on the one in front of him. This was done to avoid running over a land mine. Also this gave the TC an excuse to beat the drivers head silly with a “no bic stick”. I’ve never seen these lights stateside, and may have been something cooked up just for Vietnam.
Also for what it’s worth, most all armor had the ammo box mount modified to use the larger fifty cal ammo box. That box wouldn’t last a minute when things got interesting. Normally there would almost always be an M79 close to the fifty, and it was used to spot for the shooter.
gary
May I suggest a slightly different track? How about something from the Air Force Security Police?
You may notice that we didn’t use any of the fording gear. To us it was useless and discarded.
Looks good. I wanna do a few myself. I think an M113 GB would be nice. I personally have plans to do the NASA version. It’s kind of a lime green thing. It’s to evacuate the astronaughts if need be. There are a few pics of it around on the net, and I have one in a ref book around here somewhere.
I also have pics of an Egyption one I’d like to do.
We had a club member here do one that was silver at the time. He ran into a little controversy when he had a little rust comming out of the holes where the fording skirts bolted in. As it turned out, he was right because although the track is made of aluminum alloys, the points where the skirts bolt in have steel parts inside the armor.
