Well here is a Tamiya M1A1 Abrams I’m working on. I was working on a StuG III Ausf A, and it was coming along nicely but my wife was careless and destroyed it(OUCH). This is the kit that has the mine plow. Aide from the picture of the current work in progress, I have a question. The vinyl tube that comes with it forconnecting the mine plow, shows in the instructions as routing through the starboard port viewer on the drivers hatch. I can find no pictures showing the exact location of where that thing route to, but it’s obvious it’ not that port. Anyone have any idea’s where? Anyway, thanks in advance for the comments, and the information. Now on to the pics.
Newer builds or those which have been upgraded have a dedicated connector for the mine plow. “Older” models did indeed have the cable routed through the driver’s right-side periscope housing.
This is a pic (from Primeportal) of the connector on an M1A2.
As Phil said, newer M1A1 AIMs and M1A2s have the connector on the left front hull next to the driver’s hatch. Most of these are rebuilt M1A1 AIM tanks from about 20004 on. On older models, the right-most driver’s vision block is replaced with a cable adaptor that has a smaller vision block and looks like below:
Looks like I’ll have to go through that port. I didn’t want to, but that looks like it’s too much to try and scrachbuild right now. I’d like to go with accuracy. Of coure I kind of have a two tone desert camo scheme on it right now I just did. Doesn’t look too bad, if I decide to keep itmaybe I’ll make my own design of connector for the cable. Kind of a what if. I want to use the mine plow because for one, it accounts for the extra cost of the kit over the one without, and two it adds visual interest. I may just go over my camo with the straight sand color again, and then route through the vision block. What do you guys think? I could use some help on this one. If need be I can post pics of that camo scheme.
If you are going for realism, the sand camo isn’t accurate. US Abrams are only in NATO 3-tone camo and Sand. If the crew is missing the components for the vision block adapter, they will just thread it through the open periscope hole.
Yeah, I know. But I don’t consider the 11 ACR and 1/221 CAV KVT VisMods to be standard paint schemes. I know a few of them ended up in Iraq in that scheme as well, but that was only because they didn’t have the time to repaint them all sand. The standard schemes are still Sand or NATO camo.
Unfortunately, your previous post left no room for ‘non-standard’. Yes, there are only a hundred or so in that colour scheme of the 8,800 or whatever M1s in the American inventory, but your definitive ‘there are no M1s outside of NATO 3-colour and sand’ from a chap with your credentials can be very confusing to those less au fait than us who may have seen a picture of just that.
It’s a nitpicky thing, I know, but we do strive for accuracy!
Then you won’t mind being reminded about the USMC M1A1 tanks that were overall green. I believe they came from pre-po ships and took part in the initial invasion.
I haven’t served in the military and I haven’t seen an Abrams up close and in person, so I’ll leave the painting questions and comments to others. I HAVE been married for 16 years, so I will comment on the thing that caught my eye.
You may be 100% dead on accurate that she pulled a three stooges and busted the StuG, but you can never, and I mean never, call her out on it.
These creatures, we call wives, are a tricky and fickle lot. They might look all cute and alluring in their (insert you wife’s best looking outfit here), but just when you go up to give 'em a kiss or a hug… whamo. You get hit with, “what were you thinking when you blamed me on-line for breaking that stupid little piece of plastic that you left out. You don’t know who these guys are. How could you say that?” Next thing you know, your in the brig for 10 days and your modeling budget gets blown on Max Factor.
QWell my wife knows it was her fault, and freely admits it. She was playing with a ball in the house, throwing it around after I asked her to be specifically careful as the StuG was sitting up with it’s freshly glued tracks drying and WHAM it smacked it hard. As far as the outfit, we won’t discuss that it’s a family forum, and it’s not my wife’s brain that caught my eye the first time I saw her standing up on…NM. In addition my wife doesn’t do the whole makeup and cosmetics thing(YIPPY), and two, the few hobbies she has aren’t too expensive. I can keep her hobbies satisfied for under 20 bucks a month. Aside from when we go shooting. Afterall getting her her own handgun was the condition of me getting my hunting rifle. Um ok. She got a nice Beretta U22 target pistol, and I dropped 1200 bucks on my rifle/scope combo. She happy I happy. .22 shells are cheap too. Cheaper then my $1.60 a round .300Win Mags. I guess I just got lucky with my wife. Especially considering how she looks on top of all that, and how I look.
Well here are some updated pics. Don’t have much to do as you can see. I also have the chains for the plow and rollers, but it’ not reflected in the pics as of yet. Gimme some time, I gotta hit back to work in the morning and it’s getting late. Hope to have it done this week.
Be happy to when I get home tonight. At workright now. I’ll even snap a closeup photo of the back and post it. Justin case I forget e-mail me fantacmet at gmail dot com
I sent a reply with the relevant information that night, but the e-mail was rejected. Apoligies. Parts tree is tree E, the other parts jewelry store chain, and heater hose from detail master for model cars for the control cable, as far as the roller, that can be easily scratched I’m sure, or there are several different designs. I’ll try to answer some more within a few days.
