I am in finishing stages of this one. The instructions say to make my own straps, which I plan to do using flat dental floss, as I have read somewhere on this forum, but other suggestions welcome.
The question is where to attach the two ends?
The lash is clearly looped around the front bumper but what are the other two ends attached to?
Those look like ratchet straps with a hook on each end. Probably hooked on the underside edge of the dashboard or that grab rail. It’s nonstandard storage and the ratchet strap probably was liberated from a cargo truck like a HEMTT or the riggers who rig the equipment for airdrop.
Since the windshield is gone, one obvious point would be the handrail on the dash, passenger side. On the driver side - I dunno, maybe the steering column?
That could have been a cargo strap, probably was one, maybe without the ratchet or even the hook end. The 151 didn’t have many places to tie things down, You could put a hooked end to the bottom of the dash board, loop it around the steering column and use the passenger hand hold, not a lot of choices as long as it doesn’t interfer with the vehicle’s operation. Imagine you were the driver and think of how you would do it.
I have a pic of the exact M151A2 that Tamiya based theirs on (same bumper #s, stowage, crew, sand paint, etc.), but can’t post a pic of it right now, damn Gov’t firewall. Another thing to note though, the .50 cal is incorrect. The pic (and those above) all have M60s mounted. This is because the .50 cal was not authorized for the M151. It was too heavy and the recoil would crack the frames. You may see one here or there that has one, but it was not common.
More modern vehicles have little metal attachment points all over, but not the M151; that said, there ought to be one just aft of center on the hood, under the stowage; you could feasibly run lines under there that would help tie your stuff down.
My late cousin was an MP with the 82nd and was in the tail end of the first airlift. So, when they landed, they were told to “Secure the [airport] permeter.”
No vehcles had landed a the time, so they “requstioned” a Celica wth a sun roof and drove around wth an M60 plopped on the roof.
Not quite the grand meda image. Or as my cousin put , “Just another day in the 82nd, ust another goat rope.”
I was semi-being serious, we had tentage and camouflage nets secured to our tanks during the Cold War, but if we went on an exercise, we tended to leave that stuff in place strapped down and took ratty old stuff that was excess gear and used that in the field.
The only time we took it down was when the tank was being repainted or the equipment being inventoried.