Quote from: Jakko on May 02, 2023, 10:42:04 AM

Quote from: Mossie on May 02, 2023, 10:16:56 AMWould wet 'n dry sandpaper work for the anti-skid panels?  It's generally thinner than 'proper' sandpaper and available in finer grades.  It might be a fair bit cheaper than the AFV Club stuff without the advantage of being self-adhesive.

It's used a lot for this purpose, yes, but the backing paper is a bit of a problem because it adds a fair amount of thickness. I've read of people removing the paper and then glueing the grit only to the model, but don't ask me how they manage that

Dead right Jakko ...ive used 2000 grit sand paper..well every grade of sand paper to be honest..they all suffer the same issue..thickness.
Using the best sand paper I can get it the same as the stuff I get from any auto parts store...it's thicker than .25mm sheet plastic  and cutting out the right sizes is annoying to get right and the biggest problem is over time the paper will lift as the glue won't penetrate the paper dew to it ..well being wet and dry 
I'd stick to texture paint or sand and glue.
I do like Kericks idea and well worth looking into that .

Slick work on the new mantlet and top tip on getting a pattern worked up.

Also tried sandpaper for non-slip, it looks OK under paint, but as you have all already pointed out, it is the thickness and challenge in cutting/fitting/fixing. My go at it was long before all these new fangled textured paints and gizmo's existed and at the time was the "go to" option.

I've produced paint jobs on model cars which had the texture of sandpaper by getting the settings wrong on my airbrush (or having the paint thinnedness wrong).
No idea what I did wrong though.  Or how to reproduce it.
 

That last bit is the problematic part — knowing how to do it again But a rough finish when airbrushing usually means the paint is drying too soon, before it hits the model, so you were probably spraying it with too little thinner, at too low a pressure, from too far away, or any combination of these.

Continuing with the gun mantlet, something went horribly wrong when I tried to install it ... I had glued a length of plastic tubing to the T-piece that the Dragon barrel normally attaches to, with the right inside diameter for the Tamiya 120 mm gun barrel I was going to use. Naturally, the turned bit of plastic I built into the mantlet has an inner diameter so it nicely fit over that plastic tube. However, the need to use that magic superglue pen also means the superglue dries much faster and gives very little time to get things just right. That all came together into this:

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The mantlet wasn't on far enough and it was at a slight angle when seen from the front to boot

Luckily, I had left the T-piece loose, allowing me to use this fairly drastic solution:

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A saw blade in my knife handle was small enough to slip behind the mantlet from below and saw through the T-piece, getting the mantlet loose. A bit of tidying up removed enough material that it would sit correctly against the turret, so I could then just glue the T-piece back together with model cement:

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And add the gun barrel, of course. That's just straight from a Tamiya M1A1 kit; not sure I mentioned it anymore, but I had it spare because I had converted that to an M1 IP (the upgraded M1 with 105 mm gun) 20 years ago or so. There's a Dutch saying that translates as, "He who keeps something, has something"

You can see in these photos that I also added some other details to the turret, like front lifting rings. These are simply KPz 70 parts, glued in about the same location as they would be on the original turret.

More turret details I added include the smoke grenade launchers:

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Tamiya parts from an old Chieftain model I had built but long ago broken up for parts (this is why there is paint on them), because American tanks from the 1970s and 80s used British-designed launchers. The bases behind them are from the same M1A1 kit as the barrel (because I had used an etched set on the M1 IP), with punched bolt heads, copper wire for the cabling, plastic L-profile for protective channels for the cables, etc. As this was going to be a tank in wartime, I decided to depict them loaded; you normally wouldn't see the grenades when they're loaded, really, but some American crews in the Gulf War double-loaded each tube, which meant half of the second grenade stuck out. I replicated this by drilling out the tubes and inserting some 2 mm plastic rod.

The numbers on the right front of the turret were shaved from a Tamiya sprue. They're there because M1 turrets have the same thing, though usually made by just "writing" the digits with welds. (If there's "-U" after it, the tank has uranium armour, BTW.)

Towards the rear, I added a simple jerrycan rack:

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Just a plastic card shelf with upturned edges from some strip, and stays from strip as well.

M1 crews have (had?) a habit of attaching large ammo cans to the bustle rack to stow personal belongings in, and did so in the Gulf War too, so I did that too here:

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Only three, of course, because the M70 had a three-man crew. The cans are from the AFV Club Cal.30/Cal.50/40mm Modern U.S. Ammunition Box & Ammunition Belt set.

Good recovery 

Cool. 

The next fun bit: secondary armament. I had decided that the Americans wouldn't have wanted a 20 mm cannon, because well, Americans and 20 mm cannons don't seem to go well together IRL. It needs to be a good ol' fifty-cal they ain't gonna want it. However, holding a 1:35 scale M2 HB in place with some of the AA gun mounting parts from the kit, shows that weapon would be impossible to install properly. As you can see:

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... the gun elevates in a round thing, that the ammunition feed goes through — the only real way you can do that without either extensible ammo feeds, which would be a right pain to design and make IRL, or an ammo bin that elevates with the gun, which would make for a very limited supply. If you put an M2 HB in the mounting with its feedway in the rounded part, though, the back end of the gun sticks out of the back of the AA turret. Clearly, that won't do.

The only other option, really, is an M85 machine gun, the one that was used in the commander's cupola of the M60 series and in the original LVTP-7 turret. The downside of that, is that you can't buy one in this scale, to the best of my knowledge — or at least, you couldn't four years ago, maybe there's a 3D printed one available now?

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More plastic card to the rescue! The barrel is from an Italeri (ex-ESCI) M60A1 kit, the rest is scratchbuilt from photographs of the gun and drawings in its tech manual.

Jakko I have some news on this matter which will probably annoy you now 🙂
The M2 HB .50 cal machine would fit ..with some not to serious mods into the spot where that RH202 cannon used to sit.
The ammo feeding issues could be sorted using a flexible feed belt which is super flexible and can be twisted in quite a few cockeyed angles and still work...also the M2 can be feed from the left or right sides when the conversion is done ..so your choices are not limited..feeding the gun from a magazine under it would be simple are that's how the 202 was fed and when you rip out all the 20mm gubbins you'd end up with a nice amount of space to play with.
IRL the US has no problems with the 20mm cannon..they just prefer it had 6 barrels 
Remember they did have a few aircraft armed with 20mm ..the AH1 Skyraider comes to mind first ..one of my favs 

The US likes the .50 cal because we have so many of them! In Baghdad in '03 it was like a forest of gun barrels!

Quote from: Wardukw-NZ on May 04, 2023, 12:24:19 PMI have some news on this matter which will probably annoy you now 🙂

No, it won't

Quote from: Wardukw-NZ on May 04, 2023, 12:24:19 PMThe M2 HB .50 cal machine would fit ..with some not to serious mods into the spot where that RH202 cannon used to sit.
The ammo feeding issues could be sorted using a flexible feed belt which is super flexible and can be twisted in quite a few cockeyed angles and still work...

I know, I considered that too But keeping the original mounting, there isn't room to have the feed chute go through the trunnions — it would have to be in front of them, meaning an even longer chute is necessary in order to allow the gun to elevate. Remember that the whole mounting moves up and down to deploy and stow it.

Quote from: Wardukw-NZ on May 04, 2023, 12:24:19 PMfeeding the gun from a magazine under it would be simple are that's how the 202 was fed

Sorry, but it is a dual-feed weapon that can take two belts, and that's how it was set up in the MBT 70: one belt through a chute through each trunnion.

Quote from: Wardukw-NZ on May 04, 2023, 12:24:19 PMIRL the US has no problems with the 20mm cannon..they just prefer it had 6 barrels 
Remember they did have a few aircraft armed with 20mm ..the AH1 Skyraider comes to mind first ..one of my favs 

That was mostly the US Navy and US Air Force, though   The US Army had some, but only the M114A2 comes to mind right now as a production vehicle equipped with it in service.

Quote from: kerick on May 04, 2023, 12:53:39 PMThe US likes the .50 cal because we have so many of them!

That was actually the reason why the M1 Abrams has an M2 HB on the commander's cupola: the US Congress had imposed strict budget restrictions, because the MBT 70 and its cost-cut XM803 version both went wildly over, so after some other ideas were floated, the M1 got the M2 because that was essentially free due to so many being in stock already. One of the options that was strongly considered was a 40 mm automatic grenade launcher, but that would have cost money.

Also, there was the M2/M3 Bradley working with the Abrams tanks so their 25mm gun would fill the need for a Mk19 type of weapon. Today however, it would probably not be expensive to mount some Abrams with a Mk19. An interesting option for a whiffed Abrams......

Kerick mate the US is upgrading its entire M3 fleet with a new 30mm cannon...there's already Bradley's in service with the 30mm cannon installed .

Jakko considering the mods the US were going to do to the MBT-70 as it's wasn't meeting their needs ripping out the 202 and installing a .50 instead wouldn't have worried them ...if you consider the amount of money the US military spend on things which go nowhere they wouldn't have hesitated to do this conversion.
With the amount of things that have been done with the 50cal this would have been a rather simple conversion to do to this tank.

Oh you forgot the M163 Vulcan AA system 

Well, the British weren't too keen on 20mm's on their tanks, either.

The Centurion Mk.1 & Mk.2 had a 20mm Polsten coaxial but from the Mk.3 they had Besa 7.92mm machine guns & .30cal/7.62mm Brownings from the Mk.5 on.

The Chieftain was armed with 7.62mm L8 coaxial & L37 cupola mounted machine guns (both L7/FN MAG developments), as did the Challengers.

Most weapons on tanks are not used for AA work more often than otherwise, & 20mm was seen as over-kill for most of their roles & limited the amount of ammunition that could be carried; for the British the same could be said of the .50cal.

Very true ...for yrs the only reason for the commanders machine gun was for something it didn't do anymore.
Fact russia was the only country that made their  gun mounts have the built in ability to engage aircraft since WW2 and still do .
All their turret mounted 50s will elevate to well over 60° just for that purpose.

I do like the L7/ FN MAG alot..it's heavy compared to what we normally used but it's range and accuracy was always welcomed 😄..ahhhh good memories 😊

Quote from: kerick on May 04, 2023, 03:01:57 PMToday however, it would probably not be expensive to mount some Abrams with a Mk19. An interesting option for a whiffed Abrams......

Good idea

Quote from: Wardukw-NZ on May 04, 2023, 09:41:43 PMif you consider the amount of money the US military spend on things which go nowhere they wouldn't have hesitated to do this conversion.

True, and since in this model's universe, the MBT 70 apparently didn't cost so much that the plug was pulled ...

Quote from: Wardukw-NZ on May 04, 2023, 09:41:43 PMOh you forgot the M163 Vulcan AA system 

I was referring to single-barrel 20 mm guns, though I should probably have mentioned that explicitly, yes

Quote from: Old Wombat on May 05, 2023, 12:45:53 AMWell, the British weren't too keen on 20mm's on their tanks, either.

The Centurion Mk.1 & Mk.2 had a 20mm Polsten coaxial but from the Mk.3 they had Besa 7.92mm machine guns & .30cal/7.62mm Brownings from the Mk.5 on.

The difference there, though, is that they felt a 20 mm coaxial gun would be good to have, while on the MBT 70, it was primarily an anti-aircraft weapon. Likely because of the already very limited effectiveness of anything smaller in the Second World War, let alone against 1970s jets.

France tried a coaxial 20 mm cannon in the AMX 30, with enough elevation to use it against aircraft that weren't too close as well, but also dropped it after a while in favour of a more traditional rifle-calibre machine gun.