M70A2 Krueger MBT, Gulf War, 1991

[Wardukw]

Ahhh but 20mm is 20mm matey no matter what it comes out off..you know there's 20mm rifles out there now firing the same rds as the Vulcan ? .
I know the Vulcan has been in more US military aircraft than any other 20mm caliber cannons and now ya got me trying to think of the aircraft with single barrel multiple mountings ya bugga 
OK I know the FJ Fury..Skyhawk..Skyraider..F8 crusader and A7 Corsair..can't think of anything semi modern..

[Jakko]

Most jets post-Korea and before the M61 came out in the mid-60s, I think? And the US Navy liked single guns better than the Air Force did, I'd say.

[Wardukw]

1959 was when the M61 came into the world and I'm pretty sure the first plane it was tried in was the F104 Starfigther and I think it tried or did shoot itself down too 
Out of all the weapons I've used or played with ive never had a go with one of these ..very doubtful it will happen now   

[zenrat]

The gun the F-11 Tiger shot itself down with was a 20mm Colt Mk 12 Autocannon.

[PR19_Kit]

Didn't an F-8 do a similar thing too? They had Mk 12s as well.

[Captain Canada]

Wow ! This is amazing work !

[Jakko]

Thanks

With the machine gun done, its mounting also needed a small amount of work. First of all, I needed to build a cradle for the gun, because the M85 would not be able to fit into that for the Rh 202. All that took was some bits of plastic strip and stuff:

You cannot view this attachment.

As you can see, I also added missing things inside the AA turret, all per photos of KPz 70 prototypes in German museums, and reduced the opening in the front. Instead of just filling the existing opening part of the way, I cut out a larger section and put in a rectangular piece of plastic card with a notch cut in it for the barrel.

Dragon completely skipped the interior of the AA turret. The actual gun mounting is there, but pretty much nothing else. Because of the open top, though, you can see very clearly that there's nothing in it, so what can you do except scratchbuild the rest?

You cannot view this attachment.

The grey thing is the ammo bin for the M85. It comes from the interior parts of a Trumpeter Cadillac-Gage Commando kit, that I had built with the hatches closed so it was spare. I scribed a line across the top and added some plastic card bits to make it look like two bins of the right depth for .50 calibre rounds. The two chutes are plastic strip that I heated and bent, then glued more pieces of smaller strip on to replicate the patterns you see on these chutes in the real world.

The idea here, BTW, is that the chute on the left side of the gun is the belt feed from one side of the container while the one on the right is to return spent casings to the other side of it — I don't think you'd want the area under the turret to be full of spent casings. The Rh 202 fed from both sides and ejected the empty casings I-don't-know-where

In addition to the chutes, the gun mount needed a lot more detail:

You cannot view this attachment.You cannot view this attachment.

Here's the turret, without the gun mounting, dropped into the main turret to show how it fits:

You cannot view this attachment.

[rickshaw]

You do realise the M85 is a god-awful HMG?  It was considered so bad that it was often removed from vehicle turrets and replaced by M2s where ever possible by vehicle crews.

[Wardukw]

In a remote mounting mate it might be OK as you don't have to reload the bloody thing from inside of a midget turret ...though one of the biggest issues I could see is the different ammo belts/links used between the M85 and the M2 .
Those links where the M15 push through type and always had feed problems...jams happened quite alot because of these links.

[Jakko]

You do realise the M85 is a god-awful HMG?

I know But the US persevered with it well into the 1970s (the LVTP-7 comes to mind) and as I explained before, it's the only American gun that fits the AA turret without a major redesign of the whole mounting. Consider this an improved M85A1 that doesn't jam quite as often

[Wardukw]

Well I'd this version called the M85A1 was converted to run the M2s M9 links then I think your on to something mate 😉 👍

[Jakko]

That would not be possible, though ... Browning-style weapons withdraw the round rearwards out of the belt and then shove it forward into the chamber (because the mechanism was designed for cloth belts) while more modern weapons shove the round forward out of the belt directly into the chamber. Using Browning-style links in a forward-shoving gun leads to an immediate jam every time it tries to chamber a round, and there is usually no way to adapt the gun to pull it out to the rear without a complete redesign in order to lengthen the receiver so there is enough room to do that. The M85 may have been a poorly functioning weapon, but I doubt just using Browning-style belts and associated redesign would have fixed that.

If they were going to tinker with the design it anyway to improve it, they would have been better off making it work properly as it was now. Real-world example where that was done: the British L85 rifle. By all accounts, the L85A2 improved the weapon enough that it became not great but at least didn't suck anymore — and most of the improvements there were things that should have been implemented in the 1980s already by testing it some more than they did, and having actual firearms people work on it. Which is basically what H&K did for the A2. Anything mechanical can eventually be improved far enough that it works as it should — the question is if it's considered to be worth the time and effort And whether it's still recognisable as what you started with, of course ...

[Wardukw]

Mate ...the M85 and the M2 are both Browning designed weapons and they both use disintegrating metal links .
The problem with the 85 was how small it was made to fit into armour.
They M85 had continuous feed problems because of that feed design and they were never over come ..as Rickshaw mentioned about the dumping of it by its crews and mounting a M2 on the commanders turret.
The thing was hated by all who had to use it..you said about the LVPT7 ..yep it was there but it was gone on the AAVP7 ..it was also tried on the XM1 Abrams prototype..then it was dumped for the M2.
I can't figure out why you want to stick with the original mounting which was for a entirely different gun ..ok in model building world it does make life a bit easier  but in the RW half that mount would have gone byebye in favor of a system designed for the weapon it's now intended to use.
In a good way I'm glad the MBT-70 failed to meet both countries requirements because now we have the M1 and the Leo2 

[Jakko]

Mate ...the M85 and the M2 are both Browning designed weapons

Browning was long dead when the M85 was designed. If you meant to say that the M85 uses a Browning-type mechanism, then you may be right (I never looked into it closely enough to tell) but my point stands that you can't easily convert it to using the older type of belt links because there's no room in the receiver.

The problem with the 85 was how small it was made to fit into armour.

I don't recall claiming it wasn't

They M85 had continuous feed problems because of that feed design and they were never over come ..as Rickshaw mentioned about the dumping of it by its crews and mounting a M2 on the commanders turret.

Please see the part of my previous message about all mechanical problems being solvable if there's the will and the money to do so

I can't figure out why you want to stick with the original mounting which was for a entirely different gun ..ok in model building world it does make life a bit easier  but in the RW half that mount would have gone byebye in favor of a system designed for the weapon it's now intended to use.

Probably, yes. I have no idea why I kept it, but it's quite likely that one of the reasons was that it's easier to detail an existing mounting than to build something believable from scratch.

What I find odd is that you ask this question at all on a forum that claims to be about what-if models when in fact a lot of it is pure fantasy "what happens if I stick these unrelated bits together because they look cool?" type of models

In a good way I'm glad the MBT-70 failed to meet both countries requirements because now we have the M1 and the Leo2 

And then I wouldn't have had these far nicer looking tracks to stick onto this model

[Wardukw]

In answer to your question about real world and the world of wiffery alot of builders here still work on the principles of real world applications.
Yeah it's a what if to the point of could it have actually be built.
I'm an engineer and the annoying thing for me is that..if I was going to build it how and what would I use to build it.
Like you using the M85 dew to space and its a good idea..my freaking annoying mind works on how do I get an entire M2 on there...modify the turret ..yep let's do that 🙃
OK one M2 is good ..so 2 would be better  ..it's a bloody nightmare bud .
Now as for its name ..it's just one of those things..yep General Electric made the M85 but cause it uses a .50cal round and it's a HMG it's referred to as a Browning..even tho it ain't.. hell I've used M2s made in Belgium..Israel..Japan and Singapore..there everywhere matey 
Don't get me wrong I do like your mount as you said it's kinda so you don't have to scratch build a new one..looking close on what you've built dude it looks like ya have scratch built most of it 
Bloody nice work to 😁🤘