M70A2 Krueger MBT, Gulf War, 1991

[Jakko]

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 .

It wouldn't be that hard to get an M2 in there, but would require either a completely new mount or have the existing one modified so the trunnions are further forward. Two side by side is probably also doable, but you'd have to wonder if this is believable, IMHO — I doubt tank designers in the 1970s would want to return to the state of affairs of the medium tank M2

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..

Never heard it called that, but then again, knowing people it's not a stretch of the imagination ... any tablet is an iPad, so any machine gun firing 12.7×99 mm rounds can well be a Browning to a lot of soldiers.

BTW, because I wanted to know, I looked up the M85 in Edward Ezell's Small Arms of the World and its mechanism definitely isn't Browning-derived in any way

hell I've used M2s made in Belgium..Israel..Japan and Singapore..there everywhere matey 

Of course, "Browning" refers to the designer and not the manufacturer

Okay, last bits to build ... The Tamiya M1A1 kit I got the barrel from also came with a track-width mine plow (TWMP) that I hadn't used on it, and I thought, why not on the M70A2? Since I'm going all-out here anyway ...

Of course, it doesn't fit the tank, because the TWMP's basic frame that attaches to the hull is designed for the M1's bow, and the MBT 70's was both steeper and slightly narrower. After looking for ways to make it fit anyway, I reached the conclusion that the only way to do it was to build a copy of it in plastic card and strip:

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The tan part is of course the Tamiya original for the M1 hull, with my version in white plastic on the hull.

And with the winding mechanisms in place and the box between them:

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The rest was built straight from the box:

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Though I left the arms with the ploughs loose until after painting, else it would be a nightmare to get paint everywhere it should.

One handy thing here is that the MBT 70 had hydropneumatic suspension, so I could realistically attach the plough even though I had built the suspension so the hull sits level, rather than being pulled down at the front by the weight of the plough, as an M1 would be.

[Wardukw]

Funny you mention a M2 ..or the porcupine if you'd like 
I scratch built one donkeys yrs ago for a customer starting with a Tamiya M3 lower hull ..I had to buy a set of Academys machine guns cause I freaking ran out of .30 cals ..its quite a easy build really ..just the 2000 rivets you have to put on saps the brain I can tell ya.

I'm pretty sure the M85 was full of annoyances cause it's was designed for only one real purpose with its own special ammo ..so no ammo commonality there without stripping belts..been there ..time consuming but not with 50 cal..5.56.
Oh if ya want some of the experiments done to US armour just go net hunting ..I used to have a pretty good collection of books on weird armour but those are history now ..im still thinking of a prototype commanders turret which made for a M26 with 2 50 cals ..one on each side of the turret ..it did look pretty cool 😎

Now to model stuff...liking the mine plow mate..a very nice addition to the looks department.
I do like something with makes something big look bigger 

[Jakko]

I scratch built one donkeys yrs ago for a customer starting with a Tamiya M3 lower hull ..I had to buy a set of Academys machine guns cause I freaking ran out of .30 cals ..its quite a easy build really ..just the 2000 rivets you have to put on saps the brain I can tell ya.

Rivets are one of those things I definitely like to add only in moderation ... Even if I do have some RP Toolz domed punches especially for this purpose I've been thinking of buying the Vargas Models medium tank M2A1, though. Would fit nicely in my modest collection of M3s and M4s

I'm pretty sure the M85 was full of annoyances cause it's was designed for only one real purpose with its own special ammo ..so no ammo commonality there without stripping belts..been there ..time consuming but not with 50 cal..5.56.

That seems to have been one of the main complaints, as far as I can tell. The other appears to have been that ejected links could too easily jam the mechanism, which sounds like something that should be solvable by better controlling its movement inside the gun.

im still thinking of a prototype commanders turret which made for a M26 with 2 50 cals ..one on each side of the turret ..it did look pretty cool 😎

They trialled that on M4s as well, as I recall. One of the more extreme what-ifs I've been thinking of is kind of the ultimate Sherman: an M4A6 (lengthened "composite" hull with cast glacis but otherwise welded, fitted with a radial diesel engine) with torsion bar suspension (trial IRL on an M4A2 hull), 76 mm turret (the real M4A6 had 75 mm) or possibly an M26 turret (again ) and that cupola. Possibly also a welded rather than cast final drive housing.

Now to model stuff...liking the mine plow mate..a very nice addition to the looks department.
I do like something with makes something big look bigger 

You'll be disappointed then that I left off the washing machine on the hull rear, on the principle that it's almost ubiquitous on models of the M1 but appears in almost no photos of real M1s in the Gulf War — the only ones I've found have been on tanks in Saudi ports rather than in the field.

[Wardukw]

Oh do yourself a massive favor..buy that M2 ..those rivets mate just won't seem to end and it will save you hours of measurements and hours of mounting rivets 

Now for some bad news..ish....apart from the diesel rotary engine pretty much everything you want for you Sherman wiff has been done in RL ..the good news tho these were spread over multiple vehicles and you want to do them all into one ? ..that would be nuts mate and of course that means perfect for here 👌 👍 
Kinda reminds me to do some work on my Sherman wiffy.
You'll find that the M1 without the aircon was just the M1..the machines you see pics of at the docks are M1A1s ..those are what went into combat...the M1s were then removed from country and I think they were then given to the NG and Marines maybe ..but the Marines didn't have them in the gulf ..they were still using M60s with RISE ..I know I saw M60s there without any extra armour which were Marine tanks which we didn't think much of TBH..we were busy with other stuff 😉

[Jakko]

Oh do yourself a massive favor..buy that M2 ..those rivets mate just won't seem to end and it will save you hours of measurements and hours of mounting rivets 

I definitely don't have any desire to scratchbuild an M2 — far too few M3/M4 bits will actually be usable on it for that to be viable, IMHO.

Now for some bad news..ish....apart from the diesel rotary engine pretty much everything you want for you Sherman wiff has been done in RL ..

I think I said that already That's the whole point: what if they had gone through with all those upgrades to produce an ultimate Sherman? It would probably really only take a Hobby Boss M26 kit for the suspension and turret plus an Asuka M4A4 lower and upper hull plus some big-hatch M4A1 hull for the glacis, as well as some scratchbuilding for things like the engine deck.

You'll find that the M1 without the aircon was just the M1..the machines you see pics of at the docks are M1A1s ..those are what went into combat...

I know, and the washing machine is not an aircon but an APU My point was that you see that thing on about 99% of all models of M1A1s in the Gulf War, but on about 0% of real M1A1s there — which is why it also isn't on my M70A2 model.

the Marines didn't have them in the gulf ..they were still using M60s with RISE ..I know I saw M60s there without any extra armour which were Marine tanks which we didn't think much of TBH..we were busy with other stuff 😉

I thought only the USAF and the Egyptian Army used M60A3s in Saudi Arabia? Oh, and five from the 197th Infantry Brigade, it turns out when I look through a book. The USMC called its M60A1s with ERA, M60A1+, BTW.

Let's have an overview of most of the bits of the complete tank:

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The wheels are missing, because they're still on the sprues for ease of painting. After putting a coat of primer over the whole model, because of all the different shades and materials, I sprayed the undersides and insides green:

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Followed by a coat of US Gulf War sand over the rest of the model:

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The green is because these tanks would have been resprayed sand especially for the Gulf War, unlike most current sand-coloured American tanks that came from the factory or refurbishing centre in that colour.

... and there, the whole thing got stuck for a couple of years ...

[buzzbomb]

My virtual computer pen, just ran out of virtual ink ticking all the boxes on this build

Excellent, Excellent work   

[Jakko]

Thanks

Hang on, I forgot one thing I also built before the whole project stalled:

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From left to right: commander, gunner and driver. All three figures come from this Master Box set:

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Though these figures are intended for Afghanistan, something most modern armour modellers seem not to know about the 1991 Gulf War, is that American tank crews didn't wear BDUs and PASGT vests during the actual Desert Storm. Just like they tend to stick the hated APU to M1A1s, almost all of them put tank crews in regular uniforms in the tank's hatches. Which is correct for most of Desert Shield, but not long before the Coalition's ground offensive started, tank crews got brand-new nomex tank coveralls and thin armour vests — of the types that were still in use 10–20 years later in Afghanistan and Iraq.

For the driver, the set supplies two different right arms: one as here, the other as in the box-top illustration. I carved off the pistol holster and straps on two of the three, because that seems to have not been very commonly worn in 1991, leaving it just for the commander, and replaced the heads by Hornet ones as well as adding cables to the helmets using stretched sprue and some plastic card for the clip that takes the hanging cable's weight. The cables for the commander and driver just end around their knees because these two will be in their hatches, while the gunner's ends at the plug that connects it to the longer cable that goes into the intercom box inside the tank. These kinds of details were made rather easier to get right than usual by the fact I own this:

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[Wardukw]

Now I do wonder if one morning a tanker woke up to find his bone dome missing 🤔 😅
Very nice score Jak and not one ya come across every day for sure 👍

Your Sherman idea does sound very interesting and it's a cool idea to..love me a mutant tank 😉
I've got a diorama in building with a very mutant Sherman...i cheated and used a entire M26 lower hull with a M4A4E8 upper hull..it's a Hobbyboss M26 and it's tracks are far to narrow so AM tracks are a must.
I finally found a use for my Verlinden M51 conversion set ..had that turret for yrs..typical resin gun though...badly bent.

[kerick]

Good idea on the green paint under the fenders and behind the wheels. Plus IIRC didn't most forward deployed people wear NBC gear most of the time? One of the reasons they waited to invade, besides logistics, was cooler weather for the soldiers wearing NBC suits.

[Rick Lowe]

Nice work on this, been fun scrolling through the journey so far.

And idea when/if it will make the trip off the Shelf'o'Doom and back onto the bench?

[Jakko]

Now I do wonder if one morning a tanker woke up to find his bone dome missing 🤔 😅
Very nice score Jak and not one ya come across every day for sure 👍

It's actually a Dutch Army DH-132AS/SV helmet (AFAIK the American ones are just "DH-132" but I've never seen one up close) that I bought with the normal Dutch leather cover over 20 years ago, but a few years back I found the hard shell sold separately at a surplus store web site, so I ordered it immediately — and it even fits!

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I've got a diorama in building with a very mutant Sherman...i cheated and used a entire M26 lower hull with a M4A4E8 upper hull..it's a Hobbyboss M26 and it's tracks are far to narrow so AM tracks are a must.

Narrow tracks may actually be good for the torsion-bar Sherman — the suspension they tested on an M4A2 came from the T20, not the T26, and the T26 already had wider tracks (and wheels) than the T25. Not sure about those of the T20, though.

I finally found a use for my Verlinden M51 conversion set ..had that turret for yrs..typical resin gun though...badly bent.

Hard to fix, but you can get turned barrels for the M51 anyway.

Good idea on the green paint under the fenders and behind the wheels.

The idea was to just do it like they did on the real thing: overspray a green tank with sand

Plus IIRC didn't most forward deployed people wear NBC gear most of the time? One of the reasons they waited to invade, besides logistics, was cooler weather for the soldiers wearing NBC suits.

I think those fell by the wayside fairly quickly, plus tankers were in a vehicle with its own NBC system so they probably wouldn't have needed the NBC suits on all the time anyway. My main reference here was 100-Days, 100-Hours: "Phantom Brigade" in the Gulf War by Edgar A. Stitt (Hong Kong: Concord, 1991) and it doesn't show many tankers in NBC suits at all, but does have several clearly wearing the nomex overalls.

Nice work on this, been fun scrolling through the journey so far.

And idea when/if it will make the trip off the Shelf'o'Doom and back onto the bench?

Thanks. And it has been finished by now — I just need to get round to posting the rest

[NARSES2]

Some neat work on those figures

[Wardukw]

Jak I sorted the resin gun problem..I replaced it with a slightly out of scale 128mm gun barrel and stuffed a muzzle brake on it 😳 😀

I had the set of figures ..still have the old guys Goat knocking around some where 
It's a  nice set and I'll have to get another at some point.

[Jakko]

I sorted the resin gun problem..I replaced it with a slightly out of scale 128mm gun barrel and stuffed a muzzle brake on it 😳 😀

That works A few months ago I was at a model show where a vendor had some very old resin conversion sets from a French brand that, IIRC, is out of business, but I don't recall the name right now. In any case, one of the sets I looked at while browsing, had a resin gun barrel in it that was bent literally into a circle ...

still have the old guys Goat knocking around some where 

Same

OK, the last photo I posted of the M70A2 was taken on 4 September 2019. I continued on 11 December 2021 by spraying lightening patches over the sand:

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However, something had to be done about the green. I had never been happy with it — despite the bottle calling it "forest green", I always thought it looked far too light for US forest green as used on Abramses, Bradleys, etc. in the 1980s. Doing a bit of research online, I discovered Humbrol 116 is supposedly a good match, and happily, I had a tin of that. Rather than spraying it, I brush-painted all the green bits that would be visible, like on the rear sides of the lower hull:

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I followed that up with a medium brown wash over all of the sand colour:

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And then two stages of drybrushing, first with a colour a bit paler than the basic sand, followed by one that was a good degree lighter still:

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I then applied decals:

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These are from an Echelon set for the M1A1 Abrams, as those make sense for a tank that has taken the place the M1 has in the real world. The markings on the ammo cans on the bustle rack are from the Tamiya M1A1 kit, as it seems to have been common practice to mark each of those with whose can it was. Which kind of says something about the intelligence of tankers, I suppose, if you can't remember which of four (IRL) bolted-down cans is yours ...

[Wardukw]

Jak that looks pretty damn sweet mate and that 120 has balanced the entire vehicle out perfectly.

As for the markings on the ammo cans..well that's so other units don't try to let's say "borrow" things 😉
It's actually to keep mud away from the tanks ID for command purposes. 🙃