CapnMac82

Since it appears to be an important issue, they are all gone. During the Second Depression, I losr everything, savings, retirement, eventually my house to foreclosure. Had already sold all of my construction equipment, all of my contracting tools, most of the gun safe contents. So, when it was time to cram everything into a 8 x 10 x 16 box, a lot of stuff had to be left behind. To include virtually all my furniture, my drafting table, and the hobby desks, and paint booth. The consortium who bought my property in the foreclosure sale used a bulldozer and knocked down the house and every tree but one, and slapped up two "Aggieshacks" in it's place. I spent rather a lot of 2012 and 2013 living in guest rooms and garages. Then, was lucky to find my present bedsit. Priorities have been focused on trying to get back to even, and I'm still not there yet. And this plague has not helped any, as I have a third computer on my one desk (which is a disaster area). My only intention here is to offer information, to share experience, particularly wher eI have handles the items in question, strode the decks (or been on the beach with Marines attempting to run over me with one each of every vehicle in inventory). I intend no critique, criticism is all opinion, and usually only represents self-aggrandizement. I may well be guilty of this, my feet are clay, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. But, it is not my intent.

The M2 receiver has a unique look. MM Steel or Tamiya Gunmetal are not bad, but you want a deep black oil wash over that to get the look right. The part at the front, with the holes ought to be a clean "steel" color. The barrels (which get changed middling regular) are Parkerized dark grey. NATO Black lightened with a few drops of steel will capture the look. Barrels that were left packed in Cosmoline and wrapped in brown kraft paper picked up a greenish hue. This is another one that's hard to pin down. Equal parts of "interior green" and "gunmetal" gets close. The color of the barrel ought "show" through the holes in the shroud. The handle on the barrel will have a "steel" sort of color, the handle will be a dark color, like 80% cacao chocolate--NATO black will suit. This is also true of the spade grips on the rear, too. The cradle for the ammo box is a dark metallic color. or the color of the pintle. Hmm, ust remembered, WWII cal..50 ammo cans open the long way, and not the short way, like post-war cans do. The lid was pulled off so the can could be strapped to the pintle. Even with the headspace hassles, the Ma Deuce is still one of my favorite MGs. Were it not for "cheap" ammo running $1.50 a round, I would have kept my semi-auto version.

Appropriate since the tank crew was usually the applicators. And had of only satisfy the TC.

This batch of stuff Tamiya includes is a tiny bit controversial. Partially for only offering two fuel cans, and no water cans at all (the filler cap is the give-away). There's an on-going argument over just what the rectangular pouches (near th ecenter of your photo) are supposed to be.. The shape of the pocket flap on the top very much resembles the Pouch, Ammunition Carrying, Universal, except it's about 75% too wide, and 25% not thick enough (and the Universal pouch had an attached shoulder strap until August of '45). So, the other argument is that it's the Case, Carrying, MG Cleaning Tools. Except, then, it's 2x too thick, and the flap is closed with a snap fastener not a strap. (Rivet counting goes all sorts of places o_O) The Packs are gems--the Pack, Musette, M-1936, very much a desired pack by all in ETO. Originally produced in a khaki color, later in a more OD color, and even a "transitional" (collector term, was Substitute Standard or Alternate Standard per War Department QMC catalog) which had OD edging around a khaki body. IRL, the tabs on top each had a round ring of brass or painted steel; the carrying strap had snap hooks to engage those. Buckles will be black or brass with traces of blackening. Those ammo cans are real gems, too. Typically, those cans were painted a darker color than the vehicles as a result of being painted at the factory. That color is hard to pin down, other than you know it when you see it. Best I've managed is a almost 50/50 of OD and black-green.

Plenty of documentary photos of TCs (Tank/Track Commanders) and Loaders with steel pots on when poked out of the turret. If they "button up" they will ditch the pots, either hangign them on some feature on the turret roof, or cramming them into some corner of the turret. Now, since this a 105mm vehicle, they are more likely to be standing off reducing obstacles at a suitable distance, rather than wading on into rifle range. Not that they didn't, just that they did not have to. Now, the TC is more likely to be scanning about with binoculars than the loader, but there is no reason the loader couldn't be looking further out, either. But, it might be worth putting a bino case on the turret roof (if you have one laying about) to show how the loader grabbed up the glasses in their case to start scanning. The loader's side of a Sherma has a bunch of places you could hang stuff on a strap that you could sinch up to keep from swinging about while on the march.

And, very specifically, the 105mm howitzer tank was used in the assault to counter obstruction, pillboxes and other barriers to infantry assaults (and for blasting through dragon's teeth to some extent. Also, to be fair, American tanks were never sent out on a 1:1 basis; the smallest tank maneuver unit was the Platoon, 4 tanks. This is where the inaccurate adage of "it took 4 Shermans to take out a Tiger" stems from. The grunts on the MLR would report a tank to their front. Higher would then send out whatever the next Platoon of tanks were attached. The grunts did not much distinguish between tanks, so a whole Platoon of tanks would be sent out whether it was a Pz 38t, a Pzkfz III, a Marder, or a King Tiger. It was on the treadheads to figure out how to reduce the problem when they got there. And now, back to your regularly-scheduled gluing of plastic.

Well, "ditto." Sadly, I need to over come Morrison's Law (whereby no workbench ever has more than 2 square feet of clear space). It would help to not have quite so many things on my plate--but, such is my life after the 2008-2012 debacle. Which is why I live in, effectively, a bed-sit. And, spending my work day modeling entire buildings probably cuts into my creative life more than it ought to, too. Sigh.

Which explains why Merit did not include that feature. Fickle Memory Strikes Again.

This continues to be an impressive build. And the kit appears to be top notch, as well, too. Watched a vid on building the 1/18 (!) Merit SBD 3/4, and was somewhat amazed. That kit goes for north of US$150, and has as many movable parts as the old Monogram 1/48 kit (other than folding wings--go figure). The parts looked as if they had been pantographed "up" to the larger scale, rather than down. So, all the more applause on the build here.

Well, without devolving into a philosophical discussion on Free Will, you are free to do anything you please, until it causes harm to another. Generally, though, accepted wisdom in the modeling community is that a gloss coat is least likely to have clear decal film "silver." You can then put a matte coat over the set decals to fix them to the finish. Now, I have heard of using Ultra thin to correct silvering, but, I've never tried it.

From memory, Sara & Lex were 70 or so; the Essex ships 75 or 80, and that was chock full, flight & hangar decks to capacity. And, as the old adage goes, there's no such thing as a "perfectly good airplane." So, you can't get them all flown off.

Fair enough. However, those birds are all engines turning, wings open, too. The ones in the back, still stowed are pretty neat rows. That's back in the day, when you needed all the deck you could get to fly off, so, you wanted it "compress" the fore & aft length of whatever you were launching in those days before catapult launching became common. But, I'm drawing off of remembered photographs and the like. At SWO school they mostly told us carriers were dangerous and ought be avoided at all costs. And that brownshoes were very silly.

That's a fascinating question. From photos of parked a/c, they were generally kept parking parallel to the long axis of the deck. And the tie down rails run perpendicular to that. Angled parking really does not come around until angled flight decks necessitate keeping the Flight Ops area clear (and adopting tricycle landing gear meant being able to park TOW, Tail Over Water). Also, a tow tractor is only going to be able to use a single bar to the tail wheel, or a V bar to the main mounts, so squaring the a/c up makes sense from that. But, is that good modeling? Aye, there's the rub, Horatio. Really, any static USN a/c not on tarmac ought to be trussed in tie down chains and with chocked wheels. (The Plane Captain, in his brown shirt, has to be able to show his trophies to the Aviator before flight.)

Yep, all of the above sounds like an exact match for coastie helos. Orange to red depending upon observed and local light conditions.

Coastie helos are chimera--in some light they are red, in others, distinctly orange, and will change apparently hue with the light. Actually, kind of handy, that, as it gives the modeler a nice range to pick from.

On a forum entirely dedicated to helo models, I've seen a recommendation for rattle-can silver as a primer to make day-glo reds pop. I've also seen using pearlescent white over a gray primer. The suggestion to use yellow sounds like an excellent one to me , especially for the CG helos.

Ditto, week ago Wednesday. Funerals in this time of plague are sore complicated. So, my utterly disorganized fam still has not gotten to that step. Or they have, and didn't bother to tell me. C'est la vie et morte. "It is upon us, the living to persevere, and in our efforts, consecrate those lost to us." Adm Nimitz, 1942

Some randomness that may or may not be apt. My crib sheet for Amphib Ops has a loaded can of 100 linked cal..50 at 65# per each. Can of linked 7.62nato at 24# per each; belted 5.56nato a nifty 18#. The War Department directed that M1 helmets would get a horizontal white stripe at the lower rear for NCOs, and a vertical stripe for officers. That stayed Army policy until about 1952 when cloth covers became general issue. Helmet liners sometimes were still marked that way well into the 60s. Note that the Navy Department never followed suite, and was issuing camo helmet covers as early as 1942. US armor crews are really proud of their CVC (combat vehicle crewman) helmets, and are as loathe to doff them as they are to dismount. And, one of those crucial details is, in the mid-late 80s, it was policy that the treadheads had to wear a k-pot when dismounted, so thouse are kept within easy reach of which ever hatch they ingress/egress. And to this day, it still amazes me that Tamiya went the the trouble to include the duckboards with the M-577 command post, but only include about half the poles for the CP tent (or even the pattern for the CP tent. [grrrr] Also, it's aazing that the afterarket has not offered up a set of camo net spreaders. Sigh.

Yeah, it is decidedly counter-intuitive. But, it goes back to keeping the cans man-portable, and also for balance on the weapon in ground and vehicle mounts. And not binding up the trunions of the tripod mount with an eccentric load, and also not adding nn kilos of mass to the whole thing in ground mounting was a consideration as well. The pedestal mount of the 53 uses a feed chute to keep from torquning the mount with a heavy box. And centerlining the ammo box is better for a/c CG, too.

In case you were inclined to go back and super-detail a bit: The conical thing on the left-hand tailgate is a bucket held in place with two cloth straps (they would be "uniform" color); the bucket can be any color from black-green to galvanized. The jerrycan straps on the front fenders ought to be OD fabric as well. The US used a lot of fabric belts and straps, and not very much leather at all. Tamiya does us a dis-service in giving us an "in action" set of figures and shorted us the loader, the very busy guy in the back keeping the guns fed. Those ammo cans (known as "toumstone" cans to collectors of such things) hold only 200 rounds of linked belts, or about 15-20 seconds' of firing per each. The loader would be a busy fellow. Not only did he have to dodge the turret as it moved around, but also monitor the ammo, too. When a can went dry, he'd have to dismount it, then heave a full can in its place, grab the end of the protruding belt and fish it into the at least warm gun, and run the charging handle three times. (First pull engages the belt in the pawls, second extracts 1st round, 3rd cambers a round.) Havign to dance around the gun is also why the bottom guns were often fed with standard 100 round belt cans as they were easier to swing into place.

Used to be a matter of faith that the Floquil hue is AAC/AAF Olive Drab. Tamiya chose to use a color more like 1950s era OD. Armor modelers--especially those addicted to rivet quantities--will get all exercised over just what hue is "correct" for War Department vehicles during WWII.

Rather uniquely, US half-tracks did not use individual track links. Instead, they used a continuous rubber track with two steel reinforcing cables moulded within. (This is entirely similar to the tracks used on modern skid-steer vehicles and mini-excavators used today.) It can be amusing to see US halftracks modeled with "rusty" tracks.

The designers imagined that, too. So, the tires are designed as "run flats" with radial webs to support the tire from the bead up to the tread. They also have kevlar fibres in the tread and sidewalls. Which part of the commitment to making both the LAV-25 series and the Stryker series to be proof against 14.7mm fire.

"Rear Soldiers Living Room." Trumpy always makes me wonder how they source their translations (if at all). And through how many permutations. Like was it Geran to Korean to Mandarin and back to English?