M16 US Multiple Gun Motor Carriage w/ Church Ruin by Jack12477 - 1:35 scale - Tamiya / Verlinden - FINISHED

[Jack12477]

I decided to dig into my stash of plastic 1:35 scale kits and do the Tamiya M6 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage or half-track and the Verlinden Church ruin kits together as a diorama. The Verlinden kit is cast hydrocal plaster and is now out of production since Verlinden retired some decades back. I picked up the last two kits my local brick and mortar hobby store had just before they closed their doors forever.  I will be doing the diorama somewhat similar to what is shown on the Verlinden box art with some additional Tamiya figures/accessories from my collection of completed Tamiya kits.

 

Box art and contents shown below

 

Verlinden Kit

 

 

Tamiya Kit

 

 

The Verlinden kit consists of two large castings of two walls of the church and 3 smaller castings of rubble from the church walls.  To assemble them I used 5 minute epoxy

 

Edited March 24, 2020 by Jack12477

[lmagna]

Looking forward to this Jack.

 

Although I am not really an armor/military vehicle person, I do love dioramas. I think I will be learning a lot from you on how to deal with a number of pertinent issues on my build.

[Jack12477]

Thanks Lou  Welcome aboard . 

 

I tried my hand at weathering the plaster. First I coated it in Tamiya Fine Grey primary, then I applied a coat of Floquil Cement color paint, then a wash of Floquil Engine Black.  Followed by a few more alternated coats of acrylic Mars Black and Floquil Mud.

 

Grey primer coat applied

First pass at weathering

I put it aside for a while until I get the half track vehicle assembled and painted. Then I will revisit the weathering of the church ruins once I decide on what other accessories I will add to the diorama.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Jack12477

[CDW]

Hey, this looks like fun. Diorama's let your creativity flow. Looking forward to it. I like the weathering on the church building so far.

[Edwardkenway]

I'm gonna have to sit in on this. ( the rabbit hole beckons🤣)

[lmagna]

Wow, that was quick weathering! I agree with Craig, turned out perfect I don't see where you need to come back to it later.

[Old Collingwood]

Count me in  - I too have done some Armour  in the past  from 1/72  diorama's  to  Tamiya 1/35  scale tanks  etc.

 

OC.

[Jack12477]

3 hours ago, CDW said:

 I like the weathering on the church building so far.

Thanks, Craig

3 hours ago, lmagna said:

Wow, that was quick weathering! I agree with Craig, turned out perfect I don't see where you need to come back to it later.

Thanks Lou, I cheated a little. I did the Verlinden piece before I started the log. 

 

Welcome Edward and OC.  Yea the rabbit hole does beckon.  

 

Maybe later in this blog I will post photos of each British, American and German armor I have done in the past, in some cases I have all 3, 4, or 5 variants of the same vehicle. They are all in plastic storage boxes right now.

 

I have to start on the half track now. Will post again as I get sub-assemblies done

 

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Jack12477

[mtaylor]

Nice work on the church (or what's left of it), Jack.   Looks appropriately battle damaged.   I put one of those half-tracks to together way back in the day.  Nice model when done.

[Canute]

I'm in for this build, Jack.

[Jack12477]

Mark, Ken, Welcome

 

Just a small update

 

I completed the gun platform.

 

 

Next up is the truck chassis, engine and other parts.

 

 

[mtaylor]

14 hours ago, Jack12477 said:

 

Next up is the truck chassis, engine and other parts.

 

 

 

The gunner isn't "Lieutenant Dan" by per chance?    I'll go quietly now.

[lmagna]

3 minutes ago, mtaylor said:

 

The gunner isn't "Lieutenant Dan" by per chance? 

Had to think about that one before it came to me. Your memory is kicking right in there!

[mtaylor]

41 minutes ago, lmagna said:

Had to think about that one before it came to me. Your memory is kicking right in there!

It comes and goes and sometimes it even surprises the hell out of me like on the "Lt. Dan" post. 

[Jack12477]

7 hours ago, mtaylor said:

The gunner isn't "Lieutenant Dan" by per chance?    I'll go quietly now.

Mark, now you know they would never let an "ossifer" (Officer) handle a gun like a quad 50 ! Besides wrong war! This WWII, that's Pvt Kilroy ! Remember him ! He left his calling card all over Europe !  

[popeye the sailor]

joining in on the fun Jack..........you've picked a really neat project   off to a very good start!

[Jack12477]

Thanks Denis and welcome to the party

[mtaylor]

15 hours ago, Jack12477 said:

Mark, now you know they would never let an "ossifer" (Officer) handle a gun like a quad 50 ! Besides wrong war! This WWII, that's Pvt Kilroy ! Remember him ! He left his calling card all over Europe !  

I dunno about that.  We had Lt. type fly one mission as door gunner because "he wanted to see what it was like".  On the way back to the base, told him to clear the gun.... he did.... all 250 rounds fired when all we wanted him to do was raise the cover, remove the belt and rack the handle.  Facepalms all around on that flight.  Luckily we were over the bay and the rounds went out towards the ocean.

 

As I recall, Kilroy showed up in 'Nam off and on.  Not like WWII but he was there.

[Jack12477]

8 hours ago, mtaylor said:

   We had Lt. type fly one mission as door gunner       told him to clear the gun.... he did.... all 250 rounds fired when all we wanted him to do was raise the cover, remove the belt and rack the handle

I rest my case ! 

[Canute]

Did anyone 'splain to Lt Dumbjohn what he'd have to do? Or was it easier to let the lad flail.   Guess we took a long time to get aviators into combat, with the schooling we did.

 

Heck, the time I got to drive an M-60, in Schweinfurt, Germany, I got a 3 minute briefing on steering (like a bicycle), gear selection(one forward, I think) and speed(the long wide one on the right). Just don't get too close to the HAWK battery and no, you can't turn the turret to put the barrel forward. I drove one tank across a good sized ditch and went into their parade ground? We took 3 tanks into this huge field and immediately got into a wheel of the 3 tanks chasing each other's tail.  The Army captain wasn't too amused until he saw our AF Colonel driving one of the tanks in this rat race.

[Old Collingwood]

7 hours ago, Canute said:

Did anyone 'splain to Lt Dumbjohn what he'd have to do? Or was it easier to let the lad flail.   Guess we took a long time to get aviators into combat, with the schooling we did.

 

Heck, the time I got to drive an M-60, in Schweinfurt, Germany, I got a 3 minute briefing on steering (like a bicycle), gear selection(one forward, I think) and speed(the long wide one on the right). Just don't get too close to the HAWK battery and no, you can't turn the turret to put the barrel forward. I drove one tank across a good sized ditch and went into their parade ground? We took 3 tanks into this huge field and immediately got into a wheel of the 3 tanks chasing each other's tail.  The Army captain wasn't too amused until he saw our AF Colonel driving one of the tanks in this rat race.

I was nearly flattened by a British Challenger 2 tank  while driving in a rush up a country lane where the Army had their ranges.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

I got to ride in a M-60 once. It was fun in a way but pretty much all I remember was how high off of the road you were when riding in the turret and how stinky they were with the diesel fumes.

[Old Collingwood]

32 minutes ago, lmagna said:

I got to ride in a M-60 once. It was fun in a way but pretty much all I remember was how high off of the road you were when riding in the turret and how stinky they were with the diesel fumes.

One of these  -  I built the kit years ago  - very nice kit.

 

Pic of the net.

 

OC.

[mtaylor]

13 hours ago, Canute said:

Did anyone 'splain to Lt Dumbjohn what he'd have to do? Or was it easier to let the lad flail.   Guess we took a long time to get aviators into combat, with the schooling we did.

Oh yeah.  We tried on the ground but he wasn't paying attention on how to load, unload, use the safety, etc.  But then, he was just out of OCS and knew everything.

 

13 hours ago, Canute said:

Heck, the time I got to drive an M-60, in Schweinfurt, Germany, I got a 3 minute briefing on steering (like a bicycle), gear selection(one forward, I think) and speed(the long wide one on the right). Just don't get too close to the HAWK battery and no, you can't turn the turret to put the barrel forward. I drove one tank across a good sized ditch and went into their parade ground? We took 3 tanks into this huge field and immediately got into a wheel of the 3 tanks chasing each other's tail.  The Army captain wasn't too amused until he saw our AF Colonel driving one of the tanks in this rat race.

 

Back around 72, the company I worked for was building the M901 ITV (M113 with a tow launcher on top).   Part of the contract was "testing" of each vehicle so they built a test track out back.  I was writing the manual for it, and had to "take her for a spin"...  Great fun, knocking down trees and generally making a mess of the test track.  After our tests, they'd ship it out to the proving grounds to fire the TOW's, etc.    The classic test report of that project was "fired the machine gun for 5 minutes.  Tested fine.  Spent 4 hours putting out the fire at the range.".  Tracers in the middle of summer... not a good idea.

[Canute]

7 hours ago, mtaylor said:

Oh yeah.  We tried on the ground but he wasn't paying attention on how to load, unload, use the safety, etc.  But then, he was just out of OCS and knew everything.

 

 

Back around 72, the company I worked for was building the M901 ITV (M113 with a tow launcher on top).   Part of the contract was "testing" of each vehicle so they built a test track out back.  I was writing the manual for it, and had to "take her for a spin"...  Great fun, knocking down trees and generally making a mess of the test track.  After our tests, they'd ship it out to the proving grounds to fire the TOW's, etc.    The classic test report of that project was "fired the machine gun for 5 minutes.  Tested fine.  Spent 4 hours putting out the fire at the range.".  Tracers in the middle of summer... not a good idea.

Ah, yeah, Mr Know-it-all. We had them, too.

 

In the 80s, we finally put chaff and flare dispensers on the inboard pylons of the F-4. The Recce version from the start, had flare dispensers built in for night photography. We had real chaff and 2 flavors of flares, real ones and practice ones for training. Newer fighters got them too. Anyway, a couple of F-16s tried to burn up a good sized chunk of the Jersey Pine Barrens by dropping practice flares at too low an altitude. Almost burned a school down.

[Jack12477]

Moving on to the chassis sub-assembly

 

Main chassis

 

 

Front axle

 

 

Rear axle

 

 

Left and Right tank tread assembly

 

Miscellaneous wheels, drivers, idler wheels

 

 

Chassis assembled

 

 

[cog]

Nice, a diorama

[Javlin]

Moving quickly on this one Jack looking good thus far! Kevin

[lmagna]

Almost want to call that a Frankinchassis. My eyes keep looking for rear wheels but they are not there. Great looking work Jack.

Edited March 15, 2020 by lmagna

[Jack12477]

17 hours ago, lmagna said:

My eyes keep looking for rear wheels but they are not there

The "rear wheels" are a tank tread.   Hence the name "half-track".   You will see shortly