Rocket pods on Dragon's AH-6J......correct size?

AH1Wsnake-
The Marines use the LAU-68 7-shot 2.75" rocket pod, which is 58.9 inches long without the forward and aft fairings. (Does anyone actually use the fairings?). The Army uses the M260 7-shot 2.75" rocket pod which is actually longer than the LAU-68 at around 66.2 inches. So the difference in length is 7.3 inches, which in 1/35 scale is only 0.21 inches, not very close to a half-inch. So someone's rocket pods are not accurate. Do some measuring and let us know.

I'm not sure how the services ended up with different rocket pods. The Marines and the Army both use the same rockets as far as I know.

Phil

Thanks for those numbers, Par, that's exactly what I needed. I'll do some measuring and let you know. I have a feeling that MRC's and Cobra Company's LAU-68 pods are accurate, and will have to shave down the length on Dragon's M260s, but I'll go check to make sure. I'll get back later today.

I did some conversions to metric since I lack an English ruler marked in tenths, and here is what I found:

LAU-68 7-shot rocket pod:
Par429's info: 58.9"
conversion: 58.9 in X 2.54cm/in = 149.6cm, or approximately 1.5m

M260 7-shot rocket pod:
Par429's info: 66.2"
conversion: 66.2 in X 2.54cm/in = 168.1cm, or approximately 1.68m

That leaves a real-life difference of .18m between the pods,
.18m = 180mm, 180mm / 35 (scale) = approximately 5.1mm difference between the pods in 1/35th scale.

My actual measurements:
LAU-68 from MRC's AH-1W kit: 39.0mm.......(converts to 1.36m real-life)
LAU-68 from Cobra Company's UH-1N Weapons set: 38.5mm.....(1.35m real-life)
M260 from Dragon's AH-6J: 49.5mm.....(1.73m real-life)

49.5mm -- 39.0mm = 10.5mm difference in 1/35 scale!

That leaves a real-life difference between these model pods of 0.375m, which is almost exactly double the difference in length from the measurements that Par429 quoted (0.19m).

What does this say? Again, assuming that all of Par429's quotes are correct, this leaves our scale LAU-68's on the short side (a little over 3mm), while Dragon's M260 is 1.5mm too long. So I guess this means that the -68's we have are more mis-scaled than Dragon's M260!? In any case, their combined inaccuracies account for the noticable difference when layed side-by-side. Still -- to me, at least -- the rocket pods from the AH-1W kit and Cobra Company just look "right," lol. But since my only experiences have been with LAU-68 pods, I can't make a good comparison in my mind, as I have never seen the Army's M260's.
Take this for what it's worth, I hate to think that I am becoming a rivet-counter, but as Par429 said, if we're all firing the same rockets, the differences in pods shouldn't be that great -- which is why the difference in length between my kit pods just looked odd to me.

Just speculating ... since the 1-60 operates primarily in the dark, there may be an effort at flash suppression with some sort of field-expediant modifications (remember, these guys work a lot with Delta Force and Rangers, who use a lot of non-standard gear.) And another possibility is a modification for aerodynamics because the AH-6 is a very small aircraft and the airflow over rocket pods can affect flight characteristics. My point would be that you can't always rely on measurements of standardized systems when the troops in the field tend to design their own modifications.

AH1Wsnake-
Excellent summary. Thanks. I think my numbers are accurate since I got them from an ASIM manual here at work. An ASIM manual is a summary of dimensional data of external stores. Unfortunately I left the drawings at work, so I can't recheck them until Monday.

MBT70 is correct in that things are sometimes modified in the field, but the ASIM manual is supposed to keep track of such changes. Having said that though, the Army Spec Ops folks seem not to have to tell many people what they're up to. In my experience differences in stores between Navy/Marines and Army (or Air Force) tend to be due to shipboard compatibility issues. Maybe the shorter LAU-68 fits better in the storage spaces on the ships the Marines operate from.

Phil

The rockets aren't exactly all the same between the USMC and USA anymore. They all use the same motors and some of the same warheads but the Army has added additional warheads (submunitions) and additional fuzing options. The M260 is designed for these capabilities. It has a couple of extra umbilicals (cannon plugs) on the top front so you can select the fuzing/arming distance, etc in flight. That is probably what acocunts for the extra length.