Need Help!

Patton wrote:

For my diorama, I'm going to have a Panther A Late Type scoping out a destroyed M-10. How do I make the M-10 look destroyed? Thanks!

; if nothing else for the fact that, for anyone who has undertaken the "grail quest" of modeling a truly destroyed tank, it's a little like asking 

. It is perhaps the hardest thing you can attempt-even beyond scratchbuilding, becuase not only are construction skills vital, but imagination and plausible execution as well. In my opinion.

BUt seriuosly, do you mean "DESTROYED" , as in blown apart, or  are you trying to show that the tank is out of service/operation? For the former, you need oodles of reference material, of the vehicle itself, and then of other m10's actually knocked out. There's gonna be a lot of scratchbuilding and trial-and-errortest fitting, and more research.  You basically have to "dissect" the model, showing not only the interior, but the effects of explosion and fire. It took me appproximately 4 months to do a gutted PzIV. It's a heck of an involvrd, frustrting and labor-intensive project, but the end result is quite worth the effort!

To show it out of operation, you could put a shell penetration hole in it, and break the track; you may need an aftermarket set for this.Let the track play out behind it like it rolled to a stop--again, check references! You could depict the roadwheels as being burnt, although that's a lot of work involving a lathe; I don't think I know of any kits with seperate "rubber" parts. You could add burn/scorch marks around the engine deck, or better yet, open the hatch and drop a smoke-blackened  resin engine into it. Skew some gear/equipment around it and position it off the road or in a ditch. Like I said, look at reference photos and - at the risk of sounding simple - model what you see.

Masters like Shep Paine have opined that modeling a burnt-out tank is about the toughest thing you can do as an armor modeler;its more than just putting a hole in the side-- he says don't attempt it until you're ready. You might try to do it as out-of-service, by employing some of the later suggstions here if your skill level is still growing right now. Good luck!

Not up to building a total wreck for scratch? Now you don't have to, just cough up the money for this;

It sure is difficult to represent burned and detroyed armored vehicle, but you can make it as simple as tracks broken off of the tank and all the hatches opened.  Just play with different ideas and perhaps look at some war footage photos as references.  Good luck!