Monogram M48A2

The M48A2 was one of their original kits. When Monogram issued armor kits in the late 50s and early 60s, they were 1/35 scale. Later kits were 1/32 scale and older 1/35 kits that were reissued in the 70s were labeled 1/32 to make it look like they were a constant scale.

The M48A2 is 1/35.

modelbob wrote:

I recently picked uo a Monogram M48A2 at a yard sale for $5.00 and am taking a trip down memory lane since I built it in my teens. I started compairing it to the Tamiya M48A3 and discovered they are almost identical in size. Is the Monogram M48 really 1/35 scale? I thought all the Monogram tanks were 1/32 scale. modelbob@hotmail.com

Mentioning the Monogram M48A2 brought back many happy memories of my early modelling days. I was so fascinated with these tank then that I think I had at least two of them. I like Pattons and after the Renwal M-47 this was a welcome sight.The only problem I had with them is that mating the turret to the chassis is now what it is now. The turret has a pin underneath which you fit into a hole on the chassis so you do not get a turret flat on the chassis. It wobbles. Otherwise it was the best tank model then.

I forgot to add earlier that the Monogram M48 was my first armor kit, and was my first attempt at a diorama... It came with the tip sheet of "How to Build Dioramas" by Shep Paine.  It was a dio of the M48 in an urban combat setting, likely the city of Hue during the '68 Tet Offensive (although the sheet never stated exactly where and when, it was about the only setting that made sense)... Shep had also used the M-60 gunner from the Monogram Infantry set.. The "Short Timer", "Peace" sign, and "Flower Power" decals and added a few "drips" of white paint to the decals to make 'em look more "crew applied"...

A lot of "firsts" with kit for me, and I still have the lower hull and roadwheels around here somewhere... First armor kit, first diorama, first figure conversions, first rattle-can paint-job, to name a few...   Been totin' it (well, what's left of it) around the world in my spares box for the better part of 35 years, lol...  I built a winter diorama with it, using flour for the snow, after spreading on some glue and sprinkling gravel over the glue... It wound up in other dioramas as well for a few years, until it had so many coats of paint on it that it was starting to change shape, lol...

I didn't have access to anything remotely resembling a hobby shop in those days (about 1974 or so) and had to make do with what I could scrounge up around the yard and neighborhood... I also didn't get a kit very often, so I used the same models over and over in different dioramas I built afer getting tired of looking at the last one.  It finally culimated in a massive table-top sized dio that featured the Patton, the Monogram Lee, Monogram Halftrack, and the Tamiya M113, along with the Monogram StuG IV and a couple of German infantry and Afrika Korps sets  all in the same battle, with guys fighting the Germans both with weapons and hand-to-hand...  Think I had some of the "Green Army Men" in there as well... (I got the Tamiya kits as gifts from a cousin who lived in a town with a "real" hobby shop... The kits I bought were at the grocery store back in those days, and a few at the drugstore, which was the only place you could buy model paints in town.)

Thanks for bringin' back a pleasant memory, Bob...