M55 Quad 50 Vietnam - Diorama completed!!!

Hello!

Ken - interesting idea, makes me want to take a look at the movie!

Mikeym & Redleg - Thanks for clarification, my mind was too deep in AA to think about 40mm grenades . Now I'll stay with the idea to use cut down gas cans for ammo containers, as my foto references show. Gary and Wayne were saying the "big boxes" were more typical and I thought they ment the 40mm boxes - is this right or is there some other box type I missed?

In the meantime I'm working on the gunner and on the ammo feed system, I'll post fotos soon. Thanks in advance for your comments and have a nice day

Pawel

redleg12 wrote:

MECHTECH wrote: Pawel, you and Redleg mention 'TM' Photos. I know I am having a teflon moment. What are you refering to? For the M55 Quad the Technical Manual is TM 9-1005-208-xx. If the xx = 10, that is the operators manual, =20 the direct support maintenance manual, =20P the parts manual and =35 depot maintenance manual For most work the -10 is good to have. The -20 will give more details. Pawel, you don't want to use the big cans. They are for 40mm belt fed grenade ammunition. The AFV set is a great set. Just use the 50 cal cans  Rounds Complete!!

The 40mm boxes are useful for small parts stowage on AFV's like the M1A1/A2 Abrams and the M2/M3 Bradley IFV's. I think they stick tools in those boxes which would probably explain the lack of pioneer tools on the Abrams?

Thanks mikeym, I also like ammo boxes for storage, I keep my CD's in .50 boxes, they fit just perfect. The theory for now is: The WWII "tombstone" magazine held 200 .50 rounds, the .50 box (officially called M2A1!) only 100 rounds. As larger boxes were probably unavailable at that time, the Quad 50 crew welded some cut down gas cans to old ammo box trays and created cheap and voluminous ammo containers. Now to do it in 1/35...

First I had to part with the "tombstones". In the kit, there are two sets of 4 "tombstones", one set that attaches to the mount and one set of spares. The attachable ones have a bracket molded on them, and I need that bracket and only the bracket. I saw two options: first: file the bracketout of the magazine. Tried it - not effective enough. Option two: fabricate out of copper sheet metal. It turned out to be easy. I made four brackets and glued them to the mounts. Here's what it looked like in the end:

Now I'm looking for details on the ammo box tray, y'know, the part that normally connects the gun with the ammo box. The tray itself has a nice feed ramp, and I have to take a closer look.

Please stay tuned while I go on, I wish you all a nice day

Pawel

Mikeym, Bill - thanks for your comments, please excuse me I took so much time to answer.

Mikeym - I sure would be interested to see the "big honking box" as I also have plans to build the Duster - which is armed with twin 40mm Bofors. So maybe it cold have such a box around.

Bill - sometimes I get the feeling it's enough to "not be WWII" to look different in our armor forum. Well I sure also am curious how this one turns out.

And it is slowly turning. I converted the wheel attachments to correctly depict the wheels taken off as in the firing mode. Here's what it looks like now:

And I also have the gunner ready, or at least I'm close. You can see the separate thread on the gunner HERE. And now I tried to depict the dust that would surely deposit in the insides of the mount and test-seated the gunner in. Here's what it looks like:

I'm going to sand the boot tips of the gunner in order for the front shield to fit the mount.

Well I'm really not sure about the weathering, maybe you have a suggestion for me? Looking forward to your comments and have a nice day

Pawel

Hello everybody!

It's been a long time, but I'm movin' on with the build at last. I started building the .50s. Here's what we get in the kit:

After the mendatory cleanup, I drilled the cooling jackets a bit and then went on to build the flash suppressors, so often seen on Vietnam quads. From what I heard it's a post WWII feature. Maybe somebody knows more about it - if so, I'd love to know it too! Anyhow, here's what the guns looked like before painting:

Then I started painting. First covered all the recessed detail in Humbrol black (33). Then after the paint settled a bit, which took about 30 minutes, I went over the raised detail with Humbrol gun metal (53). And you can see the effect below:

And that would be it for now. Happy modelling and have a nice day

Pawel

well I for one am glad to see that you are still here, and looks like your doing very well as well. By the way that photo I asked you about is taken on the far southwest end of LZ West. The ridge line directly behind the fellow standing is the Hiep Duc Ridge Line. The area at the base on the right side is Hau Duc (another garden spot), and strait behind the ridge line (almost directly in front of the fellow standing) is the now famous place affectionately known as Siberia. The guy standing is a classmate of mine!

gary

Hello Gary,

nice to hear from you. Thanks for your remarks. Looks like the LZ West is pretty well documented and their quad even had a nickname "Boss" and nice markings to go with it. So maybe if I knew it all before... How about those fotos you were writing me about, of the "alamo" of A102? Do you still have them?

In the meantime I went on to do the ammo cans at last. First thing was to temporarily fix the guns to the trunnion, to prepare it for the fitting and reduce the number of loose parts to handle. Thus I got this:

Then I took four jerry cans from the Academy old M151A2 with trailer kit. By the way, this kit was a real bargain - for something like 6$ I got a jeep (just a little crude) with driver, a reasonable M416 trailer, a 4.2 inch mortar with crew, a piece of thin cardboard with printed C-Ration boxes and a lot of jerry cans. Ain't that cool? So I took four of those jerry cans which have nice sides, but crappy fillers and sawed the tops offa 'em. Then I took measurements of the .50s ammo box tray and fabricated corresponding parts of sheet styrene. I also added the feed ramp made out of stretched sprue that was later longitudally cut in half. The feed chute will be a modified kit part. The ammo belt comes from the AFV Club Ammo boxes set. For now I have something like this:

Looking forward to hear your comments on this, happy modelling and have a nice day

Pawel

looking great! cant wait to see this finished!

Hello Gary,

nice to hear from you. Thanks for your remarks. Looks like the LZ West is pretty well documented and their quad even had a nickname "Boss" and nice markings to go with it. So maybe if I knew it all before... How about those fotos you were writing me about, of the "alamo" of A102? Do you still have them?

Your gonna have to wait a little longer! I lost the PC I had them stored on, and we are still trying to get them off the old hard drive. They did retrive about 1/3rd of them thinking they had them all (about 3000 photos) But to make matters even worse the new PC will not read my backup discs, and there are about 2000 photos on them alone. But fear not I have a plan that will probably take forever. As for the photo of A102 with the Alamo in it; remember it's an aerial photo, and even then not the best. I do know where another copy of that one is.

gary

Hello everybody! Thanks for the comments.

Grimmo - I can't wait to see it finished neither. It's still going to take some time, but hopefully not so much anymore

Gary - I sent you a PM, could you take a look?

Well now, I decided to go with the current forum's fashion and try a new technique, hair spray chipping to be precise. I think those old, beaten up gas cans with their field-welded brackets make for perfect parts where the chipping could be feasible. So what I did was to paint the cans rusty brown:

Then dry-brush them gun-metal:

then cover with hair spray and finally spray OD. We are talking Humbrol paints here, so that's different from what the masters of chipping (INDY and Schnobs) do, as far as I know. But let's see what we shall see. After the OD dried really good I begun to bother it with a glass fibre pen (bought in an electronics store) but it was pretty resistant. So I helped myself with a little amount of lacquer thinner (but you have to be careful, this thing really has a strong "bite"). After I thought it'll do, I sealed everything with a mixture of future and water with a little water soluable black paint addition. You can see the results below:

I had my problems too, like scrubbing a bit too deep once or twice, but in the end I thing the effect is something I like.

I also started working on the ammo belts, you can see them here painted with Humbrol 12. My source for the belt is the AFV Club ammo boxes set, where you can get exactly 200 belted .50 cartridges in four runs. I'll write more about the belts next time.

Looking forward to your comments, stay tuned

Pawel

Very nice work Pawel!

I saw one of these mounts very briefly on TV last night. HBO is showing Band of Brothers episodes and in the 6th episode, during the German night bombing raid on Bastogne they show a trailer-mounted, quad-50 shooting up at the bombers! It's a very brief glimpse but it reminded me of this thread.

Thanks for the comment Ken, nice to hear from you again! You seem to like watching movies, don't you?

I finally fitted the gunner this time. First I had to tackle the steering yoke.Here's what it looks like finished:

Then I attached the yoke to the gunner, and then the gunner to the mount. Then it looked like below:

And then I faced the fitting of the shield. I knew from previous test-fitting, that the gunner's feet (that I modified with jungle boots - read more about it here) are going to get in the way of the shield. I used a piece of paper put inside the shield and covered with pencil dust to sand just the right place of the boots and finally got the shield to fit. The nice thing is the modification is not visible from outside, even though the shield has an open underside. Here are some fotos:

Before putting the shield on I cut off the little armored "flaps" and I'm going to pose them in "open" position. This is often seen in fotos from Vietnam, probably to allow the gunner a better view. As the ammo cans are almost done I'll assemble the complete trunnion groups next, so please stay tuned. I'm looking forward to your comments, have a nice day

Pawel

Great work Pawel...:)

Nice work on the fig.....especially the helmet!

Rounds Complete!!

Hello everybody!

Guney - thanks a lot for the comment. It motivates me to try even harder.

Redleg - glad you like it, I have some more to do here, if you'd like to take a look. While painting the helmet it was important to take a really close look at the foto of the real thing.

In the meantime I got back from a business trip to Germany (that's why I didn't reply fot so long) and got back to work. I fitted the ammo cans to the trunnions and added the ammo belts. So here's what it looks like:

Looks just like it won't be long now, hopefully. Then I'd like to invite you to this diorama thread, where this quad 50 will be looking for a place to call home. Looking forward to your comments, please stay tuned and have a nice day

Pawel

Pawel

Looks just like it won't be long now, hopefully.

Hello everybody!

I eventually DID take long - oh well... Did you miss me? I guess not Anyhow here's a small, long overdue update.

After test fitting the top to the base it turns out the jacks of the base seem to be a major nuisance for everybody working around the guns. I thought: what would I do if I was there? I'd lower the base on top of a pair of two by fours and fold the jacks so they don't get in the way. On more permanent emplacement it was common to remove the jacks and the towing bar altogether. Sometimes the base was put in a kind of armoured box too. Tha two by fours would also help to get a stable emplacement on an uneven surface and keep the base out of mud or water.

I also added some "grease" to the jacks - mixture of humbol gloss black and gun metal paints and weathered the whole trailer with sand-coloured acrylic wash. Here's what it looks now:

I'd say that would be it for the base/trailer, I'll concentrate on finishing the mount now. As always I'm waiting for your opinions, don't be shy. Have a nice day

Pawel

Pawel remember that ammo can I was talking about when you first started this thread I finally got the pictures of it.

It definitely looks like a 40mm bofors ammo can

Q:  What is more badass than a Ma Deuce?

A:  4 Ma Deuces!

Looking good!

Brian

Hello!

Thanks a lot for your comments!

mikeym_us - of course I remember. Thanks a lot for the fotos, they just might come handy for a certain 40mm AA subject (kinda obvious what it might be, isn't it?). What made me think - the inscription on the top of the box, saying MK something, MOD something - isn't this NAVY nomenclature? That would make sense, as 40 mm is used by the navy a lot. My question would be could such a box be seen in the jungle of South Vietnam, end of the sixties?

Brian - that's exactly what I thought meself some time ago

Keep 'em coming, have a nice day

Pawel

The 40mm was also used by the army in the 1960's the M42 Duster comes to mind. As for all the words on the can they are US military wording as the military in total have their own vocabulary of words and terms. And each service has their own colors for their ammo cans Navy/gray, Airforce/OD Green, Army/OD Green,Marines/ Marine corps green. 

Mikeym_us

Navy/gray

Mikeym_us - that would confirm my assumption, that your box is an ex-navy item, wouldn't it? But would it be possible fo find such box in the jungles of Vietnam (was it available at that time)?

Thanks again, have a nice day

Pawel

Hello everybody,

I have another update for you, I finally installed the batteries and the power charger. First I added the cables made out of thin slodering wire:

And the I fabricated two tiny wingnuts that attach the ground cables to the frame and finally installed the stuff. As you can see there's not much left to complete the whole quad:

I only plan to add the hydrometer box and that would be it. In later Quad 50's the voltimeter in the junction box was deleted and the hydrometer box was added. Probably because measuring the voltage on the batteries doesn't tell you exactly in what condition the batteries are, and measuring the electrolyte parameters does (that's what the hydrometer does).

As always I'm waiting for your remarks, have a nice weekend and 'till the next time

Pawel

WOW look at that! The Quad is really looking nice! Great job on this one, looking forward to the completed dio

Hello Chris!

It's been a long time, I'm glad to know you're still tuned in! Thanks for your comment and I'm glad you like the Quad. Hopefully it won't be long now - the quad is almost done and for the dio I need to finish painting the figs. Thanks again and have a nice day

Pawel

It has been a long time, my apologizes as Ive been watching from my email notifications but haven't gotten around to logging in and commenting.

Your figure scratch building is impeccable and I'm really looking forward to the custom figures over in that dio thread getting some paint on them.

Best of luck in finishing this one! I'll make sure to check out the dio thread too

Hello everybody!

And here it is, finally completed, my Quad 50 of Vietnam:

It's going to be used in my dio, you can check it out here

Hope you like it, have a nice day

Pawel

~Eh ya Pawel--

That's seriously cool 'ole Buddy!!

\

What a gem........can't wait to see this in place----it's gunna rock!

Hello Adam!

Thanks a lot for your comment. Oh, it's going to be emplaced soon.

By the way, let me summarize the changes that have to be considered, when building this Quad, especially for Vietnam:

• The ammo chests (tombstones) have to be discarded, some other ammo containers have to be used. Either regular M2 ammo trays plus boxes, or something more exotic
• The gunner is dressed for WWII. That would have to be changed for Vietnam
• The guns would in most cases have the flash suppressors fitted
• The gunners platform should be omitted for quads mounted outside of M16s and M17s (also true for WWII)
• Most quads had the voltmeter on the junction box (above the battery) deleted and a hydrometer case (elongated vertical box, approx. the size of a flashlight) added. Also true for WWII.
• I have not seen a foto of a Vietnam quad 50 with its sight in place. I have to assume they were not particularily useful for firing on ground targets
• Many quads in Vietnam (if not all) had the power chargers changed to a completely different type (A Lycoming, according to Gary aka squeakie - thanks a lot for the info, Gary). I'd do this modification if I only had more reference
• If shown emplaced with the jacks extended, the mounting of the rear jacks should be changed, so the jacks don't interfere with the gunners shield
• One minor detail missing from the kit, but easily added, is the miscellaneous wiring (batteries, power charger, guns, trailer)

Thanks for reading, have a nice day

Pawel