My father , a former TC himself, told me that was what he did when he drove. That was Bamberg in '73, so I'm guessing that was standard practice for US tankers. Maybe it was just his unit.

Thanks y'all. Mike, makes sense about the middle vision block, so I looked again at pics and apparently the IDF drivers leave the thing up and open when they're driving head out. I'm going to look at more pics though- I can't find any of the big hatch M48's with any of the things closed, hatch open. 

Beautiful work! Great work on the tank, figures, and storage. And the sand on the hull looks perfect!  

Only one thing I can point out, Russ, and that's the drivers front vision block would be down if his head is out. Otherwise it gets in the way.

Yours looks better than mine! :D

Yup, I'm using better heads now, sure makes a difference. So, on to the Magach. Finished pics here, all done and in the case.

IMG_3971 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_3973 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_3974 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_3975 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Now I can finish the other Magach, maybe in time for IPMS nats....

Cool, love Hornet heads. So well detailed and a joy to paint! 

Thanks G. I have the Takom kit in line, should be fun to see them together, built up. 

Figs for the Magach are coming along nicely, got some new Hornet heads in yesterday that will really help.

Hurrah!!! It's raining awesome armour this week!!! 

She turned out awesome! Love the mud and dirt effects!!! 

Crackerjack work! 

Finally, the Model B is done. Figs are in, final stowage on and it's in the case.

IMG_3945 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_3947 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_3948 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Now to finish up the Magach and I can get back on the other Magach...

Lookin' forward to the photos! 

Well thanks y'all. I'll have finished pics of the original two up soon (I hope) and for clarity and will start a new thread on the third one, which is coming along nicely too. 

Hey, RBaer, great work on the Vietnam M48. Reminds me of a photo I saw many years ago of a USMC M48 with the extra sandbag protection.

RBaer, excellent work on your armor kits, especially the weathering on your Vietnam one!

T'anks! I have some painting done on the figs for the Model B, Magach is ready for pigments but I'll wait till they're done to put up pics. As for the "other" Magach 3, I'll start another thread or this on will never end.... I do have some progress on it.

Yeah, long live the Free World but the Soviets built cool looking tanks...

Looks good! Love all the mods you've been doing with your stuff! 

Long live the Free World! 

I scratched the itch to start something else, but because I still had so much M48 stuff out, I decided to do another one, a Magach 3 that's been converted from a Magach 2. In a nutshell, the IDF modernized their Magach 2's (M48A2C) using some conversion parts and some home-made parts. These tanks were previously incorrectly identified in pics as "M48A3 with two of the five terurn rollers removed by the IDF" or something like that. In fact this is the easy way to identify these converted tanks, and there seems to have been quite a few in service. The most obvious difference from a regular M48A3 (Magach 3) is the engine cover grills. The only pics out there only show the top of one after an engine compartment hit, and some of the side air intake grills are not there anymore, so I had to make an educated guess. I'm using yet another Tamiya hull and Takom turret, with bits from Dragon too. I got this far when someone posted pics of the (partly) visible IDF-made grills:

IMG_3914 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

So this was the first step, cutting out the kit parts that would be changed and blocking in the area in with plastic stock:

IMG_3917 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Several hours later I have this:

IMG_3922 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_3923 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

I applied a light black wash to help the individual louvers show up in the pics which makes them look a little rough. Hinges were made from more stock, and all the lifting handles are MJ Designs 3D printed, very nice parts but incredibly fragile.

I'm still making progress on the other two, and will get pics up when I have significant progress to show.

They're looking good! Esp love the Vietnam mud and dirt on the lower! 

I've got on a weird Soviet Cold War kick lately, I need to get some done and post them as compliments to your Free World stuff! 

Decals are on the Magach and detail painting is started. Decals are out of a re-release of Monogram's M48. Oddly enough, they were a very close match to a couple of pics in the Desert Eagle Magach 3 book.

IMG_3920 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_3918 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

And I'm pushing through on the -A3. Dusting is done, using Vallejo dry pigments, final detail painting is nearly done and some fluid stains still to be added. Then it's figs, antenna masts, return rollers and a couple of other bits and I can move on.

IMG_3916 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_3915 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Thanks all.

Pawel, have no fear, it will be filthy. I'll use my usual acrylic washes and dry pigments but I'm out of a bunch of stuff, waiting to get to my friendly local hobby shop. In the meantime, the other one is in color:

IMG_3912 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_3913 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Looks good, she's coming along well! 

Those bags look just right

Hello Russ!

The sandbags are lookin' good! The tank is very clean now though - I wonder how are you going to go about dirtying it up or shading it... Good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

As it sits now, sandbags coming along.

IMG_3911 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Gamera

Hmm, that's interesting, the only paint I've ever had pebble is gloss. 

Could you maybe just paint the tops of the sandbags and leave the brown on the bottom as shading?  

 

I was too far away from the work on a warm, windy day. Oops.

And yeah, that's my intention, to have the brown in the nooks and crannies as "pre-shading", fancy term for what I'm using as an easy way to blend shadows. Each sandbag will have to be indivudually painted and shaded, should be fun.

Really.

Hmm, that's interesting, the only paint I've ever had pebble is gloss. 

Could you maybe just paint the tops of the sandbags and leave the brown on the bottom as shading?  

Yup, I'm getting the itch to start something else already. In the meantime, the Model B is in OD and the Magach in primer, gray so there's nothing to show. The black primer I shot on the Model B pebbled horribly, my fault entirely, so I had to do some sanding with a worn out Scotchbrite pad befor I put color on. I used Vallejo OD from their rattle can, then Vallejo olive green wash, and got the basic other colors on before I sealed it up with clear.

IMG_3910 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Now I'm checking pics of tanks with sandbags on them to get a feel for their color, but all the color pics I have are poor quality and don't give me a good idea. I'll probably go with a raw burlap look.

HURRAH! Nice to see her almost done! 

And in primer:

IMG_3906 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

I also started a set of Takom tracks, probably for the Magach as I used Takom drive sprockets on it and they're not a good fit on the Tamiya sprockets on the Model B. Also, while the Takom tracks are very nice and relatively easy to assemble, it's a slow process. Three hours to do 50 links...

IMG_3905 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

Stowage to be painted with the tank (Model B) is all on, ready for primer:

IMG_3904 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

IMG_3903 by Russel Baer, on Flickr

I found a set of 40mm ammo and containers from AFV Club that supplied some nice items, and since the display base will be a road, I left the back deck clear to show the tank as in action, not parked up and loaded up like the Clampett's truck. Next, primer.