Greg,

That turned out great!  I recently received this very kit from a very kind person from this forum site so that I can build it for a man whose father served on one of these in WWII.  I really like your camo scheme, your weathering, the "Wicked Wanda decal,and the fact that you made it with tanks for WWII.   Can I ask you a couple of questions about your build?

1.  Where did you get those diecast tanks from and who is the manufacturer?

2. What colors/paints did you use?

This is on my list for kits to build for 2022!  Once again, congrats on this wonderful build!

TJS

TJS

Very nice,not one you see every day.

MR TOM SCHRY

Can I ask you a couple of questions about your build? 1. Where did you get those diecast tanks from and who is the manufacturer? 2. What colors/paints did you use?

Any time, Tom

1) Diecasts were purchased in bulk on Ebay...don't recall the seller, but mfg. was (I think) New Millenium Toys. Just as an FYI, if you'd rather build them, there are some good, quick-build (and pretty good quality) 1/144 wargame-type kits from Pegasus, Armourfast/Hat, and others. The plastic ones may well be a bit cheaper...but the diecasts were nicely-finished, though.

2) Paints were mostly Tamiya acrylics: XF-9 Hull Red (with red and white added to match photos), XF-66 Light Grey sprayed as the base color, and XF-26 Deep Green. The lighter green color I actually mixed up from artists oils...easier to control, while brush-painting with no masks...using sap green and white. Deck color was an old mix from another project, probably a mix of dark green and grey.

The scheme itself was suggested by those used for APD high-speed transports in the South Pacific. A lot of landing craft schemes were yard-painted, non-standard ones, so there's a bit of 'play' in picking colors. There are some good color photos and profiles on the net for ideas or more precisely authentic schemes.

Thanks for your kind words, and good luck on your project; sounds like a great one. Have fun with it.

Hi,

I guess another option on vehicles could be 3D printing.  If you looks around a bit you can frequently find either free, or relatively cheap 3D files on the interent that you can print if you have a printer.

Below is a picture of two 1/72 scale vehicles that I have printed at home.  The Black one is an unpainted XM-8 AGS model that I got off the internet, and the biege one is a what if light tank that I put together with a Cockerill 3D modular turret model that I borrowed from another model that I found on the internet.  (I still have to clean up the painted for the treads, as I printed the treads and road wheels together as one single piece on each side of the vehicle).

With a little scaling I think it may be reasonably possidle to make some 1/125 scale vehicles instead.

Pat

Fun project Greg.  Looks good and you do kinda want to play with it :)

Although I have no pictures to compare but that boat was used up to the Vietnam war only the name had changed to LCU - Landing Craft Utility and there were several of them in the inventory of Assault Craft Unit 2 in Little Creek Va in the 1960s.

There also were variants that also were also called LCUs including ones with the control station along the side and a stern gate so they could be married together as a causeway. There also were several experimental LCUs in the inventory that were never repeated as ACU2 was tasked with exploring the possibilites as well as hover craft the ultimately became the LCACs

Looks great!

That's cool Greg! I guess the original kit isn't THAT bad but still always enjoy watching someone make a silk purse out of a sow's ear as it were!!!

Good looking bit of history (both manufactur  and type of craft).  You made, if not a silk purse, at least a really good cotton one

Congratulation on this fine build.  You've captured the spirit of building Lindbergs not 'too' scale kits perfectly.  Well done.

amphib

There also were variants that also were also called LCUs including ones with the control station along the side and a stern gate so they could be married together as a causeway.

Those were, briefly, classiied as LCU(L), Landing Crat Untility (Large).

US Army actually operated more LCT than USN, and maintained more of the "closed stern" versions until very late, oten into the 80s (where they were largely with Bridge & Ferry Units, when not under Corps of Engineers control as work boats).

Sadly, painting regs for Army-owned examples are like hen's teeth.

A note for those wishing to render a WWII USN example--USN regs had the hull numbers be white or the palest gray in inventory, and only 24" tall. 

SHaded numerals would be appropriate or after 1946; but, camo colors would not be--they would be painted with haze gray verticals, deck gray decks/horizontals, and the hull bottom would either be HUll Red or Hull Black.  (Examples used as utility/work boaks in a harbor would have a 12" boot top--sometimes--but no boot top was common, too.)

Army version may have been painted pale (aircraft underside) gray all over.

I memory serves, the Lindberg kit is a LCT Mark 6 (which is like 120'x33') which has a cargo capacity of 150 short tons.  So, a "full load" of Shermans was three--plus crews and gear, or four, empty.  Would be about seven Stuarts, though.

Well decks are deceptive that way.  The classic example is the depiction of an LCM with a single Sherman--yeah, it fits, but, even empty it's an overload, and you are criunching the sides backing one in.  But, it looks "funny" to have something smaller in a Mike boat.

You did a fantastic job.

CapnMac82

Well decks are deceptive that way.  The classic example is the depiction of an LCM with a single Sherman--yeah, it fits, but, even empty it's an overload, and you are criunching the sides backing one in.  But, it looks "funny" to have something smaller in a Mike boat.

 

Hi,

Modern day Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCACs) are even worse. While they can take several HMMV's or Trucks etc, their full load is a single MBT, on a vehicle with a length of about 88ft and a width of 40 ft or so. 

Pat

EdGrune

 It may look funny, but it would take a deuce-and-a-half, an M-3, even a bulldozer