Have Gun Will Travel: SP Artillery GB 2011

PS -- weathering is another matter entirely, though -- weathering everything together (fully assembled), especially final wearthering with pigments, creates a continuity between hull and running gear that is very necessary!

Cheers, M/TB379

Tony -- I've heard this approach too but I can't for the life of me figure out how they do it. If I tried painting the tank after assembling the running gear I would have the most amateurish mess imaginable. I look at it this way, the real tank is painted in subassemblies, the wheels are painted in a spray bay more than likely before the rubber is attached (not positive about this, though!), the hull gets sprayed as it goes down the assembly line, or she rolls into a spray bay at the end of it... The tracks are unpainted but nevertheless have their inherrent finish before they are joined to the vehicle. If you paint them all separately you'll emulate this process... My earnest advice is stick with what you know works, you're well through a cracker of a build so this is not the trime to try a technique which could set you back a long way if it doesn't work...

My , Mike/TB379

Thanks Mike. I got the 2nd track done before work this morning, it only took about 20 minutes this time. I've always painted the tank, and also the tracks separately, then attached the tracks and weathered it all together. However my treadhead friends tell me they always attach the tracks first, then paint and weather the lot.

I'm tempted to try it, but what's the consensus of thought here about it ?

Cheers

Tony

Impressive work -- I can understand about the eyes! MIne are a bit sore and tired right now too. This is going to be a very impressive model!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Here is the result of one night's work. It took me a long time to get the hang of this, I kept breaking off the little locating points until I got the knack of how they want to be put together, then it's an absolute breeze. I'm off to give my eyes some well earned zzzzzz's.

Cheers

Tony

Yah, Arty is rather heavy with sexual inuendo at times, lol.. For instance, all of the following have "dual meanings", one legit in the world of the Field Artillery, the other "meaning" would be right at home during the AVN Awards show:

"Punching the tube"

"Ramming staff"

"Willy Peter"

"Bell Rammer"

"Clearing the bore"

"Impact area"

"Cherry Juice"

"Pulling the Lanyard"

Fall in on the rear of the piece"

"Section Drill"

Etc., etc, etc... You get the idea...

Cheers, thanks for the reference pics -- the Snoopy looks like a candidate for scratch/conversion...

Been meaning to do exactly that for years and years...  There is a conversion set that Verlinden put out some time ago, had a resin doghouse and P/E boom, and I just found an on-line hobby shop that carries it... Of course, the Italeri M-107 kit is what it's for, and I dunno if it's still in production..

http://www.megahobby.com/m-578recoveryvehicleconversionforitalerim-1071-35verlinden.aspx

Tony -- great work happening, you could be finishing first! Great fall-on-your-feet with the tracks there!

Hans -- sheesh! I knew the 107 had a looooooong barrel but... This thing could get a job in movies! I would hope armour today is engineered with a bit more consideration for crew comfort and 'liveability' -- that was wicked!

Cheers, thanks for the reference pics -- the Snoopy looks like a candidate for scratch/conversion...

Mike/TB379

This thing is moving along at a pace I really wasn't expecting.

Not really surprising, since you're only building an SP mortar...

(Just yanking your chain a bit, Tony.. A little "Artillery Humor", as it were...)

Oughtta see the M107 175mm up close if ya think that 8-inch is "endowed", lol.. (check the size of the gunbunny compared to the tube)

I missed winding up on M110s by the skin of my teeth.. When I PCS'd from the 82nd (and the M102), I was told that I was going to a III Corps GS unit at Ft Sill and that meant M110s.. I did NOT want to stand out in the rain/snow/wind all day anymore, lol...  Got lucky and found a "Stateside Swap" in The Army Times with a guy who was at Ft Hood that wanted Ft Sill...   Ft Hood was only about an hour and half from my hometown (Bastrop, Tx), so JUMPED on that one... Heh.. Some friends back home didn't even know I was still in the Army because I was home almost every weeked, lol...

Driving the M110-series was no fun either.. Although I never drove the gun, I did drive a "Snoopy"  (That's the M578 ARV...  We didn't didn't need the Mike 88s for SP howitzers and 113-series tracks) from time to time, and it's got the same chasis.. When you're over 6 ft tall, it's hell in a hole, and it's literally a hole you sit in with your right leg & knee jammed up against the hottest piece of steel ever put in a gun... 

Having that turret on the M109 (and the heater) was a real blessing in the winter, lemme tell ya...  It was even fairly comfortable in the summer, if you were under the net and had a breeze.... 'Course, the heater was a source of many stories, both funny AND horrifying...  Was headed down the road one night with it belching out so much smoke through the TC hatch that it looked like we were on fire, lol... It melted the rubber sole of  my right boot once... (Yeah, I was wearing them at the time)

Woulda been funny if I hadn't wound up with the entire sole of my right foot in one big blister...

Hi all,

I'm happy to report that I've had one of those 'moments' when you pick up a build that had been shelved some time back. The AFV Club indy track links come in two seperate bags, one for each side. Having spent the best part of two hours removing the links for one side from the sprues and cleaning them up, I reached for the other bag. The good news is that I must have done them last time around, they are ready to go. I must have been well into the indy track link trance, because I have no recollection of doing them.

So now I'm up to joining them and attaching them to the tank, then it's the crane that was used to lift the shells on board, then we are in paintsville.

This thing is moving along at a pace I really wasn't expecting.

Cheers

Tony

Thunderbolt379

 

She's going to be a fair size, that gun is quite the, um, endowment!

 

You got that right.  Holy Moly!

...I'm pretty sure that I could get pics of:... Hans von Hammer's M109A3.

Thanks for the offer, Beav... But don't sweat it... I got gobs of M109 pics from my years as a Gunbunny and Section Chief on 'em... Still have my Dash-10 for it, too...  

 Oh, BTW.. I finally pulled the gun from the shelf to get started and have to make a correction... My 109 kit's actually Italeri, not Testor's/Italeri...  

Taxtp -- Impressive AFV, impressive modelling! The zim looks good, comfortably in scale, I think you can pat yourself on the back!

Cheers, can't wait to see her in colour! M/TB379

The gun on that thing certainly catches the attention. Here's some progress pics, you can just make out the zimmerit. The superstructure is primed now, the hull is awaiting whilst I ascend into an indy track link induced trance for several days.

Now that's what I call a gun !

Steven -- mega-obliged! Here's hoping you can get the goods!

Tony -- great work, looking forard to seeing it! I know what you mean about photographic skills, I'm a pretty good hand with a camera but maintaining exposure and focus can be tricky, especially when shooting on the fly.

I took some WIP pics last night but didn't have a chance to get them up. Here they are...

I got the guncradle and breach block made up, eased by some work on those parts waaay back. The gun barrel was made up and dressed in those days too. I also assembled the wheels:

Here's a hang-together shot of the main bits:

She's going to be a fair size, that gun is quite the, um, endowment!

My target for today is to finish small dressing parts on the gun mount and spade, possibly a few more on the hull, and, just perhaps, prespray the tracks in a base colour.

Here's my best reference, it's from an early issue of War Machine, probably about 1987:

Cheers, that's all for now,

Mike/TB379

I've got the Zimmerit done on the other side now. The whiteness of the milliput keep's over exposing when I photograph it against the dark green background of the plastic. I'm going to have to shoot some primer just so that I can work around my photographic inadequacies.This stuff needs to dry for eight ours before I touch it again.

The kit instructions also say to apply Zimmerit to the guards, but some of the photo's I've got show that at least some of the seven production vehicles didn't have Zimmerit there, so I'm going to leave it off.

Cheers

Tony

Mike,

I'll try and get out there today.  Hopefully my kit comes soon as I've stalled out building a Gaz-MM truck due to lack of paint.  

Steven

Beav -- if you could get walkaround shoots of the details on these beasts I think we'd be forever in your debt! For myself, I'm scouting for info on electrical couplings and hydraulic hoses, hatches and latches, all that sort of thing, the fine detail that might be below the moulding resolution of the kit... I'm sure the other guys would be just as interested in the fiddly bits of their subjects too!

Many, many thanks if you can pull it off!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Right, so I'm based at Ft. Sill, home of the Artillery Center of Excellence (aka Field Artillery's traditional home, and Air Defense's new home...where there are no missile ranges...); but at Ft. Sill and in Lawton we've got a considerable collection of self propelled artillery pieces.  I'm pretty sure that I could get pics of:

Thunderbolt379's M110; Big Smitty/kruppw/iraqiwildman's M7; NucMedtech's M12; and possibly Hans von Hammer's M109A3.  

I don't know what variants they have around here, but I know those vehicles are represented someplace on post or at the national guard center off post.  I cannot get pics of a Paladin (sorry) because I think I'd get some odd looks if I wandered into another unit's motorpool and started snapping pictures.  I'm very unfamiliar with anything that shoots and scoots since my unit takes half the day to emplace; then sits there until nuclear armageddon comes.  Sorry German armor guys; we don't have much of your stuff lying around (although the ADA museum that is in transit from Ft. Bliss has their 12.8cm Flakzwilling sitting out behind their warehouse; awesome, and a bizarre chinese-make T-34 Flak)

Hi Mike,

The KMC tiger zimmerit set is resin, designed for a Tamiya kit, but I've decided to do without it. There are so many little lumps and bumps on the side of the hull of the AFV Club Sturmtiger that it would be a real pain to make it fit. I'm going down the hand made / milliput route. I've done one side this morning, it's not perfect, I'm sure the experts could give it a caning. However it's done. I'll try to do the other side tonight, but it takes ages. I'm having trouble getting a good photo of it, I'll try that again later too.

Cheers

Tony

Stephen -- you're on page 1 -- clear to build!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Hi Stephen -- by all means! I'll update page 1 in the morning, it's 1am Down Under and I'm drifting off to hit the sack...

Cheers, Mike/TB379

TB,

    I've got Academy's M-12 155mm GMC that I got off of E-Bay a couple weeks ago. I'd like to add this to the GB if I may.

-Stephen

Thanks, Beav, I'll be looking forward to your experiences with those tracks. You can't simply pull them tight until they reach, or you'll snap the last trailing swing-arm... Ask me how I know!

Tony, looking forward to your zimmerit experience -- is the CMK set etched brass sheet?

Well, some more progress, tonight's target wasthe recoil spade for the M110, and here she is:

A bity fiddly, made more so by plans that were a little vague on some counts, but simple enough in the end. I left off two very fragile structures which I think are shell cradles mounted on the spade struts, they seem to be in the right place for the loader mechanism to line up with -- but I could be entirely wrong! They'll get added as close to the end as possible.

Target for tomorrow is to assemble the wheels (steel-rimmed, so no tyres to paint, yay!), and take a shot at the breach assembly and gun cradle. As part of the cradle and the gun itself were done long ago, this beast is moving right along.

Cheers, M/TB379

Hi all,

I've searched a bit harder and found that CMK do a set of Zimmerit for a 1/48 Tiger I, which should be usable on the Sturmtiger.

I'll have another go with putty over the weekend, and if I can't get it right, then I'll order a set.

Thanks for the heads up, you set me in the right direction.

No progress since the last update, have been completing another build, which is now done.

Cheers

Tony

I'll definitely update you on how I solve the track problem.  I suppose my motivation has been the neat builds that are relatively current over at armorama; lots of guys have been building the digicam stuff; and I want a shot at it.  I was able to score this kit on ebay with a second MRL and one of those cheap hobby fan jeeps w/recoiless rifle (the one marketed as a feedayeen jeep).  The second MRL may just be transformed into the Type 93 Antiaircraft vehicle someday.

Beav -- not late at all, we're only a week into a six month build! I've added your project to the roll on page 1.

The Trumpeter trio based on the same chassis (Type 83 SPG, Type 89 tank destroyer, and MBRL) are well detailed, with tons of interior detail too. One point -- beware the tracks! I was building the Type 89 TD for "The Hunters" back in '89 and was moving along well when I discovered the tracks were too short by at least three links. I tried everything I knew to stretch them with heat but it didn't work, and despite approaching Trumpeter twice I was unable to buy extra tracks to butcher (take three links from a fresh track, splice them into each track on each of the other three kits, and all's fine.)

I have seen these models build up, but how folks got around the track problem I don't know! I'll be interested in your solutions -- or if indeed you encounter the problem at all...

Cheers, Mike/TB379

A little late...but...may I join in with a Trumpy Chinese Type 89 122mm MRL?  

I'd like to paint it up in one of those fancy digi camo schemes that they've got on their equipment.

Hi Mike,

It looks like you're well on the way, keep it going. I'm not familiar with ERTL armor kits, what was it that you built from them ?

Cheers

Tony

Got some progress to report, I did a solid hour on the M110 tonight. Italeri is better that Ertl but behind anything from the Far East...

It turns out I added the driver's hatch parts and torsion bar swing arms in the round I did long ago, so for tonight's target I lined up the drive sprockets, a small part inside the front hull, and assemble the hull. I must have had the rear plate on at some point before because there was old glue to clean up on both surfaces and they didn't really want to fit very well. I used gel superglue on the main joints but had to reinforce the joints to the stern plate with strip and angle anyway, as you'll see in the pic. The sideplates went on with liquid glue, very snug and secure. I don't really see the moulded in crew seat surviving the assembly process, one of the supports is already  snapped and will get superglued. If the other snaps I'll reattach it at the end.

As for Vietnam markings, she's the wrong variant. This is the long-barrel type built in the late 70s through the mid-80s at least and serving with a huge number of armies around the world. The kit includes markings for four countries but they're all olive drab overall with a few minor decals at front and back. Only the West German decals have anything more, a national insignia and vehicle name on the barrel, so that's the version I'll go for.

Tomorrow's build target is the recoil spade and possibly some hull dressing parts.

Cheers, Mike/TB379