The Longest S.P. Gun in the world?

That may have just been the longest post on this site. Eva!

redleg12 wrote:

 MM

OK build overall but....I started my military career (long ago)

on one of these. A few quick things.

I don't know if it is the lighting but it almost looks tan.

These were phased out of service with the US Army in the late

70s. Their color was always OD Green. Isreal also used the

M107, and this color is closer to their M107 than the US

version
WAY too many scratches. You would NEVER see a weapon looking in

that shape. Scatches would always be touched up. The only place

where it would be scrached and metal somewhat exposed would be

on the recoil spade.
The hydralic elevating cylinders (on either side of the

barrel), the inside part of the cylinder will be shiny

(polished). Any other state and they would not work.
He has a mix of white bumper numbers on the front and back with

black numbers and star on the side. They would not be

mixed...either all white or all black.
Barrel sled (under the barrel, groved area) would be a gunmetal

color overall but the grove and high spots would be polished

from the movement in the housing.
Need to do a better job on the seams between the side skirt and

main hull
As I said eye pleasing, but....not correct

Rounds Complete!!


Many thanks for your kind comments, suggestions and

information! They'll be useful and handy for those who want to

build the M107/109/110.
----------

    Robbioo wrote:

 well.. aside from the acuracy things mentioned above, i think

the model looks great.

all the techniques on wich some of us (including me) struggle

to get right look good to me. chipping, washes, ect.. lookin

good there modelmaniac.

as for the post above, it's by now well known modelmaniac

doesn't build the models himself, a while ago when he stopped

posting because of these "not nice" remarks, everybody started

asking where he was. also i think almost everybody (speaking

for myself anyway) could only dream of such a collection.. made

by yourself of someone else who get's payed.

 nuf said.. i'm going back building


Many thanks for your kind comments and understanding! I really

appreciate them!
----------

    Rob Gronovius wrote:

  May be just to share the work (whomever's) with the members

here. He is obviously a fan of scale armor modeling and wants a

larger audience to see the builders' work. Perhaps he does not

have the skills or the time to build the kits himself and

appreciates a more authentic looking model than a Forces of

Valor model.

Who knows (other than Model Maniac) as to the reasons, and why

should any of us care? If you don't like to look at his models,

don't. Snide remarks appear petty and should be beneath us.

Many thanks for your kind and thoughtful comments, Rob! I just

can't thank you enough. It's exactly what you pointed out, I

appreciate an authentic looking model specially built for me

than the mass-produced die-cast toy.
-----------

    grandadjohn wrote:

   Rob Gronovius wrote:
May be just to share the work (whomever's) with the members

here. He is obviously a fan of scale armor modeling and wants a

larger audience to see the builders' work. Perhaps he does not

have the skills or the time to build the kits himself and

appreciates a more authentic looking model than a Forces of

Valor model.

Who knows (other than Model Maniac) as to the reasons, and why

should any of us care? If you don't like to look at his models,

don't. Snide remarks appear petty and should be beneath us.

Roger that!

Many thanks for your kind comments, grandadjohn!
-----------

    tigerman wrote:
 
   Rob Gronovius wrote:
May be just to share the work (whomever's) with the members

here. He is obviously a fan of scale armor modeling and wants a

larger audience to see the builders' work. Perhaps he does not

have the skills or the time to build the kits himself and

appreciates a more authentic looking model than a Forces of

Valor model.

Who knows (other than Model Maniac) as to the reasons, and why

should any of us care? If you don't like to look at his models,

don't. Snide remarks appear petty and should be beneath us.

I agree. Sometime last year, he did share some of his own work.

Perhaps he is busy or is publicly shy in presenting his own

work, I really don't have an answer. He does appear to like

armor modeling and if he's sharing others builds, what's wrong

with that? Not everyone is a pro, nor do they care to be one.

Many thanks for your kind comments too, tigerman! I see nothing

wrong with what I've been doing for so many years. After all,

the vast majority of members on this site understand me and

stand by me. ;-)
-----------

    oleander13 wrote:
 
   tigerman wrote:
 Rob Gronovius wrote:
May be just to share the work (whomever's) with the members

here. He is obviously a fan of scale armor modeling and wants a

larger audience to see the builders' work. Perhaps he does not

have the skills or the time to build the kits himself and

appreciates a more authentic looking model than a Forces of

Valor model.

Who knows (other than Model Maniac) as to the reasons, and why

should any of us care? If you don't like to look at his models,

don't. Snide remarks appear petty and should be beneath us.


I agree. Sometime last year, he did share some of his own work.

Perhaps he is busy or is publicly shy in presenting his own

work, I really don't have an answer. He does appear to like

armor modeling and if he's sharing others builds, what's wrong

with that? Not everyone is a pro, nor do they care to be one.


I agree with both you and Rob's posts.  I enjoy looking at a

model whether it's from an expert or a beginner.  I'm a

beginner/rookie/novice/newbie myself, so seeing any type of

work benefits me.

I understand that MM is a huge fan of armor and I think that's

great.  My only gripe with him, however, is that his posts are

pretty self-centered in nature.  By that I mean he posts his

own models (whether built by him or not is irrelevant) and asks

for all forms of comments and criticism without returning the

favor in other threads.  I would like to see him posting in

other threads commenting and passing those "attaboys" around to

others.  But perhaps he's too busy to post in the other

threads...that's very possible.

 Who am I to say what he should or shouldn't do

Many thanks for your kind comments, oleander13! If you read

every post in every thread, you'll see my comments in others'

threads too. Being an attaboy is not my style though. ;-)
-----------

    JMart wrote:
 
  This may be a "selfish" post, but I like to see MM posts

because of the FEEDBACK that the more experiences modelers

post. For example, I really learned from redleg12

response/critique of the build. But Im a newbie/hobby returnee,

so this type of feedback/critique maybe old news to the

regulars in here....  but remember it is the "not gold medal"

type of builds (and critiques) that give us the most valuable

lessons..

Many thanks for your kind comments, JMart! I agree with you

that redleg12's comments/feedbacks are friendly, useful and

constructive.
-----------

    EasyMike wrote:
 
  Hmmm.  Enlightening in an odd way.  Personally, I don't own

anything I didn't build, but I suppose the pleasure from the

hobby for some folks is to own and not build.

You're right, EasyMike. I'm not alone. In Thailand there are so

many model collectors who don't build themselves, and there are

many modelers who make a living by building models for others.

It's this kind of specialization of jobs and distribution of

income that keeps the economy going. And I believe this happens

around the world, not just in Thailand.
-----------

    Rob Gronovius wrote:

 HeavyArty wrote:
Coombaya....Coombaya....
 

No, it's actually like the Robert Heinlein quote, "Never try to

teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the

pig."

In other words, the critiques fall on deaf ears on his side,

and the faults may not matter to him or else he would insist

they be improved upon in subsequent builds. You make good

observations and critiques in regards to the overall build, but

your snide remarks make you look like a lesser man.

To quote another old saying, choose your battles wisely. This

one's not worth winning or even starting. If you win, what? MM

stops posting photos here? He starts to build kits for himself?

AI starts to heed your critiques and posts his own photos? And

you look like the FSM neighborhood bully? Some win.

It's not much different from the photos you see in the

magazine's reader's gallery or any other non-award winning

modeler's build. There are probably casual modelers who see

AI's work as better than theirs, and they think to themselves,

"If AI's stuff gets ripped, there's no way I'm posting photos

of my work."

Many thanks again for your kind comments, Rob! I really like

them especially the last paragraph. AI's stuffs surely have

some admirers worldwide, otherwise my Web site would not have

been so popular as it is. I check my Web site's stats just now

and found out that the number of visitors this month amounts to

6,890 - that's around 230 persons per day. My Web site has been

around for almost 10 years and has become a destination for

many a modelers. Many people have told me that they discovered

my Web site by just searching for "models".
----------

    chris hall wrote:
 
  Another side of the coin might be -

an averagely-capable modeller sees the piccies and thinks ' My

models are better than that'. He gets encouraged, submits stuff

for 'readers' gallery'. These satisfy the sometimes less-than-

exacting standards of that section of the Magazine, and his

work gets published. Averagely-capable modeller becomes proud

of his work and confident in his ability, and is motivated to

get even better. Result all round!

Another possibility is that MM takes the criticism that the

models he posts here often, and justifiably, receive to heart,

and passes them on to the guys from whom he buys his completed

models. These, in turn, get their act together, and start to

produce better models. Again, result all round!

I'm afraid your another side of the coin is unlikely. AI's

stuffs and craftmanship are in anyway above average.

I do take comments and suggestions and I pass on some to my

builders, not just AI. As for AI, I've told him to pay more

attention in getting rid of the seams.
-----------


    squeakie wrote:
 
   redleg12 wrote:
MM

OK build overall but....I started my military career (long ago)

on one of these. A few quick things.

I don't know if it is the lighting but it almost looks tan.

These were phased out of service with the US Army in the late

70s. Their color was always OD Green. Isreal also used the

M107, and this color is closer to their M107 than the US

version
WAY too many scratches. You would NEVER see a weapon looking in

that shape. Scatches would always be touched up. The only place

where it would be scrached and metal somewhat exposed would be

on the recoil spade.
The hydralic elevating cylinders (on either side of the

barrel), the inside part of the cylinder will be shiny

(polished). Any other state and they would not work.
He has a mix of white bumper numbers on the front and back with

black numbers and star on the side. They would not be

mixed...either all white or all black.
Barrel sled (under the barrel, groved area) would be a gunmetal

color overall but the grove and high spots would be polished

from the movement in the housing.
Need to do a better job on the seams between the side skirt and

main hull
As I said eye pleasing, but....not correct

Rounds Complete!!


I noticed that the round didn't have a fuse on it, as well as

the brass driving band. The top of the craddle would be suffed

up without much paint there as the round is pushed off it. With

the breech cracked open the inside of it should be a nice clean

silver.

    The water cans are the wrong color, and would have had some

kind of marking denoting water and also if it was potable

water. Also it was not normal for the water cans to be where

there are located during a fire mission. The concussion from a

zone three charge would have put them in the next county.

Didn't see the firing lock, and the hydraulic lines used to

elevate the tube on the AG's side (four or five of them 5/16"

diameter) looked tobe missing.

    Now that I'm done with rivit counting it's a nice piece.

gary

Many thanks for your comments and information, gary! I like

your last sentence the most. ;-)
-----------

    redleg12 wrote:
 
OK....Lets get technical....the M107 is a GUN and thus is the

longest SP GUN. The 2S7 and Panzer 2000 are HOWITZERS. We will

do the research to see the winner of that contest but...The

M107 is the LONGEST GUN. (Why do I feel like a rabbi at a group

circumcesion)....(I'm not going there Al)

Rounds Complete!!

I have no ideas about the differences between a howitzer and a

gun. How can you differentiate one for the other?, I wonder.
-----------

    bbrowniii wrote:
 
 ajlafleche wrote:
Except that the critiques are very often on extremely basic

flaws...silvered and crooked decals, mold and seam likes,

fogged windshields, parts installed upside down, poor to non-

existent stories in dioramas. These are not ripping critiques,

but genuinely basic mistakes from rushed building.
 

 But I guess my reaction would be 'so what?'  Not in the sense

that those flaws are not important, but in the sense that, hey,

they have been pointed out to MM time and time again, but he

doesn't seem interested or concerned.  If they are good enough

for him, and he wants to post 'em here, more power to him.  

Particularly because, by now, I am sure he knows he is going to

get ripped....  He doesn't seem interested in improving - so

what?  Is it a pre-requisite to be a member of this site that

one must be seeking improvement?

I don't think it's true that I'm not interested or concerned, I

want my modelers to do their best. But some modelers have some

constraints such as time constraint, and it's not a pre-

requisite that one must be seeking improvement. When most

people think it's OK then I think it's OK too.
------------

    Townsy11 wrote:

  Well, dispite the accuracy issues, Overall I really like this

build! Tell A.I. he did some nice work, but to please research

his builds a little before hand.

Chris,

Many thanks for your kind comments, Chris! I also think the

same. As for research I'm afraid that AI don't have enough time

and language proficiency to do so.
------------

    RonUSMC wrote:
 
  When I see a thread like this, it makes me kind of sad.

There is absolutely no reason that someone should be harassed

because they are showing models. Its a hobby, some can do it,

some can enjoy it, some cannot do it. Its really just something

that someone is interested in and showing their prized

possessions. In reality, who are any of us to judge what is

good or what is bad or what someone deserves to show or not.

Let's all really just take a step back and thank ModelManiac

for showing off his models and let him enjoy himself however he

wants.

I also want to remind people, that there are some people in the

world that are physically incapable of building models due to

disabilities or handicaps. Do we throw stones at them as well?

No. They are as much a part of this community as the person I

gave 1st Place to at the Show last week.

Build what you want, how you want to do it, and even if you

dont.. just enjoy the hobby in any way you see fit.

Keep on posting ModelManiac, a lot of us appreciate it. I have

spent hours looking through your massive and incredible

collection.

On another note, I am starting to see a trend towards more

critical advice and a bit more... harshness. I wonder why that

is?


Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful comments,

RonUSMC! I really appreciate them and I read them time and

again. I feel honored that you spent hours looking at my

collection. Sure I'll keep on posting for the years to come

because there are far more admirers than nay-sayers anyway.
In my MM Content-based Menu :
http://www.geocities.com/~falconbbs/modelcnt.htm" target="_blank" title="

http://www.geocities.com/~falconbbs/modelcnt.htm">

http://www.geocities.com/~falconbbs/modelcnt.htm
, I have a poem which I wrote so many years ago. It sums up my

belief about what I've been doing and it reads as follows:

In the sky, the mighty Falcon
Flies across the lost horizon;
Reaching the top of hostile sky
Creating "Model Maniac" Empire!
With fire power of all tanks' guns
With realisticity, and precision;
The world has greeted with love and joy
The power exists in all these toys!

Rounds Completed!!!

Wow, great stories!

 but I wouldn't want to be MM trying to respond to this thread!

This may be his largest thread yet.

dostacos wrote:

gentlemen, I thank you for your time in hell, ...and I am glad my Viet Nam stories are almost all second hand. I was 1A, I did not ask, they did not tell and neither of us persued became 4H, draft after women, children and small animals       actually it was the birthday lotto game, and to get me the second year they would have had to draft every birthday of 1970 then start up where they left off in 1969 until they hit my number. I had a very good friend who was drafted after he graduated from NYU in prosthetics and orthotics, they wanted to make him a rifleman it took letters from many in our field and finally a letter from the head of Walter Reed Army hospital to get him into a medical unit. He was educated and trained to make artificial legs, he was second generation in the field and they were gonna make him a rifleman, then take some guy that knew NOTHING about prosthetics and train him to fit legs, go figure

I knew of a guy who happened to be a professor of mathematics at Columbia University in New York City that was drafted into an arty unit! His hobby was racing the computor and beating it everytime there was a firing solution to be figured! There was another kid who ran away from home and then joined the Army just for something todo. His Mom and Dad were extremely rich (lived in New England), and somehow he came into a Porsche Speedster (1955 I think). It's still in the white brick garage out back if they are still alive (he was an only child from older parents). Education means nothing to a clerk trying to get thru the day (as well as who you are)

gary

gentlemen, I thank you for your time in hell, ...and I am glad my Viet Nam stories are almost all second hand. I was 1A, I did not ask, they did not tell and neither of us persued

became 4H, draft after women, children and small animals

 

 

 

actually it was the birthday lotto game, and to get me the second year they would have had to draft every birthday of 1970 then start up where they left off in 1969 until they hit my number.

I had a very good friend who was drafted after he graduated from NYU in prosthetics and orthotics, they wanted to make him a rifleman it took letters from many in our field and finally a letter from the head of Walter Reed Army hospital to get him into a medical unit. He was educated and trained to make artificial legs, he was second generation in the field and they were gonna make him a rifleman, then take some guy that knew NOTHING about prosthetics and train him to fit legs, go figure

bondoman wrote:

GA.modelmaker wrote: you wouldnt want to sell that would you been looking for that thing all over and no one has it at all. thats like i have thier 1/72 aircraft carrier deck section with blast fence. i wont be using. Somebody needs to make the revetments that the RTAFBs had, but thats another topic even more "off". Gary, You are a gem, and thats all I have to say. I'd really like to see your pics sometime, as would the rest of the guys I'm sure. Any of you folks who are so generous to share your experiences in Viet Nam get my, I would guess all of our, undivided attention and there should be something good come out of it. The CW on Viet Nam has become such cr*p at this point that the true story cuts like a knife thru the fog. Bill

When I arrived at Ft. Lewis and went thru their little customs inspection (mostly just putting a white x on each bag with a piece of chalk). The guy opened one of my bags and reached inside under some clothes, and pulled out about two hundred pictures wrapped with rubber bands. He sat them up on a counter and closed the bag. Those were the ones to die for. I had pictures taken during the longest road march in the history of that war. Blown up tracks. Lots of friends I'd met along the way. I have a faint idea or two, but will not go into it here. But even then I still have a few I mailed home (should have mailed all of them home). But what really makes me mad was I paid the clerks back in the rear to send home a package that was full of all kinds of goodies.There were several mint sterling silver NVA pistol belts and a couple pith helmets. One slight tattered Vietcong flag, and several carved teak statues. I now wonder how many other guys they did that to?

    I have seen a couple different styles of revetments used around aircraft. You'd think that somebody would make them in 1/48th or at least 1/72nd! Just to have them in 1/48th alone to do somekind of diorama in the "charging pit" (some called it "arming pit") would be neat. I wish that Tamayia would market a five ton truck and a good duce and a half. One with a winch and the right engine and transmission.

gary

bondoman wrote:

squeakie wrote:  bondoman wrote: You guys are amazing. I'm better at model railroads than anything else, and I've built a lot of corrugated metal because my era is the '30s and 40s. I would like to offer to crank out sandbags, make rusty metal or shell casings or whatever you need if an artillery dio from Vietnam were to take shape. somebody ought to make 1/35 scale sheet metal culverts, and PSP like they used in RVN (looks nothing like the steel WWII stuff) gary Perforated steel pipe? Do you have pics? I'll make it no problem.

I'm taking about the galvinized sheet metal half rounds that they make bridge culverts out of. Just like the stuff you see all over North America. Lots of folks used to use it to make small bunkers out of. They'd dig a hole in the ground, and then lay it ontop. After it was in place they'd add about two feet of sandbags on top and also cover one end of it. We used it on Melon, and also to cover our fuses and WP rounds when we could lay our hands on some. Water blivits are another important thing I've never seen in modeling. You gotta have water to drink no matter where you are. The PSP we all used was a sandwich affair that had flat plates on the outsides (I think it was aluminium with a steel center). Kind of a blue grey color. I wish I had a good picture of it.

gary

GA.modelmaker wrote:

you wouldnt want to sell that would you been looking for that thing all over and no one has it at all. thats like i have thier 1/72 aircraft carrier deck section with blast fence. i wont be using.

Somebody needs to make the revetments that the RTAFBs had, but thats another topic even more "off".

Gary, You are a gem, and thats all I have to say. I'd really like to see your pics sometime, as would the rest of the guys I'm sure.

Any of you folks who are so generous to share your experiences in Viet Nam get my, I would guess all of our, undivided attention and there should be something good come out of it.

The CW on Viet Nam has become such cr*p at this point that the true story cuts like a knife thru the fog.

Bill

squeakie wrote:

bondoman wrote: You guys are amazing. I'm better at model railroads than anything else, and I've built a lot of corrugated metal because my era is the '30s and 40s. I would like to offer to crank out sandbags, make rusty metal or shell casings or whatever you need if an artillery dio from Vietnam were to take shape. somebody ought to make 1/35 scale sheet metal culverts, and PSP like they used in RVN (looks nothing like the steel WWII stuff) gary

Perforated steel pipe? Do you have pics? I'll make it no problem.

you wouldnt want to sell that would you been looking for that thing all over and no one has it at all. thats like i have thier 1/72 aircraft carrier deck section with blast fence. i wont be using.

bondoman wrote:

You guys are amazing. I'm better at model railroads than anything else, and I've built a lot of corrugated metal because my era is the '30s and 40s. I would like to offer to crank out sandbags, make rusty metal or shell casings or whatever you need if an artillery dio from Vietnam were to take shape.

I have that very old Verlinden one-piece resin HUGE casting of a Vietnam artillery emplacement (mortar, I think) that I am not using---talk about a lot of sandbags!!!!!

A former co-worker of mine would tell his tales of his two tours in 'Nam. The mentioning of the claymores brings one to mind. He stated that they usually painted then side facing themselves white as the NVA and Cong would reverse them giving our boys a nasty surprise. One night the word came down not to send out men to reverse the claymores back. They expected a large attack that night and prepared for it. As soon as the NVA passed by the claymores, everything went off. The trick of reversing the claymores backfired (litteraly) on the NVA as they were facing concentrated small arms fire from the front and the claymores blasting with frag at them from their rear. Their attack brokedown rapidly.

Mike T.

bondoman wrote:

You guys are amazing. I'm better at model railroads than anything else, and I've built a lot of corrugated metal because my era is the '30s and 40s. I would like to offer to crank out sandbags, make rusty metal or shell casings or whatever you need if an artillery dio from Vietnam were to take shape.

somebody ought to make 1/35 scale sheet metal culverts, and PSP like they used in RVN (looks nothing like the steel WWII stuff)

gary

Duke Maddog wrote:

squeakie wrote: I should write a book about some of the adventures and miss adventures we went thru. It would be about as funny as the movie MASH ( I was the guy who nailed the door shut on the E-5 and above four holer). I could devote a complete chapter to great rat adventures alone! (do you know how many dead rats can be fired out of a 155 barrel?) Life's not all bad you know. gary   Please do!! I can't get enough of these kind of stories!! I have been loving reading all these stories here and I'm ready to copy and paste all of them on a Word doc just to have them to read over and over!

My First Sargent was smarter than 80% of the unit all put together (for real). You couldn't put nothing over on him no matter how well you did it. I remember one night our bunker took either a 4.5 mortar round or a 122 (been awhile), and busted all the timbers we had in the roof. The FDC guys had a telephone pole laying on the ground right outside their under ground bunker for a project they had in mind. Somebody stole that telephone pole in the middle of the night, and cut it up to re-enforce the roof of the bunker. It wasn't even missed for a couple days. Well they had another skycrane fly another one out (took an act of congress to get that done). About a week or so later here it came, and the First Sargent dropped by to ask us to leave that one alone! He was a good man, but knew too much. But still he didn't think the great rat incident was all that funny, and dropped by to say nothing more than "no more rats!" No sense of humor at all!! Sometime in the future I'll fill you in on the details (rather candidly of course) cause nothing in the movie MASH would even come close. And then there was the great Sargent Major incident. Now that guy really had no sense of humor!! (actually there were three or four involving him that finally led to everybody but the CO and First Sargent being banned from the batallion area. You see it wasn't all that bad if you could laugh about it.

gary

redleg12 wrote:

squeakie - You and I keep trading primers....OK, question....did you have Dusters or Quad 50 on the flaks for cover???? The big guns usaully had Dusters with them, was wondering how they protected the "pigs". I have an M110 on the shelf and have been putting the items togeather to build the dugout with corragated steel coverd ammo pits on either side. I do casting. When you are ready, drop me a PM. Rounds Complete!!

Up on LZ West there was a land mounted quad fifty right next to us, plus two 106 recoiless rifles about a hundred yards up the hill from us. Otherwise you were own your own. I hated the quad fifty as it was a grenade magnet! On Gator we really didn't have much of anything but some basic automatic weapons and maybe three mortar tubes. But then again it was a pretty quiet place till we got back to work. Hill 54 was another story, as there was always somebody trying to prove he was king of the hill. Still it was mostly mortar tubes and several fiftys. Out in the Que Son Valley (what a lovely place) you were mostly on your own again. Usually had an infantry platoon spend the night,but not always. Melon was even worse yet. There were about 50 or 60 Mountengards and a half dozen Green Berets to help hold off three or four NVA regiments (they had no sense of humor about us squatting on the Lao border). Thien Phouc was pretty much "you figure it out". We did have a 106 recoiless and a bunch of beehive rounds in cases nearby. Plus several nicely placed fiftys, and a couple 57mm recoiless rifles shooting HE and WP. That and two 82mm mortars and a really nice 4.5" one. All were dug in deep in pits that looked like a soup bowl. I never was around a Duster, but think maybe I did see one once with the 17th CAV (or maybe 1st of the 1st). The CAV units rarely dropped by as the end of their AO was about four or five miles east of us. We had no infantry close by, but had plenty of "Strykers". Still Thien Phouc was about the biggest mine field I've ever seen (and may well the the biggest we all will ever know of). There were thousands of them backed up with foo gas in many rows. Only tobe backed up with several hundred claymores that were booby trapped (SF guys are a very serious bunch). Some of the SF camps I was in also had listening posts ontop of stragic points. Most of the time they are known by an "O.P." prefix to a number (as in O.P. 88). Kam Duc was just about the very worst place in the world to ever spend the night. No one ever slept there (I don't think the other guys were all that impressed with their presence as well), and a typical day was at least two hundred mortar rounds (mostly 82mm) by sunset, and who only knows how many zillion after dark. It was an insomniac's delight! I always wondered how that got that many rounds down the "trail." Ashaw was another lovely vacation spot, but actually never stepped foot in that valley. We were part of two different reaction teams, but just never got the call (thank you). The worst place I was ever at for keeping your face in the dirt was in downtown Quang Ngai hooked up with a company from the 101st (really needed a regiment). There was no place to hide your precious little body when the 122's came to call, and you could count on at least one good sized ground attack daily. (I never did like the folks in that town you know). More than once we shot a combo of HE and WP using 1.5 seconds on 565 fuses just to get their attention. That's where I first saw a Sheridan tank unite the other guys with a beehive (talk about quiet times after that). dragon & Liz always had an infantry company on them from the 196th (usually 4/31st). Dottie had M109's and my unit for awhile. There were some gunships close by, as well as another platoon from the 4/31st. Hated that place like no other place on this planet. But it was fun blowing sampans (use an hour glass to watch the sticks of wood fall from the sky). That's most of the bigger places I was at, but there were a few small rinky dink places that were mostly nameless

     Normally an M110 unit would be surrounded with an infantry platoon (they rotated them every three or four days). These guys would have motars setup close by as well as the usual machine guns. The ones north of us often had 105's intermixed with M110's. Those open topped SP's can be death traps with well placed small arms fire, and that's why most of them were dug in with a flash shield all around them. Normally rounds were brought to them via a five ton truck, and just rolled off the back (don't do this with WP or an illumination round). Hard work being on an 8" SP!! Remember that the SP needs a big wooden platform to set it ontop of. The platform is level, and will have a lot of black rubber marks on it from doing a power shift of the tracks. (track mechanic's nightmare). The pads will be chewed up. Also have plenty of blocking between the spade and the base walls of the parapit. M107's were kinda like an outcast; as nobody really wanted to be close by when they were shooting. I think I've only seen a couple 175's in parapits.

I never reallized that I'd covered so many square miles till I sat down and thought it thru. Aerial burst HE and WP were our way of saying "I don't have to put my face in the mud anymore!" But they had a way of getting under the umbrella, and then it was claymores and M60's.

gary

squeakie wrote:

I should write a book about some of the adventures and miss adventures we went thru. It would be about as funny as the movie MASH ( I was the guy who nailed the door shut on the E-5 and above four holer). I could devote a complete chapter to great rat adventures alone! (do you know how many dead rats can be fired out of a 155 barrel?) Life's not all bad you know. gary

 

Please do!! I can't get enough of these kind of stories!! I have been loving reading all these stories here and I'm ready to copy and paste all of them on a Word doc just to have them to read over and over!

Amen Rob.

Save the judging for the contests.

I say if you want to gun someone down take it to another site.

On the other hand I beleive in honest opinion in what people see.

I guess some opinions are bigger than others.

I'm in and I'll do dirt if that's what it takes.

bondoman wrote:

You guys are amazing. I'm better at model railroads than anything else, and I've built a lot of corrugated metal because my era is the '30s and 40s. I would like to offer to crank out sandbags, make rusty metal or shell casings or whatever you need if an artillery dio from Vietnam were to take shape.

now that would be an interesting group build, one diorama with many different builders

You guys are amazing. I'm better at model railroads than anything else, and I've built a lot of corrugated metal because my era is the '30s and 40s.

I would like to offer to crank out sandbags, make rusty metal or shell casings or whatever you need if an artillery dio from Vietnam were to take shape.

squeakie -

You and I keep trading primers....OK, question....did you have Dusters or Quad 50 on the flaks for cover????

The big guns usaully had Dusters with them, was wondering how they protected the "pigs".

I have an M110 on the shelf and have been putting the items togeather to build the dugout with corragated steel coverd ammo pits on either side.

I do casting. When you are ready, drop me a PM.

Rounds Complete!!

Man, did you guys hijack this forum or what? But great stuff, and maybe Art Instructor is taking notes...

Mansteins revenge wrote:

squeakie wrote:  redleg12 wrote: For H&I missions, take a C-Rat lid, cut it in half, wedge on each side of the fuse as you screw it into the projo.(or flod in half and use a shear to cut the center out then open) Make it somewhat even to balance the round going down range ....That bugger screams like hell going in. Yep....been there, done that! Its also a great alarm clock in the morning!!! (Good morning...now go clean your pants) Makes a 105mm round sound like a 16" at danger close!! Rounds Complete!! we always used that little black can that a 565 fuse came in. It has a little lip on one end that will seat under a PD fuse, and also aligns itself. But later we found that every once in awhile the rounds would tumble on the way down. Just step on the cat's tail, and you know what the music sounds like.     The unit I first went with was a first strike outfit out of Bragg, and these guys were good (as in really good). First thing I noticed when I went inside their bunker was all the cases of beer (must have been two hundred cases!!). It was stacked to the cieling everywhere, and even outside under a tarp! It turns out that these sections used to race thru one round zone sweeps for a case of beer, and they had only been beat once because they blew the recoil cylinders. The first one I saw them do, the guys on the other end called a checkfire after they were about seven or eight rounds into it. Can still hear them on the radios telling them they had about forty five more rounds in the air and they best dig alittle deeper really fast. These guys would do nine rounds in about a minute and ten seconds; with time of flight being about a minute and twenty seconds. Last I heard (about ten years ago) those guys still held the U.S. Army hip shoot record at three minutes and forty nine seconds.     I doubt we shot five hundred rounds in the whole time I was over there after about six in the morning. Never was that lucky. We always worked the graveyard shift. Shoot from about eleven till about five in the morning or first light. Seemed like if it were in daylight hours they only wanted one howitzer, and that was always the base piece (good for them)      a 155 round is just one good way of getting your undivided attention gary Great story there...sounds like a dio possibility...

The real problem with doing a towed 155 howitzer is that nobody makes (or made) a good kit. I have the Testors kit, and it's not even close. But they did get the jack plate right (that's about all though). If your looking at a WWII or even a Korean war pig; then you got problems. The carriage is slightly different, and the jack plate affair is a completely different animal.

    If you had the howitzer built like a WWII or Korean a diorama would be much easier as they were usually just setup for a day or so, and then bugged out. In Vietnam they used a parapit, and had the ability to shoot a full 360 degrees. The piece rotated on a jackstand affair in the middle of the carriage (but at least the basic pig starts out somewhat in the right direction). The real headache in doing the diorama is building the parapit and all the ammo & powder bunkers. Some rounds are never ever stored close to another, and then you got the place to store fuses and primers. A typical 155 that was way out in the field would normally have close to five hundred rounds of HE stored alone, and maybe another forty rounds of WP plus about fifty or sixty illumination rounds. Then ontop of that there was another seperate little place they stored the Cofram rounds (cluster rounds). A 105 would be similar, and the SP parapits I've been around (usually M109's & 8") are similar as well but laid out different. 175's usually were just dug in out in the open, but not always. I've seen a couple units actually use parapits. And to top all this off the art of building sandbags would then become a chore! Your gonna need at least two hundred powder canisters (really closer to four hundred) for the bunker, and maybe twice that for the flash wall and "P.tubes" and markers. It's a lot of work!

    Every battallion had what was nicnamed a "jump battery." These guys moved around a lot (rarely more than three weeks at one place). I was lucky as I was never in one. The jump battery was always filled with prime people (they had tobe). I was in the one that did all the full scale operations, and sometimes we'd divide up into two three gun units (I have seen three two gun units a couple times). Often when we went on one of those outtings we would hit one place and stay a couple weeks then maybe move five miles further out to get within a mile or two of where the infantry was working (we never stayed more than three miles out from them). If that didn't pan out we'd then split (still working out of one FDC), but if it went to three groups we'd have to raid the Battallion FDC for more warm bodies. I've seen them actually snatch bodies from the Divisional FDC for a really major operation (that happens when your shooting in two or three different directions at the same time.

    During Tet in 1968 we rarely had six guns up all the time. They were always rebuilding the recoil systems or replacing a breech on one gun (takes about five hours tops). SP units also had to deal with the  drive train as well. (at least it was starting to dry up by then) During the monsoon season we always had trouble getting ammo to the guns. If they were shooting a lot the choppers couldn't get the ammo loads close to the guns (never got them all that close anyway). Always kept one five ton loaded with filled sand bags at one end of the unit to help winch another five ton thru the mud. When that failed then it looked like a column of ants carrying 98lb. rounds and powder thru the mud. I've seen Majors in the column as well as privates cause no matter what the infantry squad on the other end depended on you to keep the little guys off their tails.

    Yes there's a lot of neat ideas for dioramas, but they're gonna take some serious work to make them right. If I can help you design and build a parapit please let me know. I do have a handfull of photos. Down the road I may build one if and when I learn the reisin casting processes. The parapit itself is easy!

gary

squeakie wrote:

redleg12 wrote: For H&I missions, take a C-Rat lid, cut it in half, wedge on each side of the fuse as you screw it into the projo.(or flod in half and use a shear to cut the center out then open) Make it somewhat even to balance the round going down range ....That bugger screams like hell going in. Yep....been there, done that! Its also a great alarm clock in the morning!!! (Good morning...now go clean your pants) Makes a 105mm round sound like a 16" at danger close!! Rounds Complete!! we always used that little black can that a 565 fuse came in. It has a little lip on one end that will seat under a PD fuse, and also aligns itself. But later we found that every once in awhile the rounds would tumble on the way down. Just step on the cat's tail, and you know what the music sounds like.     The unit I first went with was a first strike outfit out of Bragg, and these guys were good (as in really good). First thing I noticed when I went inside their bunker was all the cases of beer (must have been two hundred cases!!). It was stacked to the cieling everywhere, and even outside under a tarp! It turns out that these sections used to race thru one round zone sweeps for a case of beer, and they had only been beat once because they blew the recoil cylinders. The first one I saw them do, the guys on the other end called a checkfire after they were about seven or eight rounds into it. Can still hear them on the radios telling them they had about forty five more rounds in the air and they best dig alittle deeper really fast. These guys would do nine rounds in about a minute and ten seconds; with time of flight being about a minute and twenty seconds. Last I heard (about ten years ago) those guys still held the U.S. Army hip shoot record at three minutes and forty nine seconds.     I doubt we shot five hundred rounds in the whole time I was over there after about six in the morning. Never was that lucky. We always worked the graveyard shift. Shoot from about eleven till about five in the morning or first light. Seemed like if it were in daylight hours they only wanted one howitzer, and that was always the base piece (good for them)      a 155 round is just one good way of getting your undivided attention gary

Great story there...sounds like a dio possibility...

redleg12 wrote:

Rob Gronovius wrote:  GA.modelmaker wrote: thanks for that info heavyarty. was the m-110a1 or the m-110a2 ever used in a cold climate were they my have gotten some snow? I remember seeing crews looking like they were freezing to death during wintertime in Germany. Although there was a canvas cold weather cover available, I saw them riding the track out in the snow and ice without it. Nasty stuff. The canvas many times is more of a pain than it is worth. As for nasty....its more like NASTY  Long underware, uniform, winter weather gear, hard to move around, standing on cold steel the feet are freezing and the wind just goes thru you.....but it wasn't a job...it was an adventure....Hummm wrong service. All artillery in the cold is tough. Big equipment, frozen ground, and somewhat out in the elements staying at one position. Hydraulics don't work well, vehicles are cold. The main highlight (except if you had hot chow) would be the powder burn at the end of firing. If you had cold soup or coffee you would put the powder around it (the mermite cans) and it would be boiling after the powder burn. The huddled mass would warm up from the fire. Then enough warm coffee before a cold night sleep!! Brrrrr Rounds Complete!! Rounds Complete!!

I guess I was really lucky! The coldest I've ever been on a crew was in the high fortys <g>!! But I do remember rolling down Ft. Sill Blvd. on an M110 running wide open with the governors removed.

gary

thanks for that info rob and redleg. my m-107 is all done but i will not be able to take pice until late sunday evening. as for the m-110 it will be done by wed. so be on the look out for this one y'all have given me some neat ideas on how to weather this one. thanks rob.

Rob Gronovius wrote:

GA.modelmaker wrote: thanks for that info heavyarty. was the m-110a1 or the m-110a2 ever used in a cold climate were they my have gotten some snow? I remember seeing crews looking like they were freezing to death during wintertime in Germany. Although there was a canvas cold weather cover available, I saw them riding the track out in the snow and ice without it. Nasty stuff.

The canvas many times is more of a pain than it is worth. As for nasty....its more like NASTY 

Long underware, uniform, winter weather gear, hard to move around, standing on cold steel the feet are freezing and the wind just goes thru you.....but it wasn't a job...it was an adventure....Hummm wrong service.

All artillery in the cold is tough. Big equipment, frozen ground, and somewhat out in the elements staying at one position. Hydraulics don't work well, vehicles are cold.

The main highlight (except if you had hot chow) would be the powder burn at the end of firing. If you had cold soup or coffee you would put the powder around it (the mermite cans) and it would be boiling after the powder burn. The huddled mass would warm up from the fire. Then enough warm coffee before a cold night sleep!!

Brrrrr

Rounds Complete!!

Rounds Complete!!

When I see a thread like this, it makes me kind of sad.

There is absolutely no reason that someone should be harassed because they are showing models. Its a hobby, some can do it, some can enjoy it, some cannot do it. Its really just something that someone is interested in and showing their prized possessions. In reality, who are any of us to judge what is good or what is bad or what someone deserves to show or not. Let's all really just take a step back and thank ModelManiac for showing off his models and let him enjoy himself however he wants.

I also want to remind people, that there are some people in the world that are physically incapable of building models due to disabilities or handicaps. Do we throw stones at them as well? No. They are as much a part of this community as the person I gave 1st Place to at the Show last week.

Build what you want, how you want to do it, and even if you dont.. just enjoy the hobby in any way you see fit. 

Keep on posting ModelManiac, a lot of us appreciate it. I have spent hours looking through your massive and incredible collection.

On another note, I am starting to see a trend towards more critical advice and a bit more... harshness. I wonder why that is? 

GA.modelmaker wrote:

thanks for that info heavyarty. was the m-110a1 or the m-110a2 ever used in a cold climate were they my have gotten some snow?

I remember seeing crews looking like they were freezing to death during wintertime in Germany. Although there was a canvas cold weather cover available, I saw them riding the track out in the snow and ice without it. Nasty stuff.