Have you ever read the book "Team Yankee" by Harold Coyle? If not, I highly recommend it. The scene is set in Germany, the mid 1980s. War has broken out in Europe with the Soviets and Warsaw Pact attacking west. Everything that rolls and shoots is being thrown into the battle. The M-1 Abrams and the M-2 Bradley are living up to their reputations but there just isn't enough to go around. Meanwhile, an Arizona National Guard tank unit has arrived with the equipment they were issued long ago. How such a ill equipped unit got shipped to Europe at all was a question that would have to wait until the war was over to answer. Even with the outcome of the war in doubt, their M-48s with the 90mm guns are deemed unsuitable for combat. Even if the gun was effective, these tanks had no night vision gear at all. At least the dry Arizona climate had helped preserve these vehicles in good running condition. At the base where these tanks are held a damaged M-2 is brought in and dropped off for repair or salvage for parts. The hull is damaged and the engine is wreckage. Somehow the turret is in serviceable shape. Someone notices a badly needed weapon system in need of a capable hull and tank hulls burdened by obsolete turrets. Out come the torches, welders, and spare parts. The turret ring is cut from the wrecked M-2 and aluminum slabs are cut from busted M-113s. A rough box is welded together to give room for the Bradley turret in the comparatively shallow M-48 hull. Borrowing an old trick from WWII pieces of track are used for extra armor. A box is built to hold additional TOW rounds. A "luggage rack" is thrown together to hold all the stuff that would otherwise hang from the sides of the vehicle. Stealing an idea from the M-1s side skirts are installed on the sides. "If its good enough for an Abrams, its good enough for us" is the slogan. While the M-2 turret is left in forest green, the box is painted old OD found in the shops. Someone suggests a little MERDC treatment would be good, at least for friend or foe ID. At the last minute an American flag is added to the turret sides for a little extra vehicle ID.
Our "Frankentank" takes to the field with a mech unit that has only M-113s and a few M-60s. At first the CO insists Patton/Bradley stay with the M-113s as a little extra security. When an enemy unit performs a night flanking attack and is ready to cut the M-113s to ribbons they get a supprise of accurate 25mm fire and TOW rounds they did not expect. The M-60s get into the fray when the 25mm fire hits a tank and sparks fly, they follow up with a 105 round that finishes the job. With their BMPs shot up and several T-62s burning this unit withdraws.
I started this project so long ago I don't remember how long this has been on my work desk. Its the Academy M-2 kit and the Tamiya M-48. With the Tamiya kit there is numerous holes to fill as it was molded to be motorized. There is a good description at this website.
http://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/M48/m48-construction.htmlThere is a complaint that this kit sits too high. Well, I thought this would work out as the M-2 turret would be much lighter than a tank turret. The Bradley turret was built OOB but with a few mods as described in Vodniks website,
http://vodnik.net/. Next was building the box and the side skirts. I found some photos of Korean M-48s with side skirts and the MERDC pattern and just went with that. The biggest problem I had was painting. The M-48 hull was painted with what I thought was olive drab. It turned out more brown. The turret was hand painted with I thought was forest green. It was not. Model Master names don't match well with the actual FS number. So it got painted again. A total of four coats by the time I tried to get even coverage of the two colors. It got to the point that the detail was starting to disappear. After glosscoat, decals, and dullcoat the colors all changes anyway. Blame it all on a war time rush to get a fighting vehicle back out ton the field.
Enough talk, here's some pics.
