M41 Assault Gun

[ChalkLine]

Kerick, are you in Australia? I have a M27 TOW cupola for a LAV-TOW I could send over.

[Claymore]

Great concept and beautiful work. Bravo Sir! 

[Kerick]

Jeff
Ok I think I get it. I’ll start some impromptu engineering and see what happens.

Kerick, are you in Australia? I have a M27 TOW cupola for a LAV-TOW I could send over.

Sorry, I’m in the US. Chicago area. But that would be interesting.

[Kerick]

I’ve added armor plates to the front and fiddly bits to the sides and back end. Not much else going on except Christmas prep. Friday I’m going to the aircraft restoration company I went to last year. They have an F4U Corsair taken apart right now so that will be interesting. I’m sure some other stuff in pieces around the shop. I’ll take lots of pics.

[Kerick]

Here's a few pics of the latest progress. Welded on front armor, lights, searchlight, gun barrel, lifting hooks on the back, need some for the front. And drill out the vision ports on the cupola so I can fill them with UV resin. I have some violet paint that might look good painted inside of the ports. I was going to mount a .30 cal MG in front of the loaders hatch but now the searchlight looks to be in the way.
I think I will pass on the TOW box on this build. I still have the shortened hull to deal with. TOW might work well for that.

[finsrin]

Is so gooood so far 

[Kerick]

Thanks!
I'm going to have to think about paint pretty soon at this rate! Road wheels first.

[GTX_Admin]

Coming along nicely.

[Buzzbomb]

Looking very nice

[Frank3k]

That's quite the change from the original M-41. Looks very impressive.

[robunos]

Looking good so far . . .
I'm still not sold on that cupola (but what do I know . . . ), but I'm in agreement about putting the TOW launcher on the smaller vehicle, you could call it, I dunno, the Weasel ?


cheers,
Robin.

[raafif]

So what if the search-light is in the way a bit , the cupola works for me

[apophenia]

Yep, the cupola works for me too (and kind of obviates the need for a loader's MG, anyway). And I too concur on the TOW launcher - moving it to the 'shortie' M41 is an excellent idea. 

[Kerick]

If I paired them up I could call them the Weasel and the Badger.
I need to find some grenade launchers.

[Claymore]

Some very sharp styrene work there - looking great! 

[Jeffry Fontaine]

If I paired them up I could call them the Weasel and the Badger.
I need to find some grenade launchers.

So "Moose and Squirrel" was not an option? 

[Kerick]

That might make good names for the individual vehicles! Assuming they act as partners on the battlefield!

[apophenia]

Badger, Weasel, Moose, Squirrel ... ?  These are starting to sound like Canadian Army armour names 

[robunos]

I chose 'weasel' as a play on the Bundeswehr's Wiesel 1A2 TOW carrier,

http://tank-masters.de/?page_id=4950


cheers,
Robin.

[Kerick]

Badger, Weasel, Moose, Squirrel ... ?  These are starting to sound like Canadian Army armour names 

Now that’s an idea!

I chose 'weasel' as a play on the Bundeswehr's Wiesel 1A2 TOW carrier,

http://tank-masters.de/?page_id=4950

cheers,
Robin.

And a good one too! Canadian could happen. 

[Kerick]

Not much to show tonight. I got the road wheels and drive sprocket cut out, cleaned up and put together.  I’m looking for some US style smoke grenade launchers. I’ve been searching the web but no luck. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. If nothing else I could try some real two part casting. There’s a couple of other parts I would like to have a few more of. I would copy a couple of road wheels for spares and some radio antenna parts. The kit gives you these short stumpy things. Then time for a paint scheme. I’m thinking OD or the usual MERDC pattern.

[Kerick]

A small update. I've added some details to the front. I replicated the lifting rings with a couple of jewelry rings from some old necklace. They're not real silver. I fastened them in place with some UV resin hoping it will look like weld.





Compared to the real thing. I photographed this vehicle on display in front of a VFW hall. I might try to make the fender supports from brass.



A pile of road wheels. Twelve plus the idlers.



I made two spare road wheels from parts from another kit I bought at HL. I'll need it for a few parts for other things.



I've collected a few spare bolt heads. The dark brown is train parts, tan is from Academy's Bradley, the OD I don't know and the dark green says M-10 on it.



I don't know if bolts for the add on armor would be appropriate for a mid 1980s time frame or not. I'm thinking not likely, probably just welded on.

I'm undecided on a paint scheme. No surprise there! OD green, MERDC four color or NATO three color. I could make a case for each in the backstory. Considering Denmark upgraded theirs in the mid 80s and used a black and green camo that could work too.

[apophenia]

...
I don't know if bolts for the add on armor would be appropriate for a mid 1980s time frame or not. I'm thinking not likely, probably just welded on.
...

Ken: Bolted applique armour was used on the RakJPz 2-to-Raketenjagdpanzer Jaguar 1 conversions starting in 1978.

(OT: Does anyone else recall a term something like 'gummipanzer' for those perforated armour plates backed by rubber sheet?)

[Kerick]

...
I don't know if bolts for the add on armor would be appropriate for a mid 1980s time frame or not. I'm thinking not likely, probably just welded on.
...

Ken: Bolted applique armour was used on the RakJPz 2-to-Raketenjagdpanzer Jaguar 1 conversions starting in 1978.

(OT: Does anyone else recall a term something like 'gummipanzer' for those perforated armour plates backed by rubber sheet?)

I wasn’t sure. The bolts would add nice visual interest to the front of the hull.

[Kerick]

I drilled out the three vision blocks on the cupola. Now I have to figure out what to do with the ones on the riser. They are trapezoid’s instead of rounded on the ends like the cupola. Time to look for pictures.