Wednesday 2 September 2015

Making M-113s Part One

I've been quite busy making a variety of bits of pieces of late, but have been rather slack in actually posting anything. A while back, I started work on some cardboard M-113s  (click here if you want to know more)

A mixture of Bravo Team ready mades (at rear), Esci (unpainted front left), and cardboard model M-113s

The Esci kit was missing a few key pieces that I replaced using the usual methods of bodging out of plastic card, or finding something about right in the bits box.


One of those road wheels is not like the others.....
A wheel and tire from a jeep or light truck is given a outer ring of plastic card in order to make a new road wheel.

The green hatch is a spare from the Airfix M-113 Fire Support Vehicle kit.
I still have three more of the Esci kits to build, and I plan to build them as the straight APC version without any additional stowage. With the cardboard models, I have tried to add clutter and stowage to the vehicles in order to try and disguise any shortcomings in the models, and to see if I could pass them off as vehicles used by support elements, rather than teeth elements, while still maintaining flexibility to use them as such as needed.


Esci vs. Cardboard.

I don't think I have really succeeded in doing this - at best I have made three M-113s that have a certain air of clutter to them. I suspect I need to put more stowage on them, and/or items of auxiliary equipment that will earmark the vehicle into a support role.


Needs more stowage.....
And the tracks aren't quite right....
I could have put more effort into the rear doors, but I figured this was good enough...


On the cardboard front I have benefited from the generosity of Paul from Plastic Warriors sending me three rather nice scratch-built APCs (click here for details)


Esci vs Cardboard part II.
Now for my purposes, these M-113s from Paul being a little large is not a problem, as an imagination background allows for the creation of plausible back stories that can explain away a number of sins.

The fact that there existed earlier APCs, such as the M-75 and the M-44 (click here for details). that were somewhat larger than the M-113, makes it easier to declare these to be a hitherto unknown vehicle of a similar ilk.

Spot the Esci!
That, or field them in force with no other M-113s!

6 comments:

  1. Looking good Brian. I like the wheel idea mate.

    My standby for fleshing out stuff is camo nets. It hides a multitude of sins.

    Nice one.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Paul,
      I think camo nets might be the way forward with these, and thanks again for the APCs. Aaron may be heading your way at the end of the month, but if he isn't I may use the services of NZ Post. I shall (if you forgive the obvious pun) keep you posted:)

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  2. Loving the APCs! This is the guy looking to snag a few rancors, by the way, dropping that line.
    Cheers,
    Dale

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    Replies
    1. Hi Dale,
      The ones I have to trade/sell look like this:
      https://boardgamegeek.com/image/1080863/risk-star-wars-original-trilogy-edition

      Is that what you would be interested in? and how many are you after?

      If it is send me an email at [brian]joe@iwantspam[reeducation].nospam[co.nz].com

      My address is in the square brackets, the rest is detail to hopefully prevent spam.....

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  3. You know I really do like the scratch builds, and you can always say they were a locally produced copy....)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They do have a lot of character, and I suspect that I might yet just use the local pattern excuse as the backstory.

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