M48A3 continued

 So here is the story so far.

The M48A3 has gained a mascot, a TTCombat teddy bear. It has also had some additional armour in the form of track attached to the turret.

It has also gained a bandoleer of water bottles hung on one of the aerial posts (and the three aerials). Note also the deflector for the cupola machine gun to prevent it hitting the searchlight (the teddy bear has no such protection).

Note where I have badly replaced the left rear mudguard, this will be tidied with some Milliput.

Now to add some additional stowage on the engine deck and tidy up the jerry cans.

More on the M48A3

 This is a better shot of the heating exhaust (and the second hole that needs filling.

Test placement of a set of track links on the right hand turret size.

And on the left hand side of the turret.

As you can see, the left hand side should take the supplied track links without fouling the hull.

Some additional stowage.

Empress M48A3 Patton MBT

 Some more WIP shots of the Empress M48A3

Empress M48A3 Patton MBT - further Work In (glacial) Progress

 Continuing the work on the Empress M48A3.

One thing that has been pointed out is the main gun travel lock projects over the back of the hull, for moulding reasons the model has the lock slightly shorter.

So to make a new gun cradle, I took a length of 1mm brass rod and using a specialist set of pliers (business end shown below) bent the end into a loop.

The end after the loop will be given a 90 degree bend and a suitable hole drilled into the travel lock.

The power cable for the searchlight has been shaped and inserted into the hole in the turret roof and the back of the searchlight.

Holes for the three aerials have also been drilled into the roof.

The aerials will be cut from 1mm brass rod and bases made of 2mm plastic tube.

Empress M48A3 Patton MBT - Work In (glacial) Progress

 So it has been a while, but "what with one thing and the other", the effect of gravity on resin structures, and other things getting in the way, not much much progress.

There is a good photograph of a Vietnam era M48A3 in the Osprey New Vanguard book showing rows of machine gun ammo boxes on the mud guards.

I found some of Crooked Dice's small ammo boxes - they are a bit big, but they are all I had to hand.

They are tucked in behind the Empress small crate (ration packs?). Some additional jerry cans are to be added to the rear mud guard. One of the ACAV jerry cans will be borrowed to fit a jerry can in a holder to the turret side.

This is one of those really embarrassing shots (not that type). I spent all of yesterday trying to work out what that hole in the roof was for. The structure to the right is one of the aerial bases, so it is not the hole to fit an aerial.

And then I re-read a post about detailing the Empress M48, and it mentions the searchlight power cable.

The hole in the top of the searchlight a) should have been a hit, and b) is in the wrong place... The power cable goes into the back of the searchlight (I suspect the drawing of the M48A5 in Cold War Armoured Fighting Vehicles by George Bradford confused me - there is a rib that runs along the top of the searchlight that is in line with the power cable).

A couple of shots of the railing on the turret sides.

The railing is brass rod, bent to fit. The supports are plastic rod inserted into quite long holes in the turret side. The railing is glued in place, and the the plastic rods are teased back out until they contact the main railing then liquid poly is flooded over them, bonding them to the holes in the turret and the rail.

Three quarters view.

The Battle of Hue 1968

 Osprey have just published The battle of Hue 1968 in their Campaign series.

This will add some more detail to the Tet Offensive book from the 'nineties.

I must list all my Vietnam source books, here is another one I picked up at SELWG.

"An Army I do not need for a War I am not interested in..."

Empress have recently released their first two infantry packs for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

So amongst my order I added the two packs and the existing crew pack. As I thought they could do with some wheels, I could have gone for an ARVN M113, but decided that another V100 would suit my current terrain better.

Now just got to start building them.

Empress M151 Ford Mutt

 I ordered the M151 Ford Mutt from Empress soon after it came out, but had not got round to starting it.

This is the contents of the kit (I also ordered the crew set for it).

The kit is all white metal, the body is a lovely clean moulding requiring minimal clean up

It comes with a full set of weapons (clockwork grenade launcher, M2, .30 and M60), a trailer and some stowage.

Unlike the M422 Mighty Mite, the seats are integral.

I need to clean up the back of the seats a bit.

I now have top decide how much (if any) soft stowage to add.

Points Of Interest markers

 As mentioned previously, I am using the Points Of Interest concept from the Zona Alfa expansion for solo gaming in Vietnam. The Points of Interest need markers on the board, and I thought that single fuel drums would be suitably subtle.

The drums are a mix of Debris of War (as used previously here), Crooked Dice and Tamiya 1/48 scale (you might be able to identify the Tamiya one from the the lettering on the lid).

To make them stand out a bit, they have numbers though in general use the numbers are not significant (POI events are generally drawn randomly from a card stack). Warlord German White turret numbers were of a suitable size.

This US Marine will have an eventful life being within three inches of a number of POIs (POIs should be at least six inches apart).

The Sniper! event card was drawn.

Sniper! Figure for a POI Event Card

I am working on a solo game using the Zona Alfa rules and the Empress Vietnam (and French Indochina) figures. The Point Of Interest system provides objectives and a degree of randomness suitable for Solo or cooperative play. The cards for Zona Alfa are fine for a post-apocalyptic environment, but lack the flavour of the Vietnam War setting.

Most of the cards are just "re-skins" of existing cards, but one of the scenes from Full Metal Jacket that stuck in my mind was the sniper. So there had to be a sniper figure (I will need a few more later). 

Currently Empress do not do any sniper figures for NVA or VC (other ranges are available, but are at a completely different scale/style/stature).

So I looked through the figures I had and selected the kneeling figure with an SKS carbine. Now a carbine firing an intermediate cartridge is not really the right sort of weapon for a sniper, needs must.

To make the sniper obvious, he needed a 'scope. The Anvil Industries Phase Rifle sprue used to come with a 'scope (now you would have to buy the weapon accessories sprue), so that was added to the SKS after removing the rear sight.

So there he is, one sniper.