Empress M76 Otter Amphibious Cargo Carrier

The M76 Otter Amphibious Cargo Carrier was the replacement for the WW2 M29 Weasel.
Unlike the Weasel, the Otter was fully enclosed. It served with the US Marine Corp and was used in the Vietnam War.

 The Empress model is a combination of the now familiar white resin and white metal detail parts.

It comes with a ring mount and M2 heavy machine gun and M18 hand cranked grenade launcher (to the right of the ring mount in the photograph below)..

Assembly was fine, I did not attach the water propellor as I left the tracks off to make (spray) painting easier. It is important to check for air bubbles, I missed one on a wheel. There is also a rather prominent feed gate on the bow/nose of the vehicle, which is a bit obvious in the photograph below. I am going have another go at removing that, but it is rather close to the rivet detail. I also managed to break the starboard headlight off after spray painting.

 The registration number is from Rubicon's Jeep kit (I used two sets of transfers, the two from one set, unmodified either side of the bow and one split into USMC and the number and placed one above the other to the left of the rear door). The number is incorrect for the vehicle (and probably too large).

I added a rolled tarp in front of the roof hatch to reinforce the ring mount.

The roof hatch had to be cut down slightly to fit in the opening.

If I build another, I will probably add some more stowage behind the hatch.