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M4 High Speed Tractor and 155mm Long Tom

Triet Do writes: "Why I made this combination? If you search on Amorama Features you will find a similar idea of Dung Lam Quoc, he made a combination of HB M4 HST and AFV Club M115 203 mm towed howitzer. When I saw them in real life, I was impressed very much about the idea and how beautiful these two kits get together.

So I decided to make something like that, and searched for these kits. I could not find the M115, but instead I found the M59 Long Tom with a very high price at that time, and then I found and bought M4 HST, but could not complete them at that time due to heavy workload, life events...

There are two Hobby Boss M4 HST kits, one with 155mm/8-inc./240mm will give you a crane at the back of shell box, you have option to built two shell rack and two 155mm shell (but it's very ugly), and the one with 3in/90mm will give you a tarp to cover the shell box, and you can't pose it with the crane.

One plus of M4 HST kit is the Waukesha 145GZ OHV I6 gasoline engine 210 hp, it very easy to assemble and will be a good looking engine but will not be seen after built, unless you leave out the shell box.

One of the cons is you have to grind down the horizontal bar (I don't know what it is named) before the cabin to make the cabin sit properly on the chassis, if not, there will be a 1mm gap between them.

You have to grind the front seat for the gear box to fit, but it is an easy task to complete. The engine cover screen was made by PE, hard to align as there's no obvious supports for them and easy to break down. There're many pin mark you have to fill, especially in the crane.

For the AFV Club's Long tom, it went together easily but there're many pin mark, large pin marks are at a very hard position to properly fill.

The model was initial paint with Tamiya Olive Drab but it had very dark tone so I had to spray Mr. Color C38 Olive Drab over it. Light tone was a mix of C38 and Yellow Green, White... and then weathered by my homemade pigment."