Over the past three decades I've been out with just about every bit of steel on wheels the Aussie army has had in service, but I am yet to even cast my eyes on to an Aussie Abrams.
One thing is for sure - when it comes to building Aussie armour, there are very few occasions when you build a kit straight from the box and slap the appropriate after market decals on it!
I've had the Mousehouse (I believe the conversion is now Arms Corps Model ACM 35853) conversion for a few years now and it was only in recent weeks I acquired the Dragon M1A2 kit, mainly to purloin the tow draw bar from it to finish off my languishing Aussie Rwanda Carrier project.
Anyway, it was a quiet night, I had a few cold beers in the fridge and I started tinkering with the Abrams.
First step was to cut our the Port rear section of the hull ... I would recommend joining the upper and lower sections before fitting the conversion parts to provide more positive attachment points:
The conversion parts fitted flawlessly and the kit's rear louvres just dropped in to place on to the replacement deck.
All the rest of the bits were a no brainer, although I would have liked some guidance as to the positioning of the cooler. The biggest challenge was wrestling with the various Dragon turret racks, which turn out looking great but take some patience and innovation to get together, and vague instructions are no help!:
When I started blundering through the various bits on Friday, I knew absolutely nothing about the nuts and bolts of the Aussie Abrams, although I had written several articles on their acquisition.
I dragged out my Dragon M1A1 AIM (I plan to do a USMC vehicle in Somalia 1993) and found the deck to be identical to the Arms Corps Models conversion and my first question was "why not base the conversion on the AIM kit"?
The internet is a wonderful resource, and within a few hours I had found that although the AIM has many bits to make an Aussie Abrams - indeed, a few that are included with the SEP kit are used as part of the ACM conversion - the kit does not have the infantry telephone and slave outlet on the port side rear corner and the real deal breaker is the M1A2 comes with the later track with hollow guide horns, which is the type fitted to Aussie vehicles and not available anywhere else.
However, the M1A2 does come with many parts from the AIM, including the bustle mounted Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) armoured roof cabling covers and the earlier M1A1 cupola.
While the start of an Aussie Abrams could be achieved by "cross kitting" the Dragon M1A1 AIM and M1A2 SEP kits, you'd still need a fridge and you'd end up with an incomplete M1A2 kit minus correct track, infantry telephone and slave outlet.
The latest Dragon Abrams are state of the art multi media kits that take a bit of building, and if you're looking at doing an Aussie Abrams, fitting the Arms Corps Models conversion bits will be the least of your challenge.
The conversion done, I'll probably tinker with fitting the remaining kit parts when I feel like some "no brainer" building in coming months.
