Heya, Folks,

Been searching hither and yon for the AFV Club M548 Gun Truck kit. Since neither hither nor yon will give it up, I am going to try converting the standard M548A1 and hence, take a crack at scratch building the towed two-wheeled M55 trailer the quad .50 sits on in the cargo bed.

Is there anybody out there in possession of the kit who might be able to measure the resin trailer? I'm not the world's greatest scratch builder, but I think I'm going to take a shot at building it myself. And I'm worse at math than I am at scratch building (my own fault --- the nuns just couldn't beat it into me) and that's why I'm asking for the actual measurements of the resin piece and not the full-sized trailer.

And while I have found a hand full of pictures of the real thing on the net, I have not found as many detail shots as I would like --- anyone know of any good reference photos?

Also there are not a whole lot of detailed photos of the M548 itself, especially, the interior/cab area. Does anyone have any shots of the cab area looking at the dash board? There are some pretty large "blank" areas without any detail behind the headlights and such --- the builder in the Steel Masters Vietnam Special (#12) added armor plate over these areas, something I am thinking of doing as well. It not only makes sense, but would cover up the area lacking detail adjacent to the driver's instrument panel.

As always, many thanks for the help!!

Regards and Aloha,

Johnny B.

Hi Johnny
What about Rob's Motorpool pics :
http://gallery.kitmaker.net/showgallery.php/cat/14088

Some Quad .50 trailer pics on Primeportal (the pictured MGs are dummies and many items are missing but the trailer itself appears to be quite complete...) :
http://www.primeportal.net/artillery/don/m45g.htm

EDIT : watch your inbox

HTH
Frenchy

Heya, Frenchy,

I hope that all is well! Thanks, amigo, for once again for coming ta the rescue! Those pix you referenced for the trailer will definitely help.

And Rob's Motorpool pix (thanks, Rob!) were very helpful as well --- these are the only pix that I have ever seen of the interior of the cab of an M548. Although it is a really basic kit, I was still surprised at how little detail AFV Club put into that forward firewall on the M548 --- you literally just glue two parts to the firewall and that's it. As I said, the rest is pretty much blank space or the back of the headlight clusters. Especially with the lack of references, I can now see why the Steel Masters modeler just added armor plate over this area... Might still do the same thing myself --- who knows?

And thanks a bunch for sending me those dimensions for the trailer --- that was greatly appreciated and above and beyond the call of duty. Now I just have to do a halfway decent job scratching that sucker! :

As always, Frenchy --- you RULE!

Regards and Aloha,

Johnny B. |

You're welcome Johnny !

Frenchy

You can get a fairly decent M55 Maxon turret from the Tamiya M16 halftrack kit.

Paul

Thanks, Paul.

I'm probably going to lift it from the AFV Club M35A1 2.5 ton gun truck since I already have the sucker...

That being said, I wonder if Dragon would ever consider selling their Maxon turret from the new M16 halftrack kit along with that trailer (no doubt, right after I finish scratch building it ) a la Hobby Fan --- I think that this would sell well as a stand alone kit.

Thanks again, Paul. Have a good one.

Regards and Aloha,

Johnny B.