Got bored building all that Soviet stuff for the Cold War campaign and started up again on my Renwal/Revell M50 Ontos (Greek for "Thing"). For those of you unfamiliar with this vehicle, it is a small tracked vehicle developed by the Army for their light forces and used mostly by the USMC during Vietnam. It is armed with six 106mm recoilless rifles, four of them also armed with .50 caliber ranging rifles and a .30 cal machine gun in the commander/gunner cupola.

I built the Revell kit in 1983 while I was in college. At that time, I only used tube glue, hand painted my kits and built them straight out of the box. The Revell kit is a reissue of the old Renwal kit that was initially developed in the 1960s. The only difference in the kits is that the Renwal name has been blanked off and "©1982 Revell, Inc." added to the underside of the hull. Other differences are the decals and directions, otherwise the kits are identical.

Two years ago, a friend of mine gave me a half built Renwal kit that was complete and unpainted, but basically covered in tube glue. Many of the smaller parts were untouched and the recoilless rifles were untouched. The directions were present and the decals old, but mint.

I had rescued my Revell kit from the pile of stuff my mom was selling at a yard sale about 3 years ago. The kit wasn't too badly assembled and disassembled easily. A few of the recoilless rifle breach parts were missing as were a couple of the 106mm rounds.

Since the Renwal kit's hull was covered in glue, I was initially going to just use it to replace the missing parts on my kit and leave it at that. I've recently decided to use parts of both kits to semi accurize the kit. There isn't a whole lot of information out there on the Ontos. The AFV Interiors site has a nice article about the Ontos and the Hunnicutt Sheridan light tank has a chapter on the Ontos and some of the derivitives that never made it off of paper. A lot of detail will have to be borrowed from other kits. The old Tamiya M113 vehicle looks like it can give me some good pieces. Mainly for the interior (seats, levers), exterior detailing (lights, tools) and the engine to show through the grill.

With both kits disassembled, I found the upper hull of the Renwal kit was in better shape. I removed the grill detail from it, and cut away the grill from the Revell hull. I then thinned out the Revell grill so it can be placed on the Renwal hull. Another thing I've done is taken the outer road wheels halves of one kit, drilled out the center and will use them as the inner half of the road wheel. That way the spoke details will show through.

I am contemplating buying a number of Skybow 106mm recoilless rifles (sold separately), but buying six of them will be fairly expensive at about $7 each.

I'll keep updates on this little project. Hopefully I'll get it done before a new plastic kit is developed.

Hi Rob
I came across this site a long time ago in hopes of purchasing an M50 Ottos.But it never happened. I hope it is helpfull to you. You helped me in the past with information. I'm still looking for a picture of the M578 rear spade in the down position.
Cheers
Ralph
Sorry Rob, here is the link http://ontos.homestead.com/main.html

The Revell reissue of the Ontos occurred in the 1982-83 time frame and I have not seen the kit since then. I bought my kit my freshman year in college which was 1982-83 school year. The Renwal kit was long out of production, and I didn't even know the Revell kit was a Renwal reissue when I built it 20 years ago.

I had spotted the bagged Renwal kit at a model show in New Jersey in the summer of 2001. A buddy who was with me saw that I had eyed it and bought it for me as a going away gift. I was leaving for Massachusetts in a couple of weeks.

It came with decals and instructions and I still had my Revell reissue instructions.

I think I may replace the recoilless rifle barrels with aluminum tubing.