Hi all,

I have just purchased a couple of Hasegawa kits - both for the old price of £4 - (possibly the last cheap ones on earth it would seem!) - one of them was the High Speed tractor - which I got because I liked the look of it!

What I didn't get was the Long Tom artillery piece that Hasegawa produced as a companion kit. My question is - was the M5 used for any function other than as a gun tractor? Ammo/cargo carrier? Towing broken AVFs? -anything that means I don't have to shell out for a kit that is now suddenly 1/3 more expensive than it's probably worth...

Cheers

A

The Long tom was too heavy to be towed by the M5 HST. It required the 18-ton M4 HST.

The 13-ton M5 HST hauled the M2 105m Howitzer, M1 4.5" Gun or M1 155mm Howitzer. It was designed primarily as an arty tractor but could aslo transport personnel. ammo associated w/arty units. In a pinch it could be used to tow something stuck but that's not what it was designed to do. They were very specialized vehicles and their parent units would be very protective of them -- not loaning it to some stuck tankers or something like that.

Hi Roy,

Thanks for the informative response. I was thinking I could load it up with crates - that'd be quite a fun way to represent the vehicle.

Many thanks

A