FINALLY!! #:-)
My Cold War Cook Off subject is done. I guess better late than never. This is Tamiyas M106 mortar carrier M113 derivative. It's got Edwards PE kit on it. That was a nice kit. I finished it with Tamiya paints, sky, Olive Green, Red Brown, Dark Yellow, Flat Black, and some Dark Green. I added a few washes to it of Burnt Umber and or Black oil paints and thinner. Did a mix of total wash and spot washes. I then dirtied it up with a coat of dark brown pastels and added some highlighting with some lighter pastels.

Hope you like
Here are two pictures



More are here
http://groups.msn.com/armorama/sloddersstuff.msnw?Page=Last

Slodder, very nicely applied 4 color scheme. My favorite, next to the four color desert style. Excellant work. Was the Eduard set pretty comprehensive for the M106? Or was it for the M113 basic APC?

Jim Peterson

Cool interpretation of the MERDC scheme. Quite eye catching. Good job. You might consider adding a tie down string to the antenna to "justify" that much curl.

It's a beauty there Slodder! Love the rubber coated hatch pulls! You might want to check the seating of the top deck.

Thanks all
m75 - The PE set was for the 106 - it came with the ammo shelves, a few pieces for the mortar itself too. Nice AM kit.
AJLaFleche - Good point - I initially tried to get the curl all the way over, but the hatch was in the way. A tie down with a bit of thread would do the trick I think - thanks - consider it done.
kkeefe - The seating may not be as tight as it could/should be - I have left the top unglued in case I want to show off the interior. Good eyes, I'll seat it better right after I hit Submit

Thanks again.

Scott, this is well done. The detail and paint scheme are really attractive for the eye---lots of things to look at. Good stuff!

Question, I love to paint models and was curious---you mentioned "sky"---what color is that and where how is it applied to your model here? Jeeze I hope this isn't a dumb question.

Very impressive here.

Thanks.

Steve

WeWillHold - not a dumb question at all. Sky is the name of the Tamiya color I used for the interior. Its the light pale greenish blueish color. I have added a lot of pastel to it so its a bit hard to see - check my album and the interior shots for a bit better look.
I just air brushed it on thinned just a bit.

Although I'm not sure about the interior color of the M106A1 version, but I know the interior color of the M106A2 or its successor the M1064 was OD green for the M106A2 and forest green for the M1064. Driver's compartment was sea foam green and there was a small canvas curtain separating it from the combat compartment.

I do like the looks of your MERDC scheme. Very lifelike, reminds me of the unit applied schemes. Remember there is very little flex in the antenna sections themselves. The angle is created by the large spring base. The lower section of the antenna is actually quite stiff and has the flexibility of a broomstick. The upper section has a little more flexibility since it is thinner. About the same flexibility as one of those bicycle flags for kids' bikes.

A very good looking kit. I am impressed with your build!

Congratulations on finishing a great CWCO entry Slodder!

Man - I've got a lot of you guys to pin Ribbons on when 31 July rolls around :-)

If you ever want to go back and add the Ramp Retract Box - I think that would dress up the rear area of your model even more. I like the MERDEC touch too - warms my heart! I agree with the others too concerning the antenna - Sabot's comments particularly. You could just replace that at a later date for fun on a rainy weekend.

Most importantly - looks like you had fun with the model!

Gunnie

Great job Slodder! I'm glad to see that others share my love of the M113 family of vehicles. Sabot is correct in pointing out that the interior would be OD except for the drivers area. All of the gun tracks; M106/M125 were painted OD because of the large open area of the gun hatch. However, in the scheme of things, this is no big deal. Excellent work, and I hope to see more of the M113 family from you later.

dave

Looks great Slodder. I've got the kit and PE but have yet to tackle it. Maybe this will inspire me.

A couple of pics to add to earlier comments:




Paul

Very nice model Slodder. I really love all of it but as other said the most "eyecatching" part of it is the camo. Is it a standard pattern or your own interpretation? It's also very interesting to see how the same "box" changes dramatically from country to country. I used to be in command of a 120mm mortars squadron mounted on M106 but the interiors are completely different in terms of equipment positioning, stowage, ecc.
Anyway yours is another excellent entry in the CWCO campaign.
Ciao

Scott,

Really great looking model!

This is not Rivet Review Board, but I hope no-one will mind if I add some mildly critical comments
As others already wrote, your interpretation of MERDC scheme is very cool, although probably not strictly accurate. M106s were painted in the same way as regular M113s - the "official" camo pattern for M113 / M125 / M106 is here, in Sabot's Motor Pool gallery:
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/modules.php?set_albumName=albus46&id=aah&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php
However there was much more freedom in applying MERDC scheme than there is now with NATO scheme, so your version is probably just as good as any other

Also as others mentioned, the interior of the M106, except for the driver's seat area, was painted OD. Also interiors of all hatches should be OD, not camouflaged.

And one more thing, but I'm not 100% sure about it - I hope someone else can confirm it or correct me: - IIRC with MERDC schemes bumper numbers on vehicles were not painted on light background, just directly on camouflage with black paint.

All in all, your M106 is just one great looking piece of hardware!

Best Regards,
Pawel
"Armorama Accuracy Police Officer"

P.S. Just noticed that this is my 100th post on Armorama. I think I should celebrate it somehow

Wow - great feedback everyone.

I do appreciate it. The camo pattern is a personal interpretation as far as the pattern goes. I tried to keep the color true to spec, the pattern was my own.
The antenna has been redone already. I'll post pictures later today. I like the new one much better - thanks for the push.
As far as the interior goes - that was a bit of a problem for me. The information I could find was a bit vague and I finally just went with sky overall. Not the accurate choice I see.
Here's a bit of advice for all reading this post - ASK QUESTIONS. Turns out all I had to do about the interior color was ask - DUH. Would have gotten quick answers.
I don't see it being fixed though a bit to involved at this point.

The hatch pulls are computer mouse wire. The internal wires turned out to be perfect in size. Just cut to length, strip off a bit of insulation on each end. Twist the end wire together tie in a knot and paint it black.

Thanks All

Slodder. Great job. This kit was one of the first ones I ever built years ago and has always been one of my favorites. I love the cammo. Did you mask and airbrush it or hand paint it. It looks great either way.

Shaun

keenan - the camo was done by masking off the areas with cut masking tape. I pushed the tape onto my jeans before I put it on the model to reduce the tackyness a bit. That way the paint would have less chance of pulling off.

Vodnik,
As far as the bumper numbers, I saw it done both ways. As we went further into the late 70's and 80's, we finally began to ask ourselves why we were bothering to paint a second color just to put the bumper numbers on top of, so out of pure lazyness we started just painting the bumper numbers over the existing MERDC colors. The only advantage to the numbers being on a lite background was that they could be seen better at distances, which kind of defeated the camo purpose. In many cases, we only got around to painting the bumper numbers on the tracks just before the AGI every year.

Dave

It was done both ways. The light (tan) background was done mainly for two reasons:
1. It made the bumper number easier to read.
2. Bumper numbers change. When a bumper number changed, the old number was painted over and a new number applied.

Bumper numbers would change for a variety of reasons. The vehicle could be transferred in from a different unit. Numerical designations of the unit could change (reflagging). A new MTOE or SOP may end up requiring a new numbering system. Many other reasons as well.

During my 20 years and counting in the US Army mechanized world, we've always done the tan background on bumper numbers. I believe it has become and unwritten standard on all vehicles but sand colored ones. Of course, vehicles in my motor pool have a variety of bumper markings, but my guys are working on changing them to a standard numbering system.

While others have much more experience than I, what I've seen on the raods, at airshows and other displays, parked at millitary bases and in reference material, there was some great liberty in interpreting MERDC. I've seen examples with all feathred edges, all hard edges and combinations. The most interesting example I've seen was in an old IPMS Journal with an article on the armor the author had been around at Fort Hood, Texas. One is a M577 command vehicle in desert colors (I'm guessing, since it's a b&w picture) where the colors large patches that run mostly unbroken from top to bottom. That was the scheme I used for mine. I'll get a picture and post it later.

Great job! Is the .50 cal an aftermarket or did you tweak it?

ch

The 50 cal was tweaked with the PE kit. The sights, handles (back and barrel), air cooling vents, and amo box case are from the PE.

Goodness gracious... excellent work! Even the zampolit voice in my weee head expresses complete satisfaction. :-) I like the paint scheme very much.

NATO now gots some serious artillery support.

Eventhough I cant comment on particulars as I havent a notion of whats right or wrong (maybe the best way sometimes), all i can say is .. brilliant. The whole appearance is eyecatching and exciting. The detail and painting really set it off. OD may be the proper inner colour, but the sky colour shows more and is most pleasing to us numbskulls who are more interested in the artistic side than the perfect side. I love it!! Dont crucify me for my comments .......

I wasn't sure on this, but on the M1064 120mm mortar track I have, the camouflage pattern extends on the interior of the large mortar hatch. Kevin (kkeefe) and I talked about this today when we were checking out the vehicle. So Scott, you can rest easy that your camouflage painting on the interior of the main hatch is correct, just as correct as it would be if you painted it solid OD green.

I can't bring up the photos, so I can only talk about the comments posted.
I was assigned to a weapons platoon in the RoK. At that time the vehicles in the platoon were OD, and the two TOW tracks had a light green shade camo pattern. Anyway, when the Bn went camo, the painters marked the pattern with chalk, then sprayed it. Our Bn painters not only painted the camo pattern, they also painted the chalk lines black which separated the colors.
They did not back fill the unit marking areas with a sand color. I saw the sand color backing when we got the A3 tracks which were first forest green then the green brown black camo. I don't recall at the point they started painting grip paint on the top of the tracks.
For the interior, the M125, the only thing painted OD was the mortar mount and turn table the rest was porta potty green. The interior of hatches were also painted the new camo.

I have pictures when I was in a 4.2 platoon at Kelly Hill, but I need to look them up. If you go to the old 4.2 and 81 FMs they have photos of the crew drills for the tracks which show some of the interior.