Thought I would share this old scratch / conversion with yal. I did this back in 87. I used Tamiya’s old M60A1 for the chasse and scratched built the bridge and tongue mechanism. I used TM 5-5420-228-24 as my reference and building guide.
Enjoy the pictures. Any comments please















These are some pictures of the Tongue.

Very nice work there....
PM sent

Looks great. You did some great scratch-building. One thing you may want to fix is the rear lights though. Tamiya molded them poorly. There should be individual lenses and only the upper left is red. The others are black slits. It should look like below.



Other than that, great job.

Hi guys,
Great scratchbuild!
The tracks in the photo; are they the type that would have been used in Vietnam or would they have been the type seen on the M48?
Joe.

No on the track in Nam. and yes on M48A5's

Dude! That thing is kick-ass. I love it. I would sell my mother to gypsies to have an AVLB in plastic. Good Job

Wolf,

Considering it's from over twenty years ago, your AVLB looks really good (just wish the pictures were clearer).



A M60 AVLB from my old National Guard unit:



Your AVLB has the "look".



A M48 AVLB from my old National Guard unit:



Your bump-stops on the lower hull glacis are more like the ones on our M48s.

Your Bridge Quardant looks quite good!



A real AVLB Bridge Quadrant:



I would love to see this view of your bridge:



The taillights on a M60 AVLB (light metal boxes):



...and the tailights on a M48 AVLB (heavy armored boxes):



Also note that the M60 and M48 AVLBs in my Guard unit have the newer style Hatch cupolas, which are kinda like the Commander's Hatch on an M1A2 Abrams!



I say the Abrams Designers "stole" the design from the Engineers!

Just a word of advice, this M60 AVLB is made from an M60A2 hull and not the M60A1 hull. Don't use it as a basis to point out errors on your build.

SABOT,

I agree that the M60 AVLBs appear to be from A2 hulls, but this is the rear of one:


... and this is the info plate from that Hull which says it's a "A1":


So what's correct?

Definately A2 hulls with the "Bump" on the back. Maybe they were originaly built as A1's, then converted to A2's, then converted to AVLB's?? I remember when we got our M1A1's in the 3d ACR back in 86 or 87, the data plates in them all read M1"E"1's. [

Fred, ever think of going back into that thing and super-detailing it even more? :::]

While it is created from an excess M60A2 hull, it will still be an M60A1 AVLB since it was built to those standards. Any internal remnants of the CBSS are long gone. I believe all our AVLBs are either classified as M48A5 AVLBs or M60A1 AVLBs, but usually just identified as the M48 AVLB or M60 AVLB.

This one from Prime Portal is made on a standard M60A1 chassis: