James Bella takes a peek at the M520 Goer Cargo Truck from Perfect Scale Modellbau.

Link to Item



If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

I always thought this was a cool vehicle waiting to be modeled.

P.S.

Does James Bella always refer to himself in the third person?

I have this kit on my workbench. This is a good representation from the real things;
There are some points to improve :

-the wheels central hub are to osmall in diameter
-the front horns are missing
-the main front lights are very poor totally innacurate

Otherwise, parts fit good, casting is very well done,



Tankograd have just edited a book for the M520 Goer family and the Gama Goat

Publication ID: Nr. 3018
M520 Goer - M561 Gama Goat
Articulated Trucks of the US Army in the Cold War
Quantity Photos and Illustrations:
74 colour photographs and 80 b&w photographs
Text - Language:
English text
Number of Pages:72
A must have!!!

James Bella says...no, force of habit

Pascal, that looks real good built up. Yeah, I missed the hub size but now that you mention it they are visibly too small.

And here is a nice mag from Tankograd to go with:

ithttp://www.tankograd.com/cms/website.php?id=/en/M520-Goer-M561-Gama-Goat.htm

Go the kit myself, great quality .... as always from PSM
The mag is also very, very good if you need some ref on the M520.

Cheers
Christopher

Nice review, James. PSM is carving out a real niche with its resin kits. Nice to see this one reviewed.

Thanks to you Bill, and PSM, for giving me the opportunity to review this one. Its a real gem of a kit and should build up very nicely as can be seen in Pascals photo.

we had the vehicles in the 3ID while i was in germany. it was fun to watch them bounce down the road when they were empty. best to stay out of their way too. this model would look great painted in winter MERDC

Nice bump!

I wonder how the kit compares to the Commanders Model one?

http://ironshipwrights.com/armor/goer.html

Cheers,

Christophe

Nice write up!

The things you learn by just reading the reviews here. I have never heard of this truck before but you MUST see it in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv8Q1xVPBgg





Jeff

Jeff, thanks for that video link. Very interesting rig!
Terry

The GOER was an interesting vehicle. We had three versions in tank battalions in the 70s & 80s, cargo, fueler and wrecker. The cargo and fueler versions were assigned to the support platoon under the S-4 (Logistics) Section of battalion staff and the wrecker to the maintenance platoon in headquarters company. Advantages: large cargo/ fuel carrying capacities, especially for tank ammo and were extremely easy to back into parking spaces in the forests in Germany. Trying to back a 5-ton cargo truck with trailer in the forest was much more difficult. And yes they could swim. Disadvantages: the air in the low pressure tires were THE suspension! When a GOER was loaded it could keep up with a tank battalion on a road march (even trails) but, if they were empty they bounced all over the place if not on hardtop. I know I rode in an empty cargo version and had to hang on to keep from getting thrown out of my seat. Yes they can swim, but where you can swim them is limited. We could not swim them at Fort Polk, LA because the underwater slope on the edge of the lake used for that type of training was too steep. If all four wheels cannot touch bottom at at the same time a GOER cannot drive out of the water. It is a 4x4 but is too heavy for just the front axle to get traction. We also buried a full fuel Goer (2500 gallons) up to the belly at Peason Ridge on Fort Polk. It had rained for days and the driver cut the corner of the tank trail. Really not his fault as 27 other vehicles (tracked and wheeled) ended up stuck in the wet Louisiana mud.