Hi Everyone, this is my first post. finished this a few weeks ago. The build article should be in AFV modeller at some point this year..









thanks for looking

Outstanding!!! Impressive work Dave.

Very nice scene. Figures are very well done and the Tank....AWESOME!!!

Very very nice. Looking forward to the mag, and getting the full scoop.

Absolutely fantastic job! The tank, figures, and the structure are all topnotch. Who makes the loader figure, or is it kitbashed?
I like the subtle humor in the dio, the tank stopping for pedestrians.

Like everyone else has said- Excellent work throughout!
Cheers Dave

All very impressive, but(for me) the figures really steal the show! Never realized how complicated the flash suppressor is. The tracks are beautiful!

Thanks for all the positive posts. The crew figures all came with the kit. I used hornet replacement hands and heads and modelled details such as the hair and beard with Andrea sculpt.

Dave,
As I said earlier, the figures are fantastic. I've been thumbing through some references of late as I have few M50's I need to finish, and something occurred to me. It appears that you have removed the exhaust on the rear deck, I can't really tell from the photos, but if so, that makes your M51 correct for 1973. If you left it on, it would be post '73. Either way, and I say this only because I really like this and I'm sure you would want it to be correct - the WWII tanker helmet is probably not correct. I say this because I cannot find any photos of any tankers wearing it during this time frame. Granted. most of the photos where I can make out the headgear are of Cents and M48s, but it stands to reason the IDF would have standardized this across the board to include Sherman tankers. While I can only find a few M51 tankers with the US style CVC helmet, I cannot find any from that time frame. I havefound one photo of the WWII style helmet still in use in '73, but it was worn by an M50 Howitzer crew member, and the rest wore steel pots. Again, NOT finding the use of it doesn't prove it wasn't used, but from what I can see, it doesn't seem likely.
Please take this in the spirit it was intended. The last guy I mentioned this to seems to have had some sort of a meltdown over it.

No Problem Robert, The diorama is set in the Golan Heights during the six day war of 1967. The tank is a phase 2 which, as far as I can deduce, would have had the exauhst at the back of the tank and not on the engine cover.As far as the crews head gear is concerned, I found some pictures of tank crews on the border wearing this kind of helmet during the conflict so I decided these would be appropriate. Interestingly enough, the IDF seemed to upgrade the M51 on a pretty random basis with various different stowage and engine bay configurations being used on different tanks. Thanks for flagging this up Robert, constructive criticism is always welcome

Beautiful work Dave. The dio is nicely designed and well executed although I'm just a little put off by the main gun hanging off one side. Nevertheless, the weathering and scenery are outstanding and the figures look to be top-notch. Any chance of some close-ups on them?

Cheers and welcome to the forums. Talk about entering with a bang!

Dave,
Sometimes I think we truly are citizens of two nations separated by a common language.

Now that you tell me that your dio is of the Six Day War, you are absolutely correct - the WWII style helmet was very prevalent during that conflict. And you are also correct that there are several photos of tankers wearing them for that conflict.
My point was that they would not be correct for '73, which I had assumed because your build is definitely of a circa 1973 variant. You are also quite correct that you have built yours with a block II engine deck. The discrepancy lies in the fact that the block II engine deck did not appear until 1970.
Tamiya's M51 is the first and only kit yet released that has the correct block I engine deck for 1967.
It looks like this:



I see that you have left off the exhaust on yours, leaving the louvers, which make yours correct for post 1970. (1973)
I did the same on my Academy version, but have since decided to back date it. I might add that mine doesn't look nearly as good as yours.



The DML M51 not only had the wrong deck for either conflict, it had a hull extension which required chopping off some of the rear hull and then reattaching the rear plate. A little filling is going to be required here. Then I'll scratch the same deck as on the Tamiya version.



I also have the same dilemma with my M50 build, cobbled together from several kits over 15 years ago. It has the louvers as well, (MP Models deck) and I want to backdate it as well, so I hope I can remove the rear portion of the deck.



And then there's the DML M50 that I backdated by removing the exhaust, (not easy as it was molded on) which I also want to further backdate to the Six Day War configuration. Again, I hope I can remove the engine deck.



So to recap, if you want this to be 1967, you'd have to replace the louvered portion with a blank sheet and a few extra details. For mine I'm not sure I'll be able to, and if not I may cheat and just add stowage over that area.
I love your build, and it would be a shame to potentially break something trying to change the deck. It might be easier to just hide the louvers as well.

By the way, here's one article that talks about the differences in the variants.

http://idfmodelling.free.fr/article05.html

Again, great job. I just spend more time looking at IDF subjects (as I did with the other guy) because it's my favorite.

Thanks Rob, Unfortunatley I had to take an educated guess on the time period the phase 2 was in service. As is always the way with scale modelling, you get the best references the week after the build is finished





Thanks Don, glad you like it. I tried several different configurations when building the diorama, the problem I had was when trying to make it long enough to frame the gun, It left a lot of dead space at the back of the tank that the eye was drawn too. Its also an issue of space, it only just fits in the display cabinet

Unfortunatley, I cant release any more pics until the article is published at some point over the next few months, I will keep you posted..

This is top top top flight work all around!! Wow!
J