I am participating in Bob Burik's project to recreate a portion of the Thunder Run column.

Just need to find some bench time. What was a couple hours a day his down to couple hours a week. I have actually made a bit of a start but nothing worth taking a pic of yet. Be warned. I know squat about modern armor and will likely ask a lot of questions.

Here is the kit that I am using.

Marc is being humble. He had a very nice Enigma at a recent contest here in NJ. Looking forward to what he does with this.

Bob, just known that you have a Thunder Run project just like what we had here for the IPMS Philippines BA way back in 2008. I still have a complete set of echelon decals of 1-64Armor in 1/35th scale, I can send it to you guys if you need them. Regards and good luck.

Nicky

Nicky, I am sure someone could use it. Lots of good stuff on those sheets.

Bob

Marc, you sound like me. I started about 5 months back on an abrams for the museum project and had previously never worked on anything post ww2. I've probably spent as much time reading and researching as I have on the bench. But all of it worthwhile, not only do you learn about the hardware but the men and experiences they've had. Amazing stuff. And since I've just gone through what you are starting please feel free to contact me, it's all fresh in the head. Happy modelling!

Marc, don't forget we would like you at our FB page.

Bob

Isn't there some saying something like, " A job stared is half done"? Well I looked at the instructions sheet. Half way is SO far away But I did start.

Grabbing a 1/2 here and there, when I am not falling asleep at 8 PM (zzz), I have managed to get this far. I did notice wouters has not posted for a while on his M1 either. I wonder if he was letting me catch up. Here is where I am at the moments.

Questions re. the smoke launchers. I have left mine off for the moment because I see in mostly photos they are covered. I was planning on doing that but started to think... If the tank you advancing into battle, would those covers be off? Most models I see have the launchers empty. Again if headed into the fray wouldn't they have the grenade loaded?

Nice job so far Marc. I have the same question. All the photos of mine also show the launchers covered with what appears to be cables of some kind wound around them. Even the shot I have of a "All Bout Da Bones" in column formation shows the launchers covered. I don't know if this is during the actual Thunder Run or during another advance but they don't look ready to fire.



Anyone know what the story with this is?

The covers should be off. They had them on the entire war up until the first thunder run. No reasonable explanation has ever been given to me about why they were left on all that time. There is a chance that a few tanks did not take off the covers even for the thunder run. One photo of a tank at the airport after the TR shows them covered. And the photo from Don above COULD have been during the thunder run. There was a similar fight two days before, but the column tended to be on both sides of the highway, and in that fight they did not take the covers off.

The cables wrapped around the smoke launchers were common.

the cables are most likely slave cables used to jump start the vehicles

Slave Cables or a rope with a grappling hook to remove wire and other obstructions. My assumption would be rope and a hook and the slave cables would be on the loader side SGL or coiled up in the spare roadwheel as the loader is normally the first one to get kicked off of the tank to assist others, which is a normal practice.

JC

Smoke launchers are used to create a dense "curtain" of white, dense smoke. This smoke curtain/cloud is created within seconds in a situation where a tank is forced to withdraw and there is a risk that from more angles AT weapons could be used. These situations are most likely in areas where opposite forces may operate in, more or less, organized structures. A front, if you want to called it that way.
Based on the tactics and the expected kind of actions, tank unit commanders or individual tank commanders may decide if smoke launchers are uncovered.
From a military point of view I can understand that the use of smoke in situations a shown on the pictures is not very likely or would add any value. I might be completely wrong, but I could imagine that the risk for situations like photographed, will be an individual attack at a single vehicle (hit and run), not the attack to the whole convoy.
But, yes, if you are the crew member of an attacked vehicle, you will have a challenge!

Man this is going to be a fast build!

Thanks guys for all the comments on the build and especially for the smoke info. I am going loaded and uncovered.

So what the hell... I'm up... might as well put the time to good use. So I warmed up the soldering iron and put together the extended bustle rack. A photo posted in the "TR" group build on FB showed what the mounting hooked looked like so I made them out of some leftover PE "sprue".

Impressive work!

Can you give me some details on what you used, like the wattage of the iron and type of solder?



Jeff

nice solder/brass work

Jeff, Dave... thanks for the comments.

Jeff, the solder and flux are Tix I picked up from Micro Mark and the iron is a Weller 18w model from Radio Shack, model # WPS18MP and catalog # 55039266.

Feel like forever since I got anyting done on this for an update.

With a choice of 2 types of drive sprockets there should have been the unused ones to use for the spare on top of the turret. My carpet monster must be a brazen little bugger and jumped up on my bench cuz they are gone. Stamped one of the sprockets in silly putty and made a resin cast to solve that one.

Hard to see in the pics but the tracks pads have been chunked up. The dark steel color is a mix of magnesium and jet exhaust Alclad II.

Loving the work going into this.

OK, I hope that the "dog house" is not glued down... The work looks great, I like what you did with the sprocket. Good thinking..

Mike

Darren, Mike... thanks for taking a look see and the nice comments.

Mike I assume you mean the boxy thing front left on the turret. Since this is my 1st modern armor piece... except for a stalled shelf queen Challenger Mk I from a few years back... so I don't really know what any of that stuff is called Nope. Anything that has periscope or vision ports are not glued in yet so I can paint up and insert that stuff before gluing those assemblies. Easier than trying to mask.

Yes, I do mean the "boxy thing" on the front right of the turret. That's the gunners sight system. We call them the "dog house" Good Idea on not gluing it down so that it can be painted and then adding the sight glass.

Mike

Thanks Mike. Looking at my response i realized I left out about half a sentance. After the 1st modern piece bit it was supposed to say, "...I don't know what most of the stuff called."

I just found this thread. Nice going, Marc! Like many here, I'm still learning what I can about modern armor. I like what you're doing, and the Thunder Run build idea is excellent!
Cheers,
Sean H.