Paul is correct on the respray and your vehicle is spot on. We had a few depots around us and the FMC plant that made the 113, Bradley and P7's so I got to see lots of MERDC in the early and mid 80's. Lucas your 109 looks awesome. Congrats.

Lucas the camo looks great after your paintwork!!

Keep on the good work.
Cheers
Walter

Looking very good....can't wait to see it weathered.

Rounds Complete!!

Thanks, guys. I'm now working on the tracks and stowage. As I started painting the stowage, I found AFV Club's painting instructions for one particular part rather odd. The part in question is part #26, which is a collection of rods that goes on top of the turret (I'm not sure what they are, exactly, but they may be cleaning staffs for the howitzer tube). The instructions call for most of the part to be wood-colored, except for the tips of the rods, which should be steel. I'm not sure this is correct--if they are cleaning staffs, I suspect they should be metal, not wood. Any ideas? Here's a picture of the part in question, which I have already started to paint per the instructions:

older cleaning staffs were in fact wood with metal connectors but i haven't seen them issued for a LONG time. the new ones are aluminum either plain silver or anodized black.

Hi Lucas,

It is the cleaning rod for the tube.
Though in the past very often made from wood, nowadays, they are mainly made of alu tubes.
The reason is that the wood, and the soft alu, will not damage the internal gun tube.
In the Dutch Army, these rods were alu. But maybe the US art guys longed for the more traditional wood!

P.

So would wood or metal be more appropriate for an early 80s M109? Does anyone know?

I think either would be correct. I would guess aluminum was mainly used by the early '80s, but some wooden ones were probably still hanging around. I have been an Active Duty Artillery officer since '94 and have only seen the aluminum poles.

War machines No. 1 published in 1990 shows photos of them in aluminum. Presumably the photos would be a little older. I'd go with aluminum just to be sure.

Thanks guys--I'm thinking I should probably ask my friend what his howitzers had, given that he was in a CONUS unit and I assume they didn't get top priority for new items. I'm sure it will sound like an odd question to him!

On the M109 series, alu was the standard!

OK, good to know--I'll repaint, then. Sames me an email and time waiting for an answer. Time to bring out the Simple Green and an old toothbrush!

Well, I've been busy with the holidays over the past couple of weeks, but I did manage to sneak in some bench time. Here are the results. I decided to use the AFV Club indi-link tracks for their added detail and ability to depict realistic sag, but they were a real bear to work with. Assembly was easy--it was keeping them in one piece that was the problem. You so much as look at them and they fall apart! I ended up using Testors liquid cement in the final assembly phase before positioning them on the model, then firmly fixing them in place with Tamiya extra thin once they were on (Testors has a much longer set time and is much less aggressive, so the tracks stayed flexible for several minutes). I had hoped to be able to paint them while keeping them fully flexible, but that went out the window. Now they look like this:







Unfortunately some of the end connectors lost their details because of the double shot of glue, as you can see in the final picture. You will also notice in the last pic that some of the inner pads have pin marks. These were hard to see before I painted the tracks, as the plastic is black, but then popped out clear as day once paint went on. I thought I had gotten them all with a knife later on, but apparently I missed at least one. The sunken ones I decided not to do anything about--it's too hard to fill and sand them now. I painted the tracks after they had set, using Model Master Brown Tread as the base and then painting the rubber pads in Vallejo Panzer Aces Dark Rubber. I still haven't given them any washes or weathering--that will come later.

Here is a shot of the rest of the stuff I've been working on--the wheels and equipment. These are pretty much ready to go on (or, in the case of the wheels, ready for washes and weathering). For the gun cleaning staff, I used Alclad dark aluminum, with the connectors in MM Metalizer Dark Anodic Gray for variety.



I've also been working on the base for the model. I took an Ikea picture frame, removed the glass, added in some fiber board, epoxied that to the frame, and then used Vallejo texture paste to build the groundwork (with a few "rocks" from my kids' sand table added). This was my first time using the Vallejo paste, and I think the results are fairly good. I then painted the base with several sand-colored acrylics. I still need to highlight the groundwork and pick out the rocks with different colors, but it is otherwise ready to go. Let me know what you think.

Well, it seems that one or more or my images on Photobucket are being linked to from a high-traffic site. I don't have an easy way of finding out which image it is, so I'm going to sit tight on PB and start using Picasa instead for the rest of the build. The old images should show up again around the 23rd of the month.

What paint did you use for the wood color.

Gary--I mixed my own wood color using several Vallejo Model Color paints. I started out with Tan Earth, the added Beige and a bit of Khaki until it the color looked like the pale wood handles on a lot of tools I own.

Having just built these tracks, and other of this type like the Sherman and Stuart tracks....

Get yourself some Microscale liquid tape. It's a flexible white glue that you can dab a bit on the pins. Lets them flex enough for sag, but they don't fall apart. It's great.

Well, I've been slowly chipping away at this build, despite my inactivity on this thread (I figured I should use the little time I had to build rather than post!). Now that I'm stuck at home waiting for a snowstorm to materialize, I figured I should post this long-overdue update. I whipped up and printed custom decals on my computer and then set about finding the right color for the tan background rectangle. I settled on Vallejo MC Buff. I sprayed it on the rear fenders and on some clear decal paper to make the rectangles for the front decals (masking the rectangles on the front glacis was too problematic given the location of the tow eyes. I then used Future to bed down the decals and avoid silvering. It took a few tries, as the first two decals I tried tore during handling--I ended up putting an extra layer of liquid decal film on the remaining decals to make sure I didn't have that problem again. I always print spares when doing my own decals, as I know from experience that some decals either won't print right or will be damaged somewhere in the process.

Here's what the decals look like on the model:







I also added some lead wire to the spool on the rear hull door. Here you can see what it looks like before and after painting. It was not my best work, but I forgot to add it before I built the spool, so I had to loop it on after everything was firmly in place. I think it turned out OK, although it is certainly not enough wire for the howitzer to use in real life!





I have pretty much finished the M2, save for the ammo can. Here's what it looks like--it's painted in Vallejo flat black and dry-brushed in Testors Steel (from the small square bottle). The ammo can will be closed, per my friend's request.



On the turret, I stuck on all the tools (and I also repainted the axe handles to vary the wood color a bit) and then gloss-coated everything in preparation for washes. I made the tow cable from stainless steel twisted wire I bought on eBay several years ago. I annealed the wire and painted it--it's too bad it's stainless steel, since Blacken-It won't work on stainless steel. Here's what the turret looks like now:







It was at this point that I remembered I was going to add stowage to the rear turret baskets (doh!), so I rummaged through my collection of AM items and found this set:



It has some items I will definitely use, such as the duffel bags, ALICE packs, and what looks like another type of satchel in between the ALICE packs and duffel bags (anyone know what type it is?):



It also has some items that I'm not sure if I should use, mainly because I'm not sure what they are. Can anyone identify these items?

Hi Lucas,
What a nice build.
Since the M109's formed the back bone of my service time, your model makes my heart beat faster.
You' re using a M1 tank set, which holds some tank grenade packages. (on the picture below the rucksacks and personal bags, the round packages) These are not used in the M109, since here the grenades and the charges are carried either inside or by a supply vehicle.
Therefore, it is less likely to find them in a gun or howitser, unless (one of) the crew found a new application for it. It could hold in such case anything.
But, as already stated elsewhere, artillery guys had plenty room inside and in the various supply train vehicles to store their stuff, so, an overloaded M109 may be seen only during a real conflict and less likely in an exercise situation.
But...................there are exceptions for everything.

But, you made a perfect M109.

Thanks for showing,

P.

Paul--thanks! As for the stowage, since the cylinders are M1 parts, I will leave them off. You mention that the M109s you crewed were generally pretty clear of stowage--did you carry anything in the turret baskets at all? I'm beginning to think I may scrap having the ALICE packs hanging off of the baskets and just have some items filling the baskets themselves (but not spilling out). Would this be realistic for a field exercise? Realism matters, as my friend has an eye for detail.

Hi Lucas,

impressive build if I may add my 2p worth!!! Congratulations!!

The tracks are certainly a tricky bit and their colours are not too easy to get right either! Big rubber pads are difficult to depict as they are usually quite damaged, but these damages are small in 1/35 for sure!

However, as far as I remember our M109s and here I send a link to one austrian army howitzer
http://www.armyrecognition.com/europe/Autriche/Exhibition/National_Day_2003/Vehicles/M109A2_Austria_01.jpg

you can see the connectors are rather dark, while the other metal parts of the tracks are light in colour (that could be dirt of course, but still..!)

This is a real connector (from a M109A2 of course) and it is quite dark in colour, isn't it:
[IMG]

I think what bothers me a little is the lack of contrast in the whole track. I've transformed the pic into b/w and it looks almost the same colour all over!

Sorry for this but I don't get it out of my mind, and the build itself is just too good to be "damaged" by such details.

I'm sure you'll do allright!!

Good luck!

Cheers

Romain

Hi Lucas,

Though I can only tell for sure about the use of Dutch M109's, the US may have other considerations about the way crew and personal items were stowed.
One thing counts for all vehicles: nothing may hamper the sight of the driver and commander. Since the M109A2 needed some actions before it was ready to fire, there was a bit more ' freedom' for stowage than for tanks, where free turret movement is a way to survive. However, the structure of the vehicle offered not too much of possibilities, only the roof and the baskets.
In our units, the basket carried the camo nets. All crew stuff was either kept inside or stowed in the trucks of the battery train. (we didn't have armored, tracked resupply vehicles, but used DAF trucks).
Furthermore, nothing hung at the sides of the vehicle, except, in some cases, for the camo nets, which were carefully tied together while moving.
Remember: the loss of (personal) items means not only a lot of discussion with the superiors, but not seldomly also a big hole in the individual budget! Not to speak about the frustration to live a whole exercise with only one pair of socks or underwear.
All together, gun crews had less gear on their vehicle than tankers due to the fact that they operate in larger groups (a M109 battery in our army consited of 6 howitsers), completed with a M577 for the battery commander and 6 (re)supply trucks, one per gun. Also, there was no need to store food boxes for days, since the battery train also supplied (hot) meals more or less regulary. (Yip! if you're smart, you go into the artillery branch. )
Thus, in the train there was quite some space to carry around all what was needed.

During my many exercises with UK, German, US and Belgian M108/M109 units, I have seen that they all followed more or less the same practise, which was based on sheer common (soldier's) sense.

But................. maybe a US artillery specialist may have another vision or experience. I am happy to learn.

By the way: the Dutch don't have the M109 any longer in active service (all of them sold to Jordania). They now use the PzH2000

Thanks, Paul. I think your experience is probably broadly applicable to US artillery units, as I've been looking at all my reference photos this afternoon and I have only seen a handful where M109s have stowage piled up (combat seems to be the exception, but given that my friend served in a peacetime unit, it doesn't apply to this build).

Romain--Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not entirely happy with the tracks myself. I'll tinker with the color to achieve something along what is in these pics:

Great work, I especially liked the M109 A2 (marine) that participated in Gallant Eagle 82 I was the s-3 of the lone CA ARNG Bn for Gallant Eagle. We had M109-A2 's painted in the then desert camo scheme. In the exercise they dropped some I forget 82nd or 101st troops . The poor guys had no cold weather gear . Ft Irwin can be really cold. It even snowed. We destroyed them in 1/2 day. The stopped the war warmed up the airborne and we destroyed them again. airborne vs mech div 40th ID (mech) even though a guard unit had lots of Vietnam vets'
Ok I think I have copies of the camo regulations for the guns ,deuce and half and M 151 jeeps. If you want I can look and post them let me know. Maybe even woodland camo just let me know what file to put it in and I will scan and post.The M109 a2 and paladin were /are nice fun tracks. My fav though was the M107 175mm SP gun.

We, M109-ers, always felt very sorry about the poor guys suffering the elements.
Now I found out that every extreme attracks tough guys, who want to show the world what they can stand.