A similar post has reminded me it's time to resurrect a project from last year - the Bradley Graveyard at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. While there early last year I was surprised to learn it's the second largest military installation in the US, and as luck would have it, a nice source of references for kits that are just now seeing the light of day, and hopefully a few more that will. It's also a refit facility for doing Bradley upgrades, although the ones in these photos will never be brought up to M2A3 standards. At best, they may become platforms for some other systems being proposed. Whatever their fate, they sure make good modelling subjects.



So with the help of my lovely assistant, (my daughter) who is better at crawling through tight spaces than I, and fearless when it comes to climbing on things, the first implied task was to get some good reference photos.



This was her favorite. Nature always finds a way...



I've been blessed (cursed) with more Tamiya Bradley kits than I know what to do with, and a pretty insane number of MLRS kits as well. So lots of those parts, along with some Meng parts, are going into the builds. Here then is the obligatory photo of most of what I plan to use for each one, along with a Meng engine and transmission or two:



As someone else pointed out in another thread, those Legend wheels' bolt pattern may look a little off under the microscope, but at normal human viewing distance, I think they're fine, and they are more accurate.

Not shown are a few sets of aftermarket AFV CLub club individual tracks.

My daughter and I decided a nice number of subjects would be five - enough to show the variety of states of disrepair, but not enough to turn it into a lifelong project.

So the first step was to grab five kits and, in a manner that would make Henry Ford proud, start prepping the hulls. I like to use stretched sprue and CA to fill in all those annoying holes. The main reason: It's quick! All but one have been filled in as shown here:



Now the ridiculously incorrect idler mounts can be cut down, or, in a few cases, will be replaced with unused Meng pieces.



Similar work on the front areas.



Spare shocks from old MLRS kits come in handy here. Barely seen, I don't waste a lot of time on what's hidden behind the wheels.



Where needed, I may move the return rollers, which are incorrectly placed on the kit. Or not. Again, not intended to be a lifelong project.

So, more to come when the whim strikes. Right now 1:1 projects are calling from the garage.

Looks like a great start to a great build! Can't wait to see how the final result comes out!

Dude, I would slap the pope to be able to crawl around those Bradley's! Think of the stories they could tell

Google earthing right now, lots of armor on that post

Nice start. Will be watching to see how these come out.

Cool, I got you thinking about Bradleys , great photos. My brother got me into a M2 at Fort Stewart before Desert Storm happened. Back then I didn't have a camera.

I tell you one thing, once I'm done with mine, I'll never be able to build another M2A0 out of the box again.

Well Vince, these certainly won't have the level of details as yours (very little if any interior roof detail for instance) as the only way to see inside will be through the oval hatch on the ramp. This leaves me free to ignore quite a bit. I no longer feel the need to enter competitions, so the only place for a tiny light is at the end of a handgun, and the only person who needs to be wielding a dental mirror around me is a well endowed dental assistant. Still, some things just couldn't be ignored.

In continuing the prep for the builds I filled in the two slots on the interior's floor. These are for the bogus seat mounts along the left side of the hull. The seats mount directly to the hull, so the slots can be deleted. I missed this on the first one, but it won't show as there'll be a box of gun parts obscuring the view.



I wanted to fold some of the seats up (or down) as per my and my daughter's photos, to add some variety.

Troop compartment seats:



Driver area seats:



Unfortunately cat hair and dust is still visible in a lot of these photos. This project sat untouched for over eighteen months before I regained any interest in it.
Drilled out seat supports to give them a more realistic appearance:



And folded them down by cutting and re-affixing them. Added a little hinge detail as well. D'oh! Remember the goal! Remember the goal!



The one on the left of the hull is one that had the bogus mounts. Tamiya also got its location wrong - it needs to come rearward a bit.

Front seats got a similar treatment, although less detailed as they're barely visible:



I left the original configuration for another interior, and may leave them out altogether for a third:

Such nice work and quite a project! Thank you for sharing. I have a back ground question please... Did any of these shown really float? I've read that swamping of the water curtain at the front was often fatal? I did not understand from the photos if this version had the water gear?

Thanks. Yes, these did swim, in many trials and during exercises. A very low percentage did experience sinking, sometimes resulting in death. In the Army , no opportunity is lost imparting information to the troops. I remember often taking a leak and reading of various accidents: Several instances of soldiers being electrocuted when their antennas became loose and hit overhead catenary lines; SF guys losing altitude awareness during nighttime military freefall ops and burning in, and yes, the occasional drowning during amphibious ops. I remember one case where an M60 crew failed to disconnect batteries during maintenance. One crew member dropped a wrench on the terminal and killed everyone on board. Makes me wonder how I've made it this far.
These particular examples still retain their swim gear for the most part, unless it's just dry rotted away. Later models, due to their heavier armor, lost their swim capability.

Thank you for the good words Rob. Hope to learn more on the Bradley swim gear details. Yes I have read of many bad things that can happen in your line of work. Items as preventable as bad contracting of electrical in the shower stall areas, operation in 120 degree heat, and as dramatic as M1117 5 mph roll overs that separated the turret from the hull all made for very bad days. Makes me most thankful for those who serve. All the best

Another detail I wanted was an opened turret compartment. I've gone whole hog on these at times, but again, it's hard to see much through the rear hatch. I cut down the Tamiya tub and added a few details.



It's not unlike when I make sausage. The end result usually looks good, but you don't want to see how it's made.



I had run out of plastic cement - wanted to make sure the thing stays together.

In addition to the scratchbuilt stowage for the ammo cans that are visible in the other photos, I started adding the smaller details.
These are the beginnings of the TOW stowage mounts and also the M16 clip on the hull.



The exterior will get their share of attention as well.

Since at least two will have engines, the large engine hatches needed to be removed. I still need to add the lip around the opening. I also wanted to remove an inspection cover or two, so detail had to be added there too.

Great job so far on the Brads. They should come out looking great. How are you going to display the? Together as a group?

Brads for all my friends!!

All this Bradley talk/builds between you and Vince got me longing for another Brad build. So I started a project I have been thinking about for a while. I am backdate a Meng M3A3 back into a 2 BDE, 3ID, OIF 1 M2A2 ODS w/interior. I'll be starting a thread on it soon.

I'm just having them all lined up just as I saw them at Shelby. I can always do more later and cover them up with a tarp (as most were anyway) to save a lot of time. A few could even have the rear hatch opened. But for now, five works. I certainly won't run out of the kits.

Hub to hub in the one yard sounds good. They should look great.

My old M2 was swapped out in 1988 for an M2A2 at 2-30 Infantry in Schweinfurt Germany. Our tracks were then sent to Ft. Polk LA. to equip the 5th Infantry Division. I'd love to find out where old D-20 resides these days. The original serial number on the track was 00520 I think.

Didn't the original M2s have laminated spaced side skirt armor with ballistic foam between the layers? I thought I read somewhere that the foam helped the M2s float. The M2s side skirts were effective against 14.5mm AP.

The M2A2 and M2A3s replaced the side skirts with thicker steel ones with bolts for ERA, thus being heavier, prevented the M2A2/3s from floating. The M2A2/3 side skirts were effective against 30mm fire.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Well Bill, I've looked at the serial numbers in my photos (the ones that show up) and yours falls within that range. Given the proximity of Ft. Polk to Camp Shelby, I'd say the odds are pretty good yours is sitting in this lot. The photos I've posted don't show it, but there are well over a hundred of these old relics rusting away. I may vacation there again either in December or in the spring, and I could look for that number.

As for the builds, too many other projects going on at the moment (and yet two more bikes arriving from Seattle tomorrow) but I have managed to get the Meng engines together. I'll post up some photos soon. If the weather holds up I'll be burning rubber all day tomorrow.

Rob any progress on these? I'm looking forward to seeing what else you do with them.