BLUF: I have the really old school M1 Abrams kit from Tamiya. What can I model with it?

Longer story:

So there I was, in a antique store being dragged along by my wife while she sought out some nicknacks for the house. In her defense, I see it as a fairly small price to pay for how tolerant she is of my own eccentric collection of stuff. But I was as bored as a human being could likely be.

So I wandered off, and in a faraway and distant corner, I came across a table with some odds and ends on it. And in the middle was a Tamiya M1 Abrams set that must have been from the early 80's or something for 25 bucks. The box was opened, and looked like it'd be karate chopped, but as far as I can tell it's entirely complete (the only "missing" piece was something detached from the sprue and was in the bottom of the box).

I've heard varying things about the kit, namely it's actually an XM1 vs an M1 tank. The blowout panels certainly don't look like the whopping whole one M1 Abrams I've seen IRL (for god knows what reason there was a very old Abrams was parked in our neighboring unit's motorpool for a few weeks so I took a look*), but the rest doesn't appear too bad.

I've got some actual experience with the Abrams tank, but it's all on M1A1HCs or M1A2 SEP v2s, the M1 or M1IPs were all long gone from active service when I was in so I'm at a bit of a loss. Here's my more specific questions:

1. Where the trapezoid type blowout panels used on production M1s for any length of time? As a follow up, I assume if they were used on production tanks they'd be early model ones, would those be more likely to be Germany or CONUS based armor?

2. What's the best rattlecan solution for Forest Green? Olive Drab is wrong by most accounts, and I've got enough WW2 US Armor in Olive Drab that'd I'd rather have the Abrams be distinctively differently green if I go for a Germany based unit, or for an XM1.

3. Any general purpose wisdom about the specific model or early run M1s in general.



*If I had to guess why there was an M1 on Fort Riley circa 2010, it was either from a static display or museum and was there for a refurbishment, or some Guard unit had one that simply had escaped turn-in for a decade or so and was awaiting disposition orders on our post

Photos would help a bunch

If I was a guessing man, I would say that that particular M1 was the one that is at the Cantigny/1st Infantry Museum at Wheaton IL... It is a M1 with the added bustle rack that supposedly was in 2nd Bde and was part of the force that did the "Breach" and secured the Iraqi surrender site at Safwan, during Desert Storm.

It was delivered/showed up there around the 2010 time frame. I have some pics at home as well as the tank serial number.

John

I'll see about getting a picture of the model's upper turret beside what my reference material says is a normal M1 set of blow out panels. It's noticeably different.

Re: Fort Riley M1s

That'd make sense. The tank stood out because at that point most of the motorpool was painted in some shade of tan, and it really looked like it'd just been abandoned somewhere for a decade or so, real rough.

Hi all,

Plenty you can do with the old Tamiya Abrams. I had an M1A2 that was damaged in the box, just laying around, so scavenged some parts to bring the old kit up to date. The kit itself isnt terrible though. It isnt great either!









Sam

I was on m-1s from 86-90, 91, and I don't recall seeing any trapezoid shaped blow out panels. The M-1's in Basic and the M1IPs in Germany had the 3 rectangular panels and the M1A1's we got later had the one big one.
Really surprising that that a 105 M-1 was in the first Gulf War. I thought they had generally been phased out-relegated to the USMC?

Gotcha. Like I said I was on late model M1A1s and M1A2s so it's all a bit new to me.

Photo hosting annoys me, so I'll just say the trapezoid type is basically the center panel tapers noticeably, so it's still three panels of vaguely rectangular shape but there's a definite "plug" shape to the center one. It's quite obvious although I suppose if I got some stowage I could just cover them up entirely.

I know M1 Abrams were deployed to the the Persian Gulf in 1991, however from my understanding most of them stayed in Saudi Arabia. The Marines never recieved any however, they took the first delivery of the Marine-friendly M1A1HCs and "borrowed" a Battalion and change of M1A1HAs for the war.

So yeah kinda weird it's an M1 doing the breach in the museum.

The kitmaker hosting was really impossible to deal with, but Photobucket is pretty smooth. Seems like a million years ago, but I can still rmember that smell when you open the ready rack doors.

Here is some discussion on the M1/IPM1

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/230382

There is a post about blow out panels on page two of this one.

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/233123&ord=&page=1

Know what you mean man. I never noticed the smell, but the sound of the turbine and of track takes me right back.

Anyway. It would appear the blowout panels are correct for some M1s, although certainly would also appear to be highly uncommon.

Three trapezoid panels were standard on all 105mm gun tanks from XM1 to IPM1. Tamiya kit has the trapezoid shape slightly overdone (they were a bit closer to rectangles in reality, so it wasn't obvious that they aren't actually rectangles). First rectangular panels came with M1E1 and 120mm gun.