M1A1HA Abrams and M3 Bradley same time period
#041
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 03:21 PM UTC
Hi All
I am not the biggest expert on modern US armor. I am building the Trumpeter M1A1HA and the Tamiya M3 Bradley - a very early version probably the M3A1.
I am planning to do a diorama with both kits in IFOR service. I know the M1A1HA was in IFOR service. It seems like all IFOR M3 Bradleys were A2 standard judging from the pictures I have found. So it seems this will not fly.
Assuming the above would be true, can I then make a diorama with the M1 and M3 in training service in Germany?
What would be the camouflage? Overall green for the M3 and three color camo for the M1?
Thanks for any help and suggestions.
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 04:03 PM UTC
Your Bradley is M3, not M3A1. I'm not sure if any "plain" M3s were still in use by the time M1A1HA entered service. M3A1 certainly were, but they were already being replaced by M3A2.
Indeed for IFOR you would certainly need A2, and not even plain A2, but so called "ODS" version.
I'm not sure if plain M3 and M1A1HA were used in any training at the same time... You could backdate the Abrams to early M1A1 or Bradley to M3A1 to make it more likely.
Pawel "Vodnik" Krupowicz
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 04:54 PM UTC
I agree with Pawel. They are not from the same time periods, especially since you have CIPs on the front turret slope of your M1A1HC (Heavy Common - HA (Heavy Armor) is a modeling term). CIPs are an Iraq war ('03 onward) feature. The straight M3 was phased out in the late '80s and replaced by M3A1s. By the time of Operation Desert Shield/Storm ('90-'91), M3A2s were replacing the M3A1s as well. Most M3s in Desert Storm were M3A2s, with a few M3A1 still in service.
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Showcase
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 05:36 PM UTC
Quoted Text
I agree with Pawel. They are not from the same time periods, especially since you have CIPs on the front turret slope of your M1A1HC (Heavy Common - HA (Heavy Armor) is a modeling term).
Not quite
As far as I know the original designation was HA, it was changed to HC when USMC ordered them and some features requested be Marines were incorporated (eg. the DWFK exhaust adapter mounting frame).
Take a look at those non-modeling usages of HA term:
https://www.google.com/search?q=M1A1+Heavy+Armor+site%3A.mil (all at official US military websites)
Actually the M1A1HA name is more common in Army publications than M1A1HC
------------------------------
EDIT:
Particularly this article is interesting:
http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA377690It is "REVIEW OF THE M1A2 ABRAMS TANK PROGRAM AS A PART OF THE AUDIT OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE DEFENSE ACQUISITION BOARD REVIEW PROCESS -FY 1992"
It has a table of M1 variants with their features and it lists (among others) two models:
"- M1A1 tanks that included this package were designated M1A1 Heavy Armor (HA) tanks.
- M1A1 tanks that included these improvements were designated M1A1 (HA) Common Tank (CT). The Army and the Marine Corps use this model and share the same tank production line."
So it looks like officially it is M1A1(HA) and M1A1(HA)CT
Pawel "Vodnik" Krupowicz
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#041
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 07:47 PM UTC
Thanks for the comments, guys. It is much appreciated.
The difference in time period was what I suspected. I will give up on the idea of combining them in the same diorama. Instead I will build the M1A1HA as the IFOR vehicle and the M3 Bradley in the early camouflage scheme. Later builds can then be combined to make a couple of dioramas
Thanks for your insights
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 09:13 PM UTC
I have video footage of some exercises in Germany right after the first Golf War were there are still some M3 in Nato camo driving around.
Also some units like the 1-1 CAV (having A1 Bradleys I believe) and the 1-37AR brought back their "new" M1A1HA to Germany issued to them shortly before the ground war started. So you might have a very tight time frame of which both tracks did coexsist in Germany ..... but this would mean you would have to pinpoint the exact units involved on the same exercise. Roughly you would be talking of a 4 to 6 month period max. Beginning 1992 most of the restructuring / down-sizing of units in Germany would have been completed .... in many cases the troops didn't even return to Germany anymore only their equipment, left in Germany, was then shipped back states side.
But as Gino pointed out using CIPs on your M1 would be way beyond a possible time line I mentioned above.
Hope this doesn't add more confusion
Cheers
Christopher
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 09:35 PM UTC
Actually, if you look more closely at the items in your Google search, they all pretty much contain the words "Heavy" and Armor" somewhere else in the text, ie.: Heavy Armor Bde, as opposed to with M1A1. The IG report is the only one I see that actually uses M1A1HA.
M1A1HA may have been mentioned in an official Army report or two (Armor magazine is not an official Army publication), but I can tell you I never heard it called that by Army tankers. To them, it was just an M1A1 or an Abrams.
Either way, it still doesn't help Jesper since the two versions were not used at the same time.
Field Artillery --- The KING of BATTLE!!!
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Showcase
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 10:14 PM UTC
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 11:01 PM UTC
Quoted Text
Actually, if you look more closely at the items in your Google search, they all pretty much contain the words "Heavy" and Armor" somewhere else in the text,
My mistake, I posted link to a wrong search... I meant this one:
https://www.google.pl/search?q=M1A1HA+site:.milPawel "Vodnik" Krupowicz
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 11:14 PM UTC
No, nice try.
If you have no knowledge of something, please don't post your gibberish as you have been doing.
Field Artillery --- The KING of BATTLE!!!
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell
Showcase
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 11:36 PM UTC
Quoted Text
Quoted Text
Actually, if you look more closely at the items in your Google search, they all pretty much contain the words "Heavy" and Armor" somewhere else in the text,
My mistake, I posted link to a wrong search... I meant this one: https://www.google.pl/search?q=M1A1HA+site:.mil
Believe me nobody operating this tank ever went into that length of detail ... despite was Google has to offer.
Like Gino already pointed out they are called M1s or M1A1s,tracks, hogs or simply Abrams by the crews and troops ...
only in later life, as a modeler for instance, this might change.
Cheers
Christopher
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Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2016 - 11:39 PM UTC
Quoted Text
Like Gino already pointed out they are called M1s or M1A1s,tracks, hogs or simply Abrams by the crews and troops ...
only in later life, as a modeler for instance, this might change.
I know, my point is that HA is not a modelers term - it was official term, even if it wasn't actually commonly (or at all) used by crews.
Pawel "Vodnik" Krupowicz
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 12:01 AM UTC
But what I have encountered more recently is the official use of acromyn SA meaning either "Situational Awareness" and/or "Special Armor";
seems to be an enhanced export thing without the depleted uranium package.
Cheers
Christopher
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 12:54 AM UTC
Quoted Text
But what I have encountered more recently is the official use of acromyn SA meaning either "Situational Awareness" and/or "Special Armor";
seems to be an enhanced export thing without the depleted uranium package.
SA variant is also used by the US Army, specifically several armored regiments of the National Guard.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/1-118th_Combined_Arms_Battalion_fires_newly_acquired_Abrams_140414-Z-ID851-011.jpgBut it still has the depleted uranium armor of the latest generation.
Pawel "Vodnik" Krupowicz
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 01:41 AM UTC
The new USMC TC weapon station ... now that's what I would really need for some future M1 projects !
And the kit manufactures are all still so negligent in doing some USMC versions of the M1A1 ... it's only TUSK over and over
Cheers
Christopher
" He who seeks to defend everything, defends nothing " Frederick the Great
#041
Kobenhavn, Denmark
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 02:13 AM UTC
Christopher, thanks for the info. That is a very tight time frame to go for with few or no references to what units or camo was used. I will go for two different dioramas.
Maybe put a completely different country's IFOR AFV next to the Abrams. Challengers or AS90s come to mind. But that is a completely different research project about to start.
Thanks for all the quick feedback, guys!
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 03:32 AM UTC
Quoted Text
Christopher, thanks for the info. That is a very tight time frame to go for with few or no references to what units or camo was used. I will go for two different dioramas.
Maybe put a completely different country's IFOR AFV next to the Abrams. Challengers or AS90s come to mind. But that is a completely different research project about to start.
Thanks for all the quick feedback, guys!
The plain vanilla M2 and M3 were in service in small numbers during Desert Storm, and appear in several photo books published in the immediate aftermath of the war, so you can mate an early M1A1 with an M3. But not the recent version in your kit.
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 03:38 AM UTC
Here are a few pictures my dad took while he was in ODS. I'm not sure of the variant but maybe it'll help.
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
#041
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 11:32 AM UTC
Great pictures! Thanks for sharing
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 04:33 PM UTC
27th FEB. 1991... THE VALKYRIES CARRIED MY BROTHERS TO VALHALLA
For the Everlasting Glory of the Infantry.
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 06:31 PM UTC
Another Desert Storm Bradley :
H.P.
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Col. George W.Patton III 's standing order for the troopers of the 11th Armoured Cavalry Regiment
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 06:47 PM UTC
Quoted Text
The new USMC TC weapon station
As you can see in the photo I linked to, it is no longer USMC specific. New Army SA tanks also use it (SCWS- Stabilized Commander's Weapon Station).
Pawel "Vodnik" Krupowicz
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 09:25 PM UTC
Awesome picture, David. I asked my Dad. Just waiting for a reply.
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 09:45 PM UTC
He said he was with the 3rd Corp 212th BDE 2/4th FA
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Posted: Monday, June 13, 2016 - 10:34 PM UTC
Quoted Text
He said he was with the 3rd Corp 212th BDE 2/4th FA
Thanks.
Your Dad and I sure as hell chewed the same dirt.
27th FEB. 1991... THE VALKYRIES CARRIED MY BROTHERS TO VALHALLA
For the Everlasting Glory of the Infantry.
