The last time Monogram re-issued this kit a couple of years ago I decided to try my hand at it. It's two years younger than I am (1966 vintage) when the tank was serving in the front line. The movie Armor Command had some great sequences done out at the 7th Army USAEUR training grounds where the filmmakers just let the army do an urban assault while they filmed it for the climatic battle scene. Lots of great action sequences of M48A2s in action in the mud of a German spring. So that's what I would build.



I only added the infantry rail on the turret and new headlights. I actually used the kit headlight guards with the molded in lights ground out of them. And since no one makes 1960 US infantry I decided to go the nostalgia route and use the kit figures. With a good paint job they really don't look too bad. And no one else makes US soldiers with M14 rifles. The ones with WW2 weapons were modified. Some new heads, pouches and e-tools were also added to make them a little more 3-D.











The tank before the final weathering. It was painted in Model Master Dark Helo Olive Drab with a coat of gloss. The mantle covers are old school tissue and diluted white glue. M48A2's had really droopy covers.

And no mud chute holes in the driver sprockets. They weren't standard yet. I looked at more than a half dozen M48's at Fort Knox and 2 did not have the chute holes.



Finished with weathering and no guys. It did a series of pictures because I wanted to chronicle what the tank looked like without the figures. The storage is right out of the movie even down to the spare road wheel on the fender. Unless the tank rolled a road wheel would stay there held by its own weight.



Bustle rack storage. I used a bunch of ancient Vietnam era C-rations containers. The tank commander is the platoon sergeant as indicated by the tank number and his rank stripes. The uniform of the Monogram figure is correct. A army green version of the old tanker's jaclet was a private purchase item for tank crew in the 1960's. Some units did year the old WWII era helmets with the addition of microphones. This guy for some reason retains a World War II russet leather strapped one. Maybe he's an old timer looking at retirement.







For all that I did do there was so much I didn't. Nostalgia build. Besides I knew there were other M48 kits coming so I wanted to do the old school build(s) first just to see what was possible with the old bird.



Besides how can you go wrong with a kit you got in Michael's with the 40% off coupon? I still haven't done photos of the kit with the figures. I also did another one as a West German M48A2G but I still have to get photos of that.

That is nice! I always liked that old kit. With some new tracks and updated parts, it can still stand up with some of the newer kits available. Good job on it.
Nice job on the figures too. You should give more photos/info on them.
Ken.

great build of an old kit.your guys look great as well,

Stephen,
Nice job on an oldie! I built this one back as a teen, too. Of course, back then the only technique I knew was dry brushing.

I like these cold war tanks. They have nice, classic lines.

Gaz

Looking good Steve, turning a sows ear into a silk purse.

Tom

Hi, Stephen!

Boy, talk about taking me back in time! The ORIGINAL MONOGRAM M48 Patton kit was copyrighted in 1958, back when MONOGRAM was first starting to establish themselves as one of America's first premier model manufacturers. They were the industry leaders, until TAMIYA started to take over in the late 1960s and early 1970s...

I got my MONOGRAM Patton in 1962, at a place called Jam's, which was really a stationery store that sold models as a sideline. Jam's was located on Manhattan Avenue, in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, in New York City. We lived on Berry Street, between North 9th and North 10th Street, right on the border between Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Just a few blocks from McCarren Park... Many Brooklynites regard Brooklyn as our "own" City, even today. There is a movement afoot to separate Brooklyn from the rest of the City. Brooklyn ALONE has more people residing there than Chicago, which as everyone knows, is NO SLOUCH of a City!

I was 9 years old when I got that M48. (I had gotten the 1/232 REVELL USS Olympia, Admiral Dewey's Flagship at Manila, 1898, for Christmas in 1962- BOY WHATTA MODEL!!! )

I didn't exactly build my M48 "straight-out-of-the-box"- By that time, my Mom, Dad and "Oma", (German, for "Grandma", Mom and Oma were German), realized that building models was something that I took reeeeally seriously. In our home, we spoke German and Ukrainian, mostly- by way of Mom, Dad, and Oma, and of course, English, plus a little bit of Polish. Also, a bit of Russian, Czech, Italian, and two or three words of Hungarian, again, by way of Dad. He spoke broken English, and spoke Ukrainian and Polish as a matter of course. Dad picked up the other languages when he was in German POW camps after having been captured in 1939. He served with the Polish Mounted Artillery...

I enjoyed building that Patton kit very much, and I was very proud to add it to my other MONOGRAM kits. I had their US (M29) Amphibious Weasel, 2 1/2-ton "Eager Beaver" 6x6 (M35), their US (M15 Twin .50) Half-track, and their WWII Jeep with 37mm Anti-tank Gun. But I REEEEALLY LOVED the MONOGRAM 1/48 Aircraft, I bought ALL of them eventually- Bf.109, Spitfire Mk.IX, Mitsubishi A6M5 "Zero", SBD Dauntless, F4F Wildcat, etc, etc. Monogram really came unto their own when they started releasing kits that were meant for more "experienced" modellers, such as their P-38 Lightning, P-40B Tigershark, Fw.190A, P-51B Mustang, P-47D Thunderbolt, B-17G Flying Fortress, De Havilland Mosquito, and many others...

They had really GREAT 1/24 Cars, too! I got the 1930 Model A Ford Coupe/Cabriolet, 1934 Ford Coupe/Cabriolet, 1934 Duesenberg Weymann Torpedo-bodied Phaeton. Later, I bought all of their 1/24 Classic Cars...

By 1962-3, I had already gotten a few basic modellers tools, i.e, an X-Acto knife, a few "hijacked" emery boards, (out of Mom's vanity), a good set of scissors and what I called a "hang-nail cutter", which was a miniature set of precision snips, and a few clothes pins that Mom and Oma let me have. Also, toothpicks, my own Scotch Tape, a few of the old TESTORS 1/4-ounce Enamel paints, and some rudimentary camel hair paint brushes. Dad also got me some fine-grained sand paper. I discovered the "PACTRA FLATS" Enamels the following year, (1964), and my painting efforts were never the same again. I bought my first airbrush in 1967- A BADGER, the most BASIC Airbrush that they ever made.

So, what I'm saying is that I already knew enough to build a model that didn't quite look disastrous upon completion- I'd trim and sand the "nubs" after cutting the parts from their sprues, and I'd also learned in the few preceding years how to use "tube glue" sparingly, so as not to mar my models' surfaces. My M48 turned out great, for a nine-year-old. The only hitch were the original-issue Tracks, which were too stiff, and prone to break- The same problem was encountered with their Weasel and Half-track kits' Tracks. They all broke eventually, to my great chagrin. DRAGON's "DS" Tracks were still waaaay in the future!

In the mid-1970s, I also bought MONOGRAM's Pz.Kpf.IV, M3 Grant, M3 Lee, and their Panzerjaeger IV, which were contemporaries of their still-great 1/48 B-17G, B-25H, B-26, and a bunch more. The Late GREAT Shep Paine was featured in extra "mini-brochures" that MONOGRAM included in their "quality" military kits, and these were CRAMMED with the most wonderful "How-To's" explained with color photos and Mr.Paine's great model-building, painting, PROPER DRY-BRUSHING, and WEATHERING expertise. YES!!! I was introduced to WEATHERING POWDERS- made by sanding down GRUMBACHER's Artist's Pastel Chalks, and loading the residue up with soft brushes, and then- Well, you all know the rest...I learned A LOT from those little folders!!!

By this time, TAMIYA was already well-established, with newer, AND BETTER, things to come- Their T-34s, 8,8cm FLAK 36/37, Sd.Kfz 7 Half-track, Sd.Kfz.232 8-Rad Armored Car, and LRDG 15cwt. Chevrolet, among many others, were at that time, THE benchmark of 1/35 Armor. Their second-generation of 1/48 Aircraft proved to be made in the same standard...
Heady days... Then came the 1990s, and the rest is HISTORY...

THANKS, Stephen- For taking me back to some of the most rewarding times of my modelling experiences in my younger years, a time before MANY of us had become so jaded and demanding of the newest products that are appearing in today's world...

Nice work on an old warhorse! The kit was resissued in 1966 (when I first got one), but the molds actually date to about 1957, when the tank was actually in production. It was in 1/35th scale, but the box was amended to read 1/32nd in some subsequent reissues.

Revell USA has recently reissued the Monogram kit in their own box, and confusingly, Revell Germany has issued an all-new M48A2 kit (in 2014) as well as a West German M48A2GA2 upgraded version, for those souls who don't feel nostalgic about the very primitive Monogram item.

Dragon's new Israeli Magach kit is essentially the same vehicle, since it depicts the M48A2C tanks as delivered to the IDF in 1967 before they had time to do significant upgrades.

I haven't seen Dragon's, but Revell Germany added a little too much cast armor texturing, including some components which shouldn't have the texture, like the hatches and turret ventilator. Presumably, Dragon'e doesn't have these gaffes.

I built this before any new kits had been announced. Like I said I had the coupon and I wanted to revisit the kit from childhood.

Once upon a time I had done all the surgery to mate the Monogram rear with the the then state of the art M48A3 but lost interest. I'm just not into the latest and greatest kit rush anymore. I'd rather teach a few new tricks to an old dog than go batty over the latest and greatest molding.

That being said I do have both of Revell's M48A2s and will be adding them to the two Monogram M48's I have. The Dragon magach has a few issues that if I'm paying a mint for a kit, I don't want to deal with.

I will be adding some final pictures of the tank and its riders. Then I will probably start a new topic for my Monogram M48A2G conversion. (Not the M48A2GA2 but the 1970s service version as shown in the aged M48 in Action)

Some pictures of the finished tank with the figures. I went for a little silly thing like the open case of rations with the slip cover folded up in the bustle rack. The grenades all have blue tape on them to show they're training grenades. This is the tank platoon sergeant's tank. In some units it was his responsibility to carry up the rations. And his tank is marked "short timer" because maybe he's looking at retirement. Maybe that old time russet leather stitched helmet is the one he wore as a boot 20 years before in World War II.

Looks great. I started one using the old Lo Models German version conversion. Of course Revell just released that version as a new kit. I have found memories of this model; the first tank kit my dad built for me nearly 50 years ago.

Great work on that old-timer! I first ran across it in the mid-seventies, when it competed with the more expensive Tamiya A3 kit. Fond memories indeed.