My vote is yes to the gun ring and no to the add-on armor.

On which truck?

I made the same call on my HEMTT LHS: yes to the gun ring and no to the armor.

Either or both?

I think the tractor would be the better bet. Your PLS is interesting enough in itself. I think the tractor would benefit more from having the gun ring.

I'd do the gun ring on the pls

I am leaning toward the M983 Tractor too. We'll see. I did get some paint on the interiors of both cabs and am detailing them now. I also got an extra tire from the Trumpeter launcher kit from another modeler here. I modified it by drilling out the center hub and lug nut holes to make it a spare to go on the rear deck. It came out pretty nicely. I don't know why Trumpeter didn't include the spare. It is one of the items added in resin in the AFV Club rebox of the Trumpeter kit.

Updates soon.

The HEMTT assembly line continues. I have completed the interior painting and decals on the cab. All the decals are either left-overs from other kits or home made by me on computer decal paper. I like the way they turned out and think they look pretty good. The instrument gauges are from the Eduard sheet and came out well too. I added a radio setup with a SINCGARS ICOM, handset, and speakerbox from the now-OOP Pro Art set. I am glad I have a few of these since no one else makes just a SINCGARS set.






I also assembled and painted the Real Model engine. I really like how the engine turned out. It is going to look great under the hood.

Looking great!

EXACTLY!

WISEMAN, CAL SCALE, KEMTRON, CARY LOCOMOTIVE WORKS, and a few others all make different "lost-wax" brass castings and plastic parts in HO, O, S, and G scales that can be used in super-detailing and "imagineering" 1/32, 1/35, 1/48, 1/24-1/25 models...

The cab interior looks great!

Thanks Dennis and Michael. Its coming along.

After a break over the holidays and the new semester starting at work, I have finally gotten back to working on this. I painted it using Testors Model Master Sand (FS33531). It best represents modern US CARC Tan in my opinion. I also started final assembly and have added the tires, engine, etc. I still have to do the decals and final details on the cab before adding it. After that, it will be lightly weathered as most of these tractors are kept in pretty good shape.

Here it is so far.







More to follow soon.

Very nice work!

Thanks Taylor. Hopefully I will have more pics of it further along over the weekend.

Thnx Gino, looking forward!

I have finished decaling and adding details. It still needs to be weathered.

Here it is so far.

This is a truck modeler's truck!!!

This is a truck modeler's truck!!!

Tonight's Big Bang Theory had Sheldon working on a HEMTT engine and calling it a railroad locomotive engine. I guess it was the biggest engine they could get their hands on.

Thanks Evan.

Hi Mike, I saw that too. It was cool to see it and see how accurate the Real Model engine set I used is. It looks just like the one in Sheldon's living room.

That turned out great! I like the gun ring on the tractor too, nice touch.

Hello Gino, what a great looking model. There's a lot of good tips with this build. Ronnie

Anybody ever notice in the movie "Red Tails", one time the pilots are all sitting around talking while the chief mechanic works on a big engine? It's a Russian T-34 tank/MAZ 8x8 engine!