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From the very little I have heard/read/seen about the war in Vietnam I find the poses a little hard to believe. The guy standing by the radio looks as if he has a steel rod up his backside ...

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The positions are correct, as each crewmember has a specific spot to occupy. The radioman does look a little formal, pretty much standing at attention. (Un)fortunately, the figures are not included in the kit. Too bad as there are not any good Vietnam artillery figures out there.

Actual Vietnam artillery crewmen on an M114A1.

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You have received a bunch of good information. Just as a note about the barrel, it is bare metal but would have a thin coat of gun grease. Look at the photos and you will see the coating.

You will also have a grease coating on the elevation and traverse gears.

Just some additional thoughts. Even though it is built to the M114 VN version you can see what I did with the barrel here

http://www.redleg2scale.com/model%20gallery/M114.html

Hope that helps

Rounds Complete!!

Here's a good WW II image taken on a cloudy day:



When ready to fire it just looks like a matte silver.

KL

Thank God I was a 13F and never a Gun Bunny!

A little experimentation with the NMF barrel. Made up some test barrels and started with three primed gloss black and three with the auto body primer I use.



Next I hit one black and one grey with Tamiya Polished Silver from a rattle can. The one with the grey primer gave a darker hue.



Next I decided to try some of the Mig Metal Acrylics; polished metal and flat aluminum. I thinned these with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner (love that stuff) The flat is not flat at all.





Next I wanted to try to duplicate this lubricant the barrel was reportedly covered in. So I tried some Tamiya Clear colors, orange and yellow. I couldn't find smoke so I may try that later if I still think its important.





And lastly hitting all of them with some flat coat.







For my my taste the plain Mig Polished Metal with Flat Coat looked the best. I have some metalizer smoke may try as a thinned wash/filter to see if I can get an oily sheen.

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Thank God I was a 13F and never a Gun Bunny!

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those guys in the WWII photo won't be shooting too much. Ground is too wet and soft. You tell they are already having trouble with the jack. Still if they do fire the thing; I would be careful being behind it. It's gonna displace like crazy.

I did a stint in FDC due to my GT score. You might have seen pics from it in Playboy magazine. Half the guys in there were worthless, and the other half were lazy. I knew I was being punished fifteen minutes in that dark hole. 12 hours on and 12 hours off; seven days a week. On the otherhand it was clean, and dry (in more than one way). I made the mistake of learning their craft (nothing more than Algebra II in high school), and good map reading. Days were like 48 hours shifts. Right before Tet I let the LT. know what I thought of him and his bunker. He punished me by sending me to gun three at Gator. I was so happy I could have cried. Gun three was special. It was well known as the best 155 gun in the U.S. Military (still holds the hip shoot record by a light year). These guys were that good! All but three had college degrees I might add. They had no section chief, and never needed one. Their main claim to fame was racing other guns in zone sweeps for a case of beer. They never lost, and had a couple hundred cases of beer stashed way when I got there. They taught me how to party real well! Course we were maybe shooting a dozen rounds a day unless it was a sweep. Tet came as a surprise (to me anyway). Jimmy and I were out on an LP that was 250 to 300 yards past the wire. Just covered up and watched. At daylight we headed back, and these guys were still shooting. They ran out of ammo around noon, but ammo was on the way from ten miles north. I spent the next five days out there, before we were told to stay home (thank you). Still better than FDC or changing the inside dual on a five ton. We went from a dozen rounds a night to 250 rounds a night in 48 hours. Out on that LP, I learned how little value a human being has and the REMFs were still eating good. Got off that LP and thought it was just gonna be good from there. After that it just became a big adventure with my First [auto-censored] as the instructor.
gary

A little experimentation with the NMF barrel. Made up some test barrels and started with three primed gloss black and three with the auto body primer I use.



Next I hit one black and one grey with Tamiya Polished Silver from a rattle can. The one with the grey primer gave a darker hue.



Next I decided to try some of the Mig Metal Acrylics; polished metal and flat aluminum. I thinned these with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner (love that stuff) The flat is not flat at all.





Next I wanted to try to duplicate this lubricant the barrel was reportedly covered in. So I tried some Tamiya Clear colors, orange and yellow. I couldn't find smoke so I may try that later if I still think its important.





And lastly hitting all of them with some flat coat.







For my my taste the plain Mig Polished Metal with Flat Coat looked the best. I have some metalizer smoke may try as a thinned wash/filter to see if I can get an oily sheen.

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Thank God I was a 13F and never a Gun Bunny!

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those guys in the WWII photo won't be shooting too much. Ground is too wet and soft. You tell they are already having trouble with the jack. Still if they do fire the thing; I would be careful being behind it. It's gonna displace like crazy.

I did a stint in FDC due to my GT score. You might have seen pics from it in Playboy magazine. Half the guys in there were worthless, and the other half were lazy. I knew I was being punished fifteen minutes in that dark hole. 12 hours on and 12 hours off; seven days a week. On the otherhand it was clean, and dry (in more than one way). I made the mistake of learning their craft (nothing more than Algebra II in high school), and good map reading. Days were like 48 hours shifts. Right before Tet I let the LT. know what I thought of him and his bunker. He punished me by sending me to gun three at Gator. I was so happy I could have cried. Gun three was special. It was well known as the best 155 gun in the U.S. Military (still holds the hip shoot record by a light year). These guys were that good! All but three had college degrees I might add. They had no section chief, and never needed one. Their main claim to fame was racing other guns in zone sweeps for a case of beer. They never lost, and had a couple hundred cases of beer stashed way when I got there. They taught me how to party real well! Course we were maybe shooting a dozen rounds a day unless it was a sweep. Tet came as a surprise (to me anyway). Jimmy and I were out on an LP that was 250 to 300 yards past the wire. Just covered up and watched. At daylight we headed back, and these guys were still shooting. They ran out of ammo around noon, but ammo was on the way from ten miles north. I spent the next five days out there, before we were told to stay home (thank you). Still better than FDC or changing the inside dual on a five ton. We went from a dozen rounds a night to 250 rounds a night in 48 hours. Out on that LP, I learned how little value a human being has and the REMFs were still eating good. Got off that LP and thought it was just gonna be good from there. After that it just became a big adventure with my First [auto-censored] as the instructor.
gary

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No reply to the post, but do like reading your posts Gary.
Thanks for that service ,from an ex army combat engineer.
62B20 here.

Jeff

Floquil "Old Silver" looks to be a good match to the pics. It's a very strong paint also.