I was wondering what are the external differences between the M113A2 or M113A3 ?

what version does the Iraqi army operate at the moment?

i see that tamiya does the A2 version and Academy have an A3 kit out as well.

i'm planning to do one of this in an up and coming campaign so i would appreciate the help... this might be one for Gino but all help is welcome,

thanks.

M113 A3 has External Fuel Tanks. Today all M113 have T-150 tracks. Belly armor and new hinges for rerar door. Most changes of the A3 are internal.

Iraq has mosly M113A2s. Over 400 were refurbished for them starting in 2012. The Iraqi M113A2s do not have the external fuel tanks, which are actually an A2 feature, just not installed by the US Army until the A3 upgrade.



On another note, not all US Army M113A3s have the T150 tracks. They are being phased in, but there are still plenty out there with T130 tracks.

I don't know about the Iraqi army version, but to do an A3 requires some work. In my opinion the Tamiya version is just too much of a mish-mash between the real A2 and A3. See Pawel's review of it. I think the Academy A3 offering is the way to go, but it too is not close enough to being correct either, but I think requires less work. And the base kit of Academy's has much nicer fidelity to it all around.

See the two here that I did. One is an article from a couple of years ago in Military Modelling. I ignored the suspension corrections since I felt the real focus on the model was up top.

In addition to what Hans-Hermann advises, there are more changes to an A3 though. On the sides holes need to be drilled for the A3. These were for expected add-on armor. Then the front needs add-on armor on the upper glacis, which is easy enough, but then due to that the light clusters need to be dealt with too. And then the Academy kit has the fuel cap on the roof (an A2 feature since the fuel cell is inside the vehicle) but since the fuel cells are outside on the A3 this fuel cap needs shaved off. The smoke discharger mounts are too basic for my liking so I corrected them.


There are other details too if you wish like the missing weld beads all over the vehicle. And the missing lip around the roof troop hatch. And the hatch interiors have knockout marks.

If you want to show the interior, the Academy kit is not super correct, but at least they give you a start. The sliding spall doors are not the correct number, but you can use them to start things off. There are other items too but they are more into the weeds.

I soooo hope AFV Club follows up their A1 offering. I am sure they will do it right.

And no matter what variant you go with I highly recommend the Eduard PE set for the A2. It is hard to find now but it is around.

nice builds!

thanks for all of your help guys, i think i'm gonna roll with the tamiya kit (but i will still buy the academy one as well and build it later..."yeah, yeah we've all heard that before")

now i just need to get hold of a 1/35 Dshk...any ideas?

Here's an option, amongst several others...

From Tank :



Here are a few more Iraqi Army M113A2's :











Full size

M113A3's :



Looks like you may also need a few 1/35 carpets and rugs

H.P.

Not sure you need the Dshk. From the pics, it looks like most (if not all) have US M2 .50 cals on them.

Agree. The only ones I've found so far are fitted to APC's captured by ISIS :





H.P.

Hi Frenchie, many thanks for posting those images.

I'm trying to find pictures of M113's that have been captured by isis but i am not having much luck... the one i had in mind was a side view of an M113 driving from the left to the left to the right but i can't seem to find it.

when i do searches on google i seem to get every vehicle under the sun captured by isis but not what i'm looking for, can you help me please?

I guess it may be the one you're looking for..



It comes from a Twitter account which have a restricted access, that's why I can't post a larger picture...

Another view of the one in my previous post



H.P.