Just over at primeportal and came across this great pic of an M113A3. Can anyone shed some light on the origins and use of the side access door. This is unusual as I have never come across this before.........

This M113A3 variant is fitted with a M56 smoke generator. This makes it a M58A3 Smoke generator carrier.
From www.fas.org : "The M58 is an upgraded Smoke Generator Carrier. The M58 will incorporate the turbine powered Large Area Obscuration System inside a RISE upgraded M113A3 Chassis. The Large Area Obscuration System is capable of generating both visual and infrared-defeating obscurant clouds"
more info here : http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m58.htm

The door is the access panel to the generator turbine inside the vehicle :


HTH
Frenchy

Cheers for the info frenchy. I think this would be an interesting scratch build. I'll do a google search now and have a look at what sort of pic info I can get.

Cheers.

You can also go to the LOGSA website and download TM 9-2350-277-10 . But you'd better have a high speed Internet connection as it's a 906 page long document (pdf format) . It covers many variants of the M113 and you'll find several useful drawings of the M58A3

Here's the link (just type 9-2350-277-10 in the "Pub number" box )
https://www.logsa.army.mil/etms/

Good luck !

Frenchy

10/10 frenchy. Thanks heaps.

Cheers mate.