Howdy folks,

Here's my US Marine Corps M1A1HC Abrams with TWMP. This is a kitbashed Italeri kit that I built late last year. To achieve this, I used parts from Dragon, Tamiya, and Trumpeter and a lot of scratchbuilt details.

I was able to use a borrowed high-quality camera and took these pix.























Details of this build can be read here:


http://c2greentea.com/armor/usmcm1a1hcabrams.html



Any comments, criticisim, and such are highly welcomed.

Enjoy!



BT6

Looks gorgeous! Nice work.
Congrats!

Hello, marvelous Abrams. very nice and perfectly finish.

AWESOME PICTURES RANDY! I saw the first picture and had to duck and cover, thought a real Abrams was coming at me!!!!

Can't beleive that is the Trumpeters TWMP. I am working on one right now for my Dragon AIM. I hope mine looks as good as yours when it is done. I ended up sratching all new connection points for the thing along with missing details. I used the manual too.

Oh, and thanks for the hsout out on your web sight.

EDIT: Randy, do you have the water bottle box files that have been floating around here lately. If not, drop me your email address and I will send them to you along with some other goodies that you can use.

You got to love those overcrowded M1A1s!!! I like it a lot, a very good job IMHO. I would suggest that you painted the "lens " of the MCD in a more "goldish" fashion though. It seems like it is the same color as the rest of the tank. Here is a pic.

Erik

Beautiful Build! One suggestion, get rid of the 25mm cans strapped on the blow out panels. I've never seen an M1A1 with them other than bolted on the bussel rack for POL. We always had about 5-6 cans of cal 50, and 7.62 wedged between the blowout panels and EAPU. On second thought.. we did use some loose 25mm cans from our sister scout platoon to strore maps!

Again, Great Job!

most awesome looking kit! should be MOM in my opinion! great job

GREAT Kit, the only thing that I would sugest is that you get the crew gear off of the TC and Loaders Sponson Boxes, it wouldn't be there. The crews store everything from tools to small arms ammo and snacks in those, and if something is needed, they want to get to it, with out having to move boxes, bags, and tie downs. Like the Crew tent / cammo netting bag that you have on top of the TC's sponson box, they weigh alot. and most times its a 4 man lift (for cammo netting) b/c of shape and weight. You wouldn't see it on the sponson box. but rather over the blow-out panels with other stuff piled ontop of it.

Please don't get me wrong, it looks great. I think yo udid a great job on it.

Beautiful Beautiful. Wow! Very Beautiful. Nice job.

Very, very nice. I did not think the Italeri kit could be made to look so good.

Bob

Very nice build.

Were you planning on adding the straps that run from the mine plow motors to the mine plow banks?

Did you scratchbuild the IMOD mine detonator or is it aftermarket?

hi randy, with all the add-ons and improvements you've made..plus the realistic sandy weathering....the M1 looks impressive! nice work. thanks for sharing.

outstanding job.

I've stood on the real thing and I have to say that is the most accurate depiction that I've seen in scale! I love all the stowage because us Jarheads are known to throw whatever we can get away with on vehicles to make life in the field more liveable.

If I had to nit-pick one thing IMHO the mine plow needs a bit more abuse. That's it! Loved the treads!

Awesome!

And considering thats from the Italeri kit(every single part takes very carefull cleaning up and tweaking).....TOTALLY awesome

Makesure you enter it for the MoM!

Excellent Build. It would get my vote for MoM.

not much to say other than "WoW !!"

Awesome job..

One of the best I have seen..


Bill

Thank you for all the comments.

Erik67: I painted the MCD face as stated on the Tamiya instructions and added several coats of Future; I didnt have any better choice. At certain angles, the MCD does have a bit of glossiness, though.

FatMike: I really appreciate the call outs on the stowage loadout. I looked at my reference pix and I realize my mistake - tankers do keep the stowage lids clear. Will pay attention to that on my next build.

LeoCmdr: I'm not sure about those "..straps that run from the mine plow motors to the mine plow banks...", can someone have a clearer explantation or an image of that?

The IMOD was taken from Trumpeter's M1 Panther II.

hellbent11: I didnt go for the banged-up look, I really wanted to go for that slightly used appearance.

Again, thank you for all your comments. I dont think I can qualify for the AMOM since this kit was completed early December of last year as an entry for the IPMS-BAC (Phils) Nationals.



BT6

Randy,

The straps attach to the pulleys of the mine plow motors and they run down to the top of each mine plow bank frame.

The mine plow banks weigh about two tons each...the straps can take a beating very quickly when the plow is used a lot. They fade very quickly to a light tan colour. There is also a semi-manual lifting device that can be used to lift the plow if the straps break. To lower them manually that's what the wire cables are for attached to the releases that you have running up the glacis plate of your M1A1.

Here's photos from Tanxheaven. You can see the straps very clearly:

http://tanxheaven.com/m1dozer/m1dozerpic.htm

Randy,

dont care what the knit pickers say best looking Abrams I ve seen on here yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you much, LeoCmdr. Much appreciated.

Annoyed at myself that I missed out such an obvious detail. I also used Jim Lewis' M1A2 SEP w/ TWMP build as refereces and I failed to see that even though there was a close-up shot of the mine plow. Argh!

BT6

Hi,

Great looking build..... nice finish..... good job .



Gray

Outstanding! I love it.

Chris