Howdy All,

{My apologies for double-posting this post here as well as MSW's, but because some of you may not find your over to the ever exciteful MSW side of the site, I thought I'd post this here for those of you who are participating in the Vietnam Campaign build}

Came across this wee bit of a surprise {at least to me} whilst researching something entirely different.
I have been aware of the German employment of 'Flak Barges' during WWII, and even began scratching one up sometime back. I got as far as building one of the Flak 88's {four were planned} and two of the quad 20mm's. I had also accumulated all the required rod/strip-stock for the outer perimeter of the barge itself. Anyway, back to the point, I was surprised to discover that they also developed 'flak' or artillery barges during the 'Nam!
Enclosed is a couple of really bad photos, and one interesting diagram of how these barges were floated and deployed. Apparently they were towed into place by Tango boats{LCM-6/8's}

These arty-barges were designed to have two 105mm howitzers emplaced on each barge, complete with crew, ammo and command 'hooche's'. Both resupply and replacement were carried out by helo.
Here's a look at the barge itself;
{yeah, as I said, bad photo}




And here's the schematic showing the configuration for towing the barges to their firing positions;
{although, from the diagram it appears to me the LCM is facing the wrong direction}




These barges were used both in the middle of the Mekong river, as well as being beached on the shoreline, as shown below;
{again, really poor photograph}



Further, the same innovative person {Lieutenant Colonel Carroll S. Meek} designed oversized Helo Barges as both a supplement to the rather limited, single-padded ATC-(H)'s, as well as a supply and support system for multiple, grouped artillery barges as seen below. These helo-barges were designed with three landing pads plus off loading & storage areas, so as you might suspect, they were rather large in size.



If anyone is interested in any further information I'd be happy to share, otherwise I just thought there might be some others out there who would as equally surprised as I to have discovered this wee Vietnam-era factoid.

Regards,

Tread.

Hi Gordo. Cool stuff. I will be happy to take whatever info you have on them. I recently acquired an old Viking Models resin Monitor kit. I may have to do it and the barges up together for a little Vietnam Fire Support.

Hey Gino!....how ya doin' Buckeroo?

Yeah, I thought it was cool stuff as well. The birth of these Arty-Barges was for direct support of both the Mobile Afloat Force and the Mobile Riverine Force, but was used additionally to assist regular ground-based troops on mission.
I'll try to put more info together for ya.

So, you got yourself a Monitor kit huh? Is that the 1/35th offering? If so, how about some pics of it? I'd love to see 'em if ya got 'em.
As to a potential dio......well, the possibilities are fat and sassy aren't they? Since both the arty-based barges and the helo barge were built on grouped pontoons, I am still digging for the particulars as it pertains to the actual construction. The last picture I posted {helo barge} has the best detail believe it or not. You can see the prow of the pontoon below sticking it's nose out on the right of the picture.
The rest of the actual barge configuration should be typical construction. The items that might need more study would be the refueling hootch and/or crew hut configurations.

Thanks for stopping by pard'

Tread.

Gordon,
The model is 1/35 scale. It is really nice with a hollow resin hull and resin major pieces. The smaller fittings are white metal and the RPG screens are PE. It looks like it will go together nicely. I may try to copy some of the parts to use on an ATC or ATC/H as well. You can see it below.




Any progress on your ATC project?

Looking forward to whatever you dig up on the barges.

Id love to get my hands on one of those kits....was it HTF? Is it relatively current?

Thanks!
chad

I've got the Nimix 35th scale Monitor and I gotta say that the Viking kit you've got looks like a much easier build!!!! Hasn't Viking been gone for a while...?

Has anyone seen or built the Masterpiece Models monitor? I'm hoping they'll ASPB or a PACV in 35th at some point (but who isn't?)



What do you think of the kit, Gino?

Much Aloha,

Johnny B.

Viking is long gone 5+years, probably closer to ten.
The Masterpiece folks I talked to at AMPS last year did not seem terribly excited at the idea of a PACV and did not think if they did one it owuld be soon.

BUT, VLS (yeah, now bought by Squadron) has one on the way. I should say had one on the way, since I am not sure the new bosses will go forward with the project.
Check out their homepage www.modelmecca.com and back about 12-17, iirc. There was a posting under the useless heading of new project or somesuch..

Mike

Wow, Mike! VLS SOLD! It's news to me and I am a VLS member (and the father of a 14 month old, which means I am out of the loop on just about everything)...

Didn't see the PACV posting, so maybe the took it off. I'd save my pennies and pay for a good kit of one... I hope they are still working on it --- I know some one who might know, but won't see him for another week.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Funny, I have NEVER seen any pictures of the Nimix Monitor painted up (especially not mine, which sitting in the box, of course) --- it always cracked me up that the kit in the Nimix catalogue was built but not painted... Hopefully I'll get to it this Summer! Maybe by then there'll be a PACV to go along with it..

Mike, did the Masterpiece Models people have anything to say about any other future kits?

Thanks!

Aloha,

Johnny B.

Hi Johnny. The Viking kit looks good. I haven't built it yet, but it doesn't look too hard to build. I hope to get to it soon too, but we will see. Good luck on yours.

Hi all,
These barges are great! Besides the 105 howitzer ones there were also barges with mortars mounted on it. I had the plan to scratch one of those (and even started on the pontoons, didn’t work out as I hoped so now it’s a far future plan ). The barges were constructed using socalled P-serie-pontoons; scroll down on this page: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/5-480/Ch10.htm

Would make a brilliant dio I think!

Here’s a few pics of the mortar barges (one was called ‘Four Deuces’):










Here’s some more pictures of the PACV master (not sure when it will be released):

http://www.network54.com/Forum/161540/thread/1166375976/Scratch%2C+Vietnam+%28PACV%29+1%AA+parte

http://www.network54.com/Forum/161540/message/1166470539/Un+poco+mas

Ps I have a few more pictures of the 105 howitzer barges, if someone needs those just drop me a pm.

Best regards
Mark

This would also make awesome dio!


From: militaryimages.net

Best regards
Mark

Heya, Gino,

Any plans to replace the flat PE bar armor with actual stryrene rod? The Nimix Monitor also features flat PE for the bar armor --- I was hoping that Plastruct might have some fencing which could work as a quick replacement.

The Nimix kit does not allow you to show the turret unbuttoned? Do you get an interior for the turret with the Viking kit? Guess you could use parts from the Tamiya Duster for the gun... I think Modelpoint also makes an AM barrel.

And speaking of Monitors, does anyone have pictures of what the main structure (below the wheelhouse) looks like? Usually, it is obstructed by stacked boxes and bar armor. I am interested in where the hatches and any other details might be.

Hey, Tread, was that an F-lighter you were planning on working on? If so, those were nasty pieces of work...

And thanks for that link on the PACV scratch, Mark --- that is some serious talent! Man, I hope that VLS or whoever, releases it as a kit!

Much Aloha,

Johnny B.

I was thinking about replacing teh bar with rod, we shall see. It deos include interior parts for teh 40mm turret. I thinkn it also has a basic interior on the wheelhouse too.

Howdy Fellas,

Wow, where do I start? I'm really pleased to see this thread getting so much attention And the amount of photos and info being posted is fantastic! I can only cross my fingers and hope that the tide of brown water {pardon the pun } will continue to rise.

to HeavyArty: Your pics of the Viking Monitor kit are appreciated, and from the pics it looks to be a somewhat better kit than the Nimix offering...and that is maybe saying something considering the original price of the Nimix kit as I remember it to be. The Viking kit looks like they employed some roto-casting maybe, since both the armoured wheelhouse and the forward turret are hollowed out nicely. The resin also appears to be the more lightweight resin material {the kind they used on the old Ontos kit} instead of the much heavier resin used on the Nimix kit. Either way it looks like a nice kit...and I really admire your obviously stunning command over your sense of self-control by not immediately jumping in and building the bloody thing!
Maybe now I can take my turn at the whole 'toe-tapping' thing?...... :-)

to Mark: As I've already said in PM, your provided photos are mucho useful and informative I especially enjoyed the 3rd and 4th photos down. The ones showing the sandbagged crews quarters with all of the helmets, packs, gear, etc hanging from the common wall.....very nice.
It shows also the 3 x 12 P-Series Pontoon setup pretty well from the rear.
I would love to DL these pics into Photoshop or something and try to clear up the resolution so I could really peruse some of the background information.

to Havoc: Thx for piping in as well. And you touch on one of the things that I got mired in while I was researching my Tango boat project, and that is the stand-off armour. I spent a fairly significant amount of time comparing what pictures I could find that showed the bar armour in close enough detail that one could put together a plan of 'scratchbuild' attack. During my research I found that there were at least a couple of ways the stand-off armour was constructed. Basically broken up between the early ad-hoc attempts, and the later, better thought out attempts that were coloured by experience in the field.
And regarding your query; "...And speaking of Monitors, does anyone have pictures of what the main structure (below the wheelhouse) looks like? Usually, it is obstructed by stacked boxes and bar armor. I am interested in where the hatches and any other details might be..." All I can say is that I too am on pins and needles for any photo-evidence of this configuration as well.
Finally, pertaining to the PACV, I have a full set of 1/35th scale schematics for the PACV sent to me by one of our glorious Armorama members. Plus an extremely nice article on how it was scratchbuilt. It's a fairly sizable undertaking, and I had always hoped to maybe someday take it on.....

And now back to my mate Gino....you mentioned in your last post that your kit included "...a basic interior on the wheelhouse too...." Does your kit then come with at least a written description, or detailed drawing of the wheelhouse interior?

regards,

Tread.

Howdy All,

For those kind souls who expressed interest in this rather unique subject matter, and in an effort to potentially repay those of you who have been SO helpful with your incredibly informative and helpful PM's to me, here is a wee bit of info regarding the P-Series pontoons. I will try to keep it short and sweet.....

The U.S. Army, after having dealt with the vast number of river crossings necessary during the second World War, and having to deal with the logistics of transporting the rather cunbersome pontoons of the day which were one-piece affairs, was looking for a way to make this process a more managable endeavour. In short they came up with an interlocking, LEGO-style design designated the P-Series Pontoon System. And as with the LEGO blocks you played with as a child, these P-Series sections could be mated together in whatever number of columns and rows necessary to 'fit-the-bill'.

Making up the main, most common piece of a P-Series Pontoon is the section Called the P-1 Section Shown below:



This section, coupled with any number of other P-1 sections, would make up the main body of the Pontoon itself.

This section, called the P-2 Section, when attached to the front of a line of P-1 sections, would make up the bow, or prow of the pontoon.



Another of these upswept P-2 sections would be attached at the rear of the pontoon when that particular pontoon was being used for strictly open water employment.

Additionally, making up the stern or rear of the pontoon when the pontoon was to be engaged in on/off loading of equipment and materials is the P-3 & P-4 Sections. These two sections when linked together form an angled ramp-like surface used to access the main pontoon deck from land. These two sections have 1" wide cleat strips mounted to them on the upper deck surface to aid in getting on and off the pontoon.
Here's the pics;

The P-3 Section......



And the P-4 Section....



To illustrate what all of these individual sections look like once they're assembled and linked together, here is a line drawing of the P-Series pontoon assembled in what's known as a 3X12 configuration.....



This particular Pontoon is shown with the additional propulsion unit attached at the rear, and the fold-down metal access ramps at the front.

Here's hoping somebody finds this interesting........

regards,

Tread.

PostScript: Apologies for the rather bad quality of the line drawings ;-(

The Viking Monitor looks awesome! And looks like a very enjoyable build! I’ve never seen any of the monitor kits available but I believe the Viking one looks better than the Nimix one because I did have a Nimix Ontos but wasn’t really impressed with it (understatement) and gave it away (well I got a PBR in return )

About the pontoons; luckily there are measurements mentioned on the website because they’re hard to read in the drawings.
I’m not sure about the end pontoons of the Vietnam mortar barges though. They look different from the normal angled ones (not sure if I made myself clear this way).

These barges would sure make a great diorama with not much really complicated scratchbuilding involved (I’m still hoping to do one in the future)

Best regards
Mark

From What I can tell the Arty barges were actually AMMI barges 28' wide 90' long barges.....

Johnny,
try www.modelmecca.com for the sold announcement and https://www.modelmecca.com/cgi-bin/projectboard.pl?read=1175a1000
for the PACV announcement.

As for memberships, a friend and fellow Masters group member called and tried to find out. No one at Squadron knows or will say how the memberships will be handled.Which is too bad. I hope they keep the program alive, and can make up for ground VLS has lost in the last 3-4 years.

I've been losing faith and confidence in VLS for a while now. Now that they are charging shipipng for mambers orders, the order fill rate has slipped to somewhat below abysmal, the flier was always just a wishful thinking list and now that the webpage is next to useless for actually knowing what is in stock, I was ready to not renew this year. And I get my membership as a gift!

The Masterpiece folks were pretty closed lipped about future projects, but would say that a PACV was not on the horizon from them.

Mike

Howdy fellas,

Many thx for those links MLD, it was great to see the PACV master, but it was quite a tease as well...especially since the soonest this thing will probably see the light of day will be years end, considering the year just got started.

to Mark: As I said, my apologies for the awful, unreadable pontoon pics, but the measurements for the pontoon sections are approximately 7' wide X 5' long X 5' deep. So, obviously the 3X12 Pontoon Barge shown above is approx. 21' wide X 60' long.

I am considering just playing around and scratching something up that hopefully looks like one of these barges. Because of the simplicity of the design, mocking up something would be very cheap I think if I use wood or MDF {what I used on my Ironclad project}.
Anyway, I may give it a go......

Tread.

Oh, BTW Mark.....does this thing look familiar by any chance?

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Trees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yummy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gordo, sorry I haven't replied sooner. I lost track of this thread over the weekend when I was out of town and I didn't see your question on the Monitor. The kit includes an instrument panel, ship's wheel, and spot light for the bridge. Here are a couple drawings from the instructions for that area. No further desription or details are given. I plan to add a radio and a few more pieces, similar to what is in the PBR from Tamiya.




Hope that helps.

Howdy fellas,

..........Sorry, I just had to grin to myself because of how funny it is that, almost like being a technician for a CSI unit, we modelers, when we are doing our research on a particular subject, have to practice the patience of a clergyman by grasping, and slowly putting together weeeeeee bits of info from multiple sources until all of the individual and seperately garnered pieces start to come together and make sense.......this whole BWN boat building fixation of mine is a prime example of this for me

to Gino: Hey pard', no worries on the delayed response...I knew you'd get around to me But wait........if you're really feeling any guilt about the matter, maybe this is the time to pounce on you for a favour? .....? Here it is; One of the major-sized roadblocks I have bumped up against in my MRF scratching efforts has been trying to figure out how to extrapolate the exact sizes of the vertical armour plates that make up the sides of the Monitor/Tango boat wheelhouse {the octagonal piece in your kit numbered (I think) #3 }. My plan was to take precise measurements at both top and bottom + hieght of each piece and then trace the top and bottom 'footprints' and voila, I would have the basis for scratching up my own wheelhouse.......any shot at convincing you to do those tracings for me? Or, failing that, maybe taking and noting some of those measurements for little ol' me?

regards,

Tread.

Oops, and matt....you figured out what my photo was didn't ya?

@Gordon
Yes I do recognize the picture of the treecrusher; it’s the G175 in Mackenzie right? It’s not exactly the same as the one or two that saw service in Vietnam. I found out that there’s some info on the Vietnam crusher in two books dealing with the LeTourneau heritage. I can’t seem to create a new topic (for some strange reason, it’s never been a problem before) so I’ll ask here (I’m sorry this is a little off topic from the original posting) :

I was wondering if someone has (one of) these two books at home (or in your local library ). They’re dealing with all sorts of vehicles ‘designed’ and produced by LeTourneau.
Some of his machines were also used by the US army (LeTourneau dozer for example) I’m curious if there’s any info in these books on the treecrusher (used in Vietnam)

LeTourneau Legend



LeTourneau Archive



thanks very much in advance



as for the pontoons; I think MDF could work really well, it works fast. The only thing could be the surface; it should be really flat (since the pontoons are steel) maybe a little experimenting with coatings or so? My biggest concern when I was thinking on building these barges were the ‘grills’ that’s between the two pontoons (maybe in the HO scale trainmodeling corner? maybe a scale fence or something?)

@Gino
this monitor kit just cries out to be build. It sure looks a really nice kit!!

kind regards


Mark

Howdy Mark,

Yep...it's the Treecrusher in MacKensie alright I just thought you'd get a kick out of the pic is all......and there is a difference between it and the one used in the 'Nam. It would indeed make a great scratch, if there was enough info on it.

I also appreciate your comments on the Pontoon construction. As you know, the 'devil's in the details' right? But I would really appreciate some more input regarding your comments if you would?
I'm including a photo I got recently from a wonderful wee bugger I just recently was fortunate enough to meet , and I think it shows the decking of the pontoon barge in some detail. To me it appears to be flat plates between the pontoon sections.......whadayou think?



Here's another that shows the same deck detail......



Tread.

Mark,

I can Try to get to the Library and do a ILL.... is there an ISBN number on the book?