I have to admit I have been quite smitten by the work of Steve Zaloga. Here is a pic of his latest posting on ML. http://www.missing-lynx.com/gallery/usa/szt28-6.jpg

My question is....what are those guns? 5Ocal gattling guns? Also...and this has been bugging me since I was 10. What does the roller on the front of the half-track do? I am guessing it helps the vehicle climb steep embankments or something.

Cheers,
Jim

PS: And Steve...if you read this. Great work as usual!

They look like .50 cal watercooled guns IMHO. Just looking at the other pics in that gallery.

BC,
Very likely. What is the other long tube protruding I wonder.

Jim

Here is a model of Steve's from my site:





Oh my!!! I can't pirate images from track-link!!!

All in fun ;-)

Paul,
Lol...I was just thinking you could do a lot worse that feed them that image.

I just noted that Steve's image is really bloated at 109kb. I just ran it through PS and it could easily go down to 60kb with no quality lost. FYI I am shrinking it a tad. It's 850 pixels wide in reality. Oh well.

Jim

Hi jim those babies look like 20mm Oraklien guns, a common IDF conversion.

Jack

Sorry, boy am I dumb!! I didn't notice the ammo cans. Yeah, they are probably 30 cal water cooled machine guns. Istand corrected. Even if it is by myself.

Jack

I believe they are .50 cal ammo cans.

The front roller was designed as an anti-ditching device...remember, the memories of the trenches of the Great War was burned deeply into everyone's memory. As the vehicle reached a trench, the front roller would prevent the front fender from getting burrowed in.

It's amazing how that influenced Allied vehicle designers so much, but not the Germans! Talk about a different philosophy! The Churchill is such an obvious extension of the old Rhomboid tanks, with the howitzer mounted in the bow and all tracks from the sides. Of course they could climb anything...

I've seen lots of photos of prototype US and British vehicles with all kinds of extras to avoid getting stuck in trenches. Weren't some French armored cars equipped with small extra wheels at the front and back for that?

Andy

Eryups,

.050 Cal Now I stand corrected by M1, But then again with a handle like M1 Garand........know the firing end. Chock it up to a fuzzy image. Well The French vehicle I can think of with the extra wheel was the Laffly.

Jack

I have also been a fan of his Jim. His models have a nice touch of 'reality' to them. Does he have a book out on his techniques??
Another fav of mine is Chris Mrosko. He does great stuff, but is a little to linked to Tamiya products I feel. But then of course he's probably sponsored in part by the big 'T' ! In fact, the Chris Mrosko book is where I fine tuned my 'painting in reverse' method of winter whitewashes on my german steel.

Tread.

Since you kinda brought up this subject in a roundabout way. Have you ever thought about inviting one of these guys (master craft painters) to our Friday night chat sessions? I wouldn't think they'd have anything against it, and I'm also sure they would enjoy the heaps of praise that I'm sure we'd ALL be bestowing on them...... Whadaya think??

clap,clap,clap,clap,clap....................there, happy?

You are right about the differences in philosophy...the forward-thinking British and US tank proponents and designers were muffled out by the "well, that's not how we won the last war" crowd. The German armor proponents went forward and not only designed faster tanks, but created tactics that fed off the technology.

Jack, I believe you are right. They look like 20mm Oerlikons, these were primarily shipboard light AA guns. Those cans are the ammo cans and not water cans. That one long barrel is probably a .50 cal used for ranging.

:::buzz::: And the correct answer is....

The vehicle depicted is the T28E1.

This info is listed on the TANKS Web site.

T28, T28E1, M15, M15A1
This halftrack was armed with twin .50 cal MGs and a 37mm cannon.

Steve also wrote a book that had this model. link

More info. The vehicle was used in Korea also.



76th AAA used leftover WWII halftracks to fight. Jack R. Hayne, Capt, USA (Ret). of the 76th AAA in 1950-1951 is quoted as saying, "You must realize that we had the Quad 50s and 40mm guns mounted on ancient half-tracks that dated back to the WWII invasion of Leyte and Mindanao."

According to John W. Colburn of the 76th AAA in 1952-1953, the weapon shown is an early Multiple Gun Motor Carriage T28E1 with a 37mm automatic cannon and two water-cooled cal. .50 machine guns mounted beside and above the cannon and no armored shield around the gun. This was used in North Africa during the early days of WWII. When the armored shield was installed, the weapon was adopted as standard and designated as the Multiple Gun Motor Carriage M15. Later in WWII changes were made, most notably the water-cooled machine guns were replaced with heavy barreled air-cooled guns which were mounted slightly below and on either side of the cannon, and designated as the M15A1.

From this site: http://kalanio.tripod.com/Howitwasa1b1x.html

Ahh....isn't our hobby facinating. :-)

Jim

I KNEW THE ANSWER!!! I KNEW THE ANSWER!!!
What did I win, master Jim???