RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

I'll bring the bags along too

All your ammo boxes are ww2 style ones. Hide the lid closing clasps especially on the 50 cal ones.

That looks great. The TC figure is awesome. Really looks like a miniature man.

It's best IMO to leave it open. M1s in action almost always have it open as they use the thermal sight even during the day - it makes finding enemies easier.

Nice work - don't think you can improve anything else! It's all been done!

The opening doors are a must. And you even did the angle (that's why the main lenses appear to have different colors in pics of the real thing). You will notice what appears to be color difference in the other periscopes also if you look at enough of them.
Your using different colors in no whey detracts from how good the lenses look on your completed doghouse.

Paul,
Looks factory, sir! ;o)
regards,
Painless

Does it just require the latches off the sides?

If so, nice easy fix!

If only you can cast copies of it.... *hint* *hint*

hehehehe

You may want to scratchbuild a 120mm mortar ammo box as well. Some of those containers found their way on some M1s during OIF as additional storage being larger than your usual .50-cal box. 20mm ammo box was popular as well.

The battleboard found on M1s in OIF was plywood. You may want to simulate that by finding thin pieces of wood lying around and sticking (zip tied in the real thing) it to the bustle rack beside the CIP. If you're making the battleboard, the markings would be black 51 with a black chevron pointing left on bare wood, to match your tank's bumper codes of TF 1-64, Alpha Co., Third Platoon.

No idea with the size really. I just used my eyeballs to guesstimate the size based on wot I've seen in tank pix from 1980s M60A3s in Europe to M1A1s in OIF although for my tank I just went with "It looks OK."

That tank is actually not the real A11 that participated in the two Thunder Runs into Baghdad in April 2003. It's actually an M1A1 that came from Anniston or where they refurb the tanks, painted in desert colours, given TF 1-64 markings, and displayed in the museum to represent the Thunder Run tanks. The actual A11 (Lt. Ball's tank, the lead tank of the first Thunder Run) is probably somewhere out there. The battle board used during that time of the war and which I mentioned earlier was made of plywood, but the guys of this museum used some other material for their battleboard. So IOW, the tank in that pic isn't exactly an accurate depiction of the tanks that were went to Baghdad in OIF April 2003. Note too that it is missing the field expedient bustle rack extension which the tanks of TF 1-64 had.

Other battle boards from pix I've seen of various tanks (M60A3 to M1) have what appears to be metal plates (sheet metal? steel? I dunno) as they look smooth in the pix with no wood grain and such. They're usually also painted over. I actually don't see much of the battle boards nowadays in the recent pix of M1s. But M1s just look so much cooler with the CIPs and battleboards and such so I placed one on mine. Since your tank isn't exactly a Thunder Run tank, it's your call wot your battle board would be made of and what colour, the main aim anyway of the battleboard is identification so anything that makes the identifying signals (i.e., chevrons, numbers) standout would be used (which, since the vehicle is desert scheme, would be black numbers/chevrons on a light background; on mine, the markings would be in lighter colour over a dark background).