RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

The vignette of the pre-battle briefing, with the paratrooper officers placed around the tank in planning discussions with Hervouet, bringing the tank alive in a different fashion. Le P'tit radio with his AN/PRC-10 is hanging around in case he is needed.

Some additional close ups of the tank.
This is it for now. The build is finished. I will post a video of the RC tank in operation in the coming days, and some exterior pictures in the spring. Hope you liked the build of the RC 1/16 scale M24 Chaffee at Dien Bien Phu. It was quite challenging to scratch build one with this level of details. I think the Chaffee is a beautiful tank. Hope that one day some company will produce a kit.

Regards, Louis

Another FANTASTIC build Louis!!

Considering it is completely scratch built it is actually beyond fantastic and has moved into a dare I say, Other Worldly Realm.

Barry

Yours has been a triumph of scholarship, skill, creativity, and patience.

Thank you very much Barry and Herr Dr. Professor. And thank you everyone who followed this build. I tried to make it interesting in different ways.

This was a most pleasant build. I admit that cutting the Pershing road wheels in half and the conversion of the Heng Long Sherman metal tracks were unorthodox. But it was all done with simple tools, no lathe or 3D printer. Its hard to believe that this tank was just a pile a plain plasticard sheets with some Pershing and Sherman parts just 3 months ago. With most of the cost being the technical parts (metal tracks, gearbox, metal sprockets, Aber stuff, resin figures...), the model ended up costing below $500, the same 4 control boards being reused with other tanks. This is an expense that i can avoid by having all my tanks pre-wired for a 3 minutes plug and play.

With a pure scratch build chassis and drive train like this one, there is a unique thrill in pushing the gas stick on the remote control for the first time, and see what's going to happen. The excitement of impending doom or success is something that can be only be experienced with scratch building. Seeing the RC tank moves on its own for the first time is quite unique, your own Frankenstein creation, screaming "its alive". But it can also lead to worries and disappointments. The response is to think about things and come back with solutions in the following days. I do not hesitate in redoing something that took hours to build in previous days. That's the game.

I had to get through quite a few builds to get to this level. Considering that i have built between two and five 1/16 scale tanks per year in the past thirty years, you can do the math. And i now appreciate building small 1/16 light tanks rather than the heavy behemoths, they take less space on the shelves for exactly the same level of hobby enjoyment.

The M24 Chaffee is a truly superb tank. Comparing it below to the M5A1 Stuart that it replaced, its modern design is obvious in all aspects.
Comparing the small size of the M-24 Chaffee light tank with a Centurion MBT (actually an IDF Sho't Kal Gimel), both are 1/16 scale.
To finalize the history of Dien Bien Phu, it became such a strategic defeat that it led to peace accords with the partition of Vietnam in two, with the north becoming a communist country. After Indochina, most of the active French troops and Chaffees were sent to Algeria to take part in another counter-insurgency war in a different landscape.

Regards, Louis

Louis,
Straight out of History. Stories told in plastic and brass. Thank you again for your dedication to the Craft.
regards,
Painless

Louis,
I’ve just finished reading through your build, quite amazing what you’ve achieved with basic modelling tools.
I also found the included history a very interesting read.
The Chaffee is one of my favourite tanks.
Top marks to you.

Yes, Martin, Louis is a master. I so admire all his work. He starts with research and then works wonders.

Thank you,

The builds for the Chaffee at Dien Bien Phu and for the Churchill Mk III at Dieppe were the two most special builds of historical importance for me.

Louis