RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Great work ! Can't wait to see the whole turret, keep up the good work !

Thank you MonsieurTox and everyone for your interest.

Here is a small project for an Omicron winter weekend, an M-24 Chaffee gun and mantlet.

Helpful modellers posted nice pictures of M24s and other tanks on a web site called http://www.usarmymodels.com. In addition to the Bronco 1/35 kit and other books i have, these were essential to understand the features of the M24 mantlet.

This is the cast mantlet when viewed from above. When i analyzed it, i broke it up in 3 layers with different angles. The M6 75mm gun is not centrally positioned, its a bit on the left. There is a Browning M1919 coax machine gun on the lower left, and a sighting apparatus hole on the top right.
View of the M1919 mount and the casting on the sides.
View of the mantlet of a M24 monument with the hole for the sight plugged. Notice the rough aspect of the casting and weldings.
The cast marks in the upper plate are reversed... When i flip the picture over, i can make up D76004 and the a star with a G on it. Then a bit higher, i determined it could be a D1314.
Basic shapes are created in 4mm plasticard in the 3 layers seen.
The top section need to be quite round so i will needed to split it later and create 4 layers.
An hour later with some Dremel time outside, this is the mantlet with the 4 layers. It is slowly taking shape, always comparing to the 1/35 and test fitting it with the turret mount.
Then two hours later, the mantlet is in it definitive overall shape and ready for detailing. Test fitting with the turret mount show degrees of gun elevation consistent with the one seen on the 1/35 kit, not great but good.
Calculations were constantly checked against the 1/35 kit. Hand building this is probably not for everyone. Most guys would probably CAD design and 3D print it but it would not be easy either.
Before continuing on the mantlet, i needed to create the gun. These are the 2 main components; 1 thick wall 8mm brass tube for the gun and 1 10mm brass tube for the sleeve and recoil mechanism. The walls are 1mm thick. Purchased for a few dollars from eBay China.
Continuing right away on following post

The gun barrel at the top is made from the 8mm tube. It was slowly reduced in diameter to 6.5mm towards the tip using nail files before being given its muzzle section. It took about 1 hour of filing, and 5 nail files. I would have liked to reduce to 6mm but i had enough.
An outer section for the muzzle was added, and an inner section was also added to represent the 75mm calibre.
A strait cut was made with a Dremel reinforced fiberglass cutting disk on the internal section of the sleeve for the home made gun recoil mechanism that will use a push rod attached to the barrel section, similar to latest Tamiya recoil.
The two tube sections loosely slides perfectly into another.
The barrel is help in the sleeve with a 2mm Hex bolt. It is critical that the hole made on the stub of the barrel be exactly at 90 degree angle, centrally through both sides. Otherwise, the recoil will get some sideways tension.
The barrel and sleeve are mounted on the mantlet. The push rod for the recoil servo is installed.
The coax Browning M1919 is the 16L-01 from Aber. Like the one on the bow, the muzzle part was perforated to install a fibre optic for flash with LED.
The Coax machine gun is installed.
The mantlet is further detailed with the sighting hole on the right, hooks on top and the reversed cast marks seen on picture, except for the star. The letters are from Plastruct PABT-2 set (1/16 plastic letters).
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Overview of the mantlet.

The Browning will be given its fibre optic and LED later.
Interior view of the mantlet and recoil mechanism (minus servo) before adding the mounts.
Before the mantlet is permanently installed, the frontal section of the turret is double checked for accuracy against the 1/35 kit. Some finetuning was done to ensure the gun elevation is smooth. Some cast metal effect and marks for this part and the mantlet will be added at a later stage of the turret construction.
The mantlet and gun are installed on the turret.
Interior view of the mounts.
Next step, the turret armor sides, roof, hatches and cupola.

Regards, Louis

Hi,

With the following three posts, i am presenting the turret core.

The main parts of the 1/35 kit turret are assembled. Its allows for a good study with only the required information available without being distracted by other details.

Turret left and right sides, with rolled steel armor.
The roof is composed of 3 sections, and the tank commander has a Sherman/Pershing type cupola. The front and rear sections are inclined. I think the Bronco kit might have undersized the turret roof and cupola by 2 or 3mm , but not sure.
The Chaffee cupola has some simplifications compared to Sherman/Pershing. The bottom rim is smaller, the visor frames almost touch the roof, and there is no round feature on the side of each visor.
After checking dimensions of a Sherman VS Pershing cupola to use as a base, i have selected a Sherman cupola, cannibalized from a Heng Long Sherman turret from the junkyard.
When comparing it with the Tamiya Pershing cupola (borrowed from my Pershing), the Heng Long is a bit smaller. I was able to easily reduce the rim as shown on above picture and is overall a better fit. It is also simpler for me because the Tamiya Pershing cupola sprue that i had ordered has been stuck in Frankfurt for weeks now. I am sure it will be of use some day.
Now, the turret.

The support for the rear section and for the side armor are added to the base.
The roof section is drawn while making sure the cupola fits well.
The turret needs a skeleton to support the roof and the rolled armor. Done in 4mm thick plasticard strips cut from a plate and reinforced with braces because these will have some pressure applied when rolling the side armor.
The roof section is cut and the height of the central section is checked, finetuned and rechecked about 20 times until it is at the perfect height and flat.
continuing on following post

The turret skeleton is ready. Some braces were added to provide interior support for the side armor, specially when there is a strong curve. I did not try to make it pretty. Speed and solidity were more important.
This is the right time to install the recoil and elevation servos and test both while everything is open. This build is relatively cheap as almost every item is custom hand made with simple material.
The recoil pull rod is connected to an eMax servo.
A simple mini servo is used for elevation, connected to an slotted arm made of plasticard and attached to the gun mount, done in a few minutes.
There is a brass roller (cut from a brass tube) inside the elevation arm, screwed to the servo arm with an M2 Hex bolt. It rolls as the arm is raised and lowered. It is a very simple, yet functional elevation system. The servo is connected strait to an independent receiver channel and assigned to the VRB knob. Elevation control is much more efficient and stable this way than through the control board with sticks.
The inclined front and rear roof sections are glued in place. Only the central section will be removable to access the electronics for maintenance. Its enough.
The middle section is tested and will slide into place.
The turret rolled steel armor is rolled... from the back to the front. There is no way to design and cut these parts perfectly in advance. There are way too many angles and curves here at play. So, the trick is to cut an approximate shape with plenty of buffer in each direction, and initially only deal with the fitting of the bottom against the round base. The strait rear area is glued first to the turret to provide a good anchor for the rolling of the rest of the armor. The bottom of the part is precisely cut as i slowly roll the armor towards the front, without gluing. The top section is left uncut at this time. When the part fits perfectly into its position at the bottom and then at the front, then it is glued in place.
The left side is given the same treatment, glue the rear first for a good anchor, and slowly roll to the front, cutting the bottom and the front sections in a telescopic slow fashion until the whole thing just falls into place. Then the part is completely superglued. The whole side armor is done in 30 minutes.
The armor on the two sides are in position, ready for the top to be cut.
continuing on following post

The turret side armor is roughly cut, a bit higher than the roof as seen in references. It will require some fine tuning and detailing but i am very happy with the results so far.
Checking the integration of the turret roof, with the cupola simply deposited on its position, looking good.
I could not wait to put the turret core on the chassis to see how it looks. Pretty good.
The rear bin is not created yet.
Plasticard sheet make the best armor.
Angles look good, everything is where it should be, except the gunner's hatch that is out of position on this shot. Multiple checking and finetuning of all measurements paid off. It looks like an M24.
Central section is removable to access the electronics.
The model as it stands today. Yeah, it will look better with fenders and tracks, getting there. Its going fast, i started this build only one month ago. Its a very dusty operation. I need to wear an N95 mask almost all the time during these heavy construction tasks.
Next step, the detailing of the turret.

Regards, Louis

well. eeuhm. I am speechless. it is really amazing to see this.

It's really beautiful, congratulations

Thank you Jee and Mitch,

These following posts are for the detailing of the turret, minus the M2 machine gun and mount that will be done later along with some finer details that could be broken during the heavy construction phases.

As i had never built an M-24, i needed to do a bit of research and analysis, become familiar with the turret and then decide on what and how i would do the details. As the M-24 was used over a period of time from WW2 to the cold war, it is important to select references with the right model. There are variations in radio antenna types and mount configurations, and presence of the smoke mortar behind the mantlet on the right. I selected mine of course by reviewing French M24s at Dien Bien Phu.

As shown here, the turret features heavy welding lines.
Small port hatch on the right side, similar to a Sherman, but a bit different.
View of the hinges on the gunner's hatch.
The rear bin
Turret front are the gunner's sight on the left and smoke mortar mount on the left.
Looking at the 1/35 kit, i was surprised by the rather large one piece hatch for the gunners, not very practical i think, even for a modeller.
Overview of the roof.
After taking my time, one item at the time, this is the detailed turret, minus some more fragile items that i keep for the last phases of the build. I will also have to refine some of the welding.
Left side
Right side
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