RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

I was at an air show yesterday. they have a bunch of World war 2 planes, all operational, and yesterday they did an air show in camarillo, California. They have a Zero, two B-25 bombers, a P-47 thunderbolt, 3 P-51's, a Spitfire, 3 Bearcats. About 15,000 people showed up at $15 per. So we got to see these aircraft fly.

Anyway they also have, for some reason, a fully operational M-113 APC c. 1965, used in Vietnam by the US forces by the thousands. These had aluminum armor that would stop an AK47 bullet and perhaps 50 cal. but nothing more then that-a Vietcong RPG would take one out with disturbing ease In some armored units they took to adding their own version of shurtzen used on the panzer IV in world war 2, they welded up metal screens to hang along the side of the APc to hopefully, pre-detonate the rocket before it hit the armor. (sadly I had a cousin on a Navy ammo-hauler riverine ship, and one RPG rocket hit is the weapon that killed him and everyone on the ship one day in 1969).

To lighter matters, i took a picture of the tracks to show what the rust looks like. the tracks of all armored vehicles in WW2 were, I believe, made of cast iron so they all rusted and stayed that way their entire operational life. Naturally there would be shiny spots at the wear points. So here's the pictures of the tracks. (This vehicle gets driven occasionally but not very often).







Also a question-i am getting metal tracks on my HL Tiger 1. I am thinking of getting the metal suspension arms to replace the plastic ones. Are the metal arms necessary to reduce risk of breakage of the arms, or something that would improve performance, or are these not really needed?

Marc,
Great shots of the APC! That vehicle is not driven very much to get rust like that on the tracks as you noted. I am sorry about your cousin. His was a very dangerous job and Honor is his lot always now. Plastic suspension arms? Run them til and if they break then worry about metal replacements.
regards,
Painless

Marc780 wrote: Also a question-i am getting metal tracks on my HL Tiger 1. I am thinking of getting the metal suspension arms to replace the plastic ones. Are the metal arms necessary to reduce risk of breakage of the arms, or something that would improve performance, or are these not really needed?

Actually Marc... if your plastic arms are ok.... there is no real need to change them out....the thing that will improve your performance is the metal tracks....but if you do change out the arms... make sure you get the axles as well...they are usually sold separately ....wheels add weight...but they are more durable.. and offer real rubber ...the upside to doing wheels and arms is that the weight gained will give you more traction... but because they are below the spring... does not have much affect on the deterioration of the suspension...only metal parts above the spring will cause that

ALPHA

Thanks Alpha and Painless, for the advice, i'll skip the arms for now...I don't know if the mods are going to consider what I am going to say now really approriate for this site but for anyone interested here's the bad details, regarding my cousin and the rockets...,My cousin was a crewman on ship LCU 1500, cargo ship that hauled ammo up and down the rivers resupplying the Navy and Marine bases with ammo of all kinds. Well, trouble is the enemy Vietnams knew what was on that ship too, and about when and where it was going to show up. So the enemy loaded up their B-40 rockets (what RPG's were called then, the RPG-2 i think it was) and when the ship sailedi nto range a bunch of em rained a barrage of rockets on the ship. Which then blew sky high being that it was loaded with who knows how many tons of ammo. There were 11 or 12 US crewmen on that ship and they never found much of anything left of any of them.

Here is the ship he was on


Here is the ammo ship after being hit by the rockets and detonating near Da Nang Bridge, 27 February 1969. It blew into several pieces of twisted scrap metal.


I thought about later, after my friend showed me that site. In those days in the US, all qualified males age 18-26 had to serve in one of the 5 services unless you could, and wanted to, get your draft status changed to "4F" (unfit to serve) and there were many reasons you could "earn" 4F status. But my family was from upstate New York- and most young men in that part of the US, at that time, did not think of trying to get out of serving. Well, to tell you the truth I wish he would have at least tried to get out of serving in that Vietnam war. Because he'd be alive and 64 years old today if he had.