Mystery Medium Tank M3
Lower hull built straight from the box.
Hull rear mostly built, engine bay painted black and cooling air exhaust olive drab because they’ll be hard to reach later on.
Basics of rear end finished.
Conversion work started on sponson area.
Basic shape of glacis plate built from plastic card.
Basic shape of the glacis is now done, though obviously it needs cutting and sanding a bit,
And a nose job.
Bogies and drive sprockets (from an Asuka Sherman) built, as well as one sprue worth of AFV Club T51 tracks cleaned up.
Locations of rivets marked, using home-made rulers to get the spacing correct.
Started adding rivets and assembling the tracks. The rivets are 0.7 mm diameter, made from 0.25 mm plastic card with an RP Toolz “rivet maker” punch.
That should be the last of the rivets — on the front plates, that is.
Extension built between superstructure and left rear stowage bin. (Top is too large so it can be trimmed to size when the glue is dry.)
Internal bracing plates for the super-superstructure added, and a roof on top of that.
Added tubes for the rounded corners and plates between them to actually form super-superstructure, plates too tall so they can be trimmed to size later.
Realising I had made the left side too narrow, I widened it with half-tubes (normal tube cut lengthwise) and 2 mm square rod …
… and added a side plate over all this.
Seams at the corners filled, filed and sanded.
Added side doors (hinges still need to be added) and structure on right front. Lots of rivets to add still …
Hinges for the side doors added, as well as some of the rivets for the super-superstructure.
Rivets all around now — at which point I got heartily tired of them for the day 🙂
Periscope housing added, from plastic card, tube and a Sherman periscope. It still needs a roof.
Right front view of current progress on the model.
Left rear view of current progress on the model.
More fittings on the front, from a leftover Tamiya part (for the motorised version of some kit) and plastic card and tube. It still needs filing into shape a bit.
Barrels built from plastic rod, a turned brass sleeve to go around the thicker one, and a bit of stretched sprue for the flash hider.
Plates added over suspension bogies. The plates were drawn in a computer program, then printed out and the print-out glued to a sheet of 0.5 mm plastic to make cutting them easy.
Added 1.5 mm quarter-round strip to the tops of the side skirts, then 0.25 mm sheet over the existing plates because the strip proved to be slightly too wide.
Suspension and side skirts finished.
Front view of left-hand side skirt.
Extended the left rear structure and added a plate to original superstructure rear wall, after cutting away the rivet heads that were on it. Fire extinguisher pull handles were relocated to the new plate.
Left rear structure finished.
All the components of the fully built model.
Fully built model from right rear
Right front details.
Left hull front details, all from kit except headlamp leads.
Engine deck with kit-provided etched tool brackets and scratchbuilt tie-downs (because kit parts for these are very difficult to form).
Everything, tracks included, painted Tamiya German Grey allover.
Tamiya Neutral Grey sprayed into the centres of panels to highlight them.
Overall wash of Games Workshop Devlan Mud applied to shade the model.
Drybrushed with medium-dark and then medium grey, and removed the masking tape. Some touchups are needed on the crosses on the sides.
Bogies now also attached, so construction is essentially done other than the tracks, but everything needs to be weathered before they can go on,
Great, the AFV Club tracks are too short. There are still some links left, but what I built is the number they SHOULD have, and the ends don’t come together 🙁
Three extra links added to each track, plus a fourth (a reject whose pins I had accidentally bent) so the holes in the last end connectors won’t fill up with paint.
Finished model from left front. The figure is from MiniArt.
Engine deck, not on fire …
The real thing, to prove this isn’t a fantasy model 🙂
These are stills from a wartime instruction film called Crack That Tank, available for your viewing pleasure at Youtube Video
Kommentare
38 25 April 2021, 12:41
Adrian ForestSo most command, CDL, and ARV variants (i.e. M31) seem to keep the shape of the right-hand sponson with a dummy gun, so it's obviously not one of those common variants. The sole, Australian-converted M3 BARV has a boat-shaped front, not the sloped front you're building here, and the other Australian variant, the Yeramba SPG, has a much blunter nose. Gonna have to keep guessing!
6 May 2021, 20:40
Jakko You may be right … you may also be wrong … 🙂 I'll have to add a bunch of rivets before continuing with the actual shape of the vehicle, though, so it may be a bit longer before it becomes clear. Perhaps 🙂
7 May 2021, 11:54
Lenny VThat's some nice scratchbuilding, Will be followed with great interest. Also nice to see the Zeeuwse vlag, alsk nie eel verkeerd bin
10 May 2021, 19:01
Jakko Thanks, though it's not as well-made as it could be. It's rather difficult to find accurate dimensions for this vehicle, however, so it's probably the best I can do with the limited references available.
En jæ, da's de Zêêuwse vlagge 🙂
10 May 2021, 20:20
Robin (WhiteGlint)No clue yet, but keep up the good work. 👍 Looks really nice so far.
23 May 2021, 20:46
Jakko Good guesses, and though it will have two machine guns, it won't be Brens. (Aside from that, the Grant ARV prototype simply had a flat plate with hatch where the turret was, not a big structure like here 🙂)
@Adrian: It might be an M2 medium tank variant, sure. Is that your final answer? 🙂
24 May 2021, 14:59
Jasper BreurVery impressive progress! I already saw what it is on TWENOT, so I won't spoil it 😉
15 June 2021, 20:33
Jakko Cool to read that not everyone wants to peek behind the curtain 🙂
Maybe Adrian found his best guess confirmed? Or did it turn out to be something you'd never even thought of?
16 June 2021, 17:07
Adrian ForestDefinitely something I never would have thought of! My imagination isn't so creative as whoever thought that tank looked like... whatever it was supposed to look like! 😄
17 June 2021, 01:44
Jakko I think that I'll probably have to post some pictures at the end of the build, to prove this really did exist 🙂
17 June 2021, 10:19
Jakko Nah, that would give away too much — I want to put some paint on it first, see whether that helps or throws people off even more 😛
17 June 2021, 20:29
Adrian ForestPanzer Grey? Or you reckon that would be more accurate than the creators could manage? 🙂
22 June 2021, 14:02
Jakko I think it's unlikely the real thing was that colour, yes. But my defence is sticking to the spirit rather than the letter 🙂
14 July 2021, 10:20
Jakko Thanks 🙂 Though I assure you there's nothing fictional about it — well, other than some educated guesswork about areas I couldn't make out in the reference material I used.
14 July 2021, 20:17
Adrian ForestI mean the original physical version is itself a fiction, but this is a recreation of a real fiction. 😄
15 July 2021, 01:32
Robin (WhiteGlint)Sorry guys, I think I still need an explanation what kind of tank that is.
Is this some kind of movie prop? Or something that has been used for target practice? Or something else entirely?
15 July 2021, 06:20
Robert PodkońskiWhat was this secondary "barrel" located over the main one supposed to be? So, I suppose it was some "movie" tank - like in a propaganda Nazi movie where Slovak Avias doubled as Polish PZL P.11(?)
15 July 2021, 11:30
Robert PodkońskiIs it some kind of so-called Panzeratrappe, then? I own the book on German Panzeratrappen and there is no such a construction, but I suppose it is the one done for some reasons by the Allies...
15 July 2021, 20:50
Robert PodkońskiTherefore, it is from a movie - black-and-white I presume, since you've guessed the actual colour 😉
16 July 2021, 09:27
Jakko You've gotten closer than anyone else so far here, other than the one who cheated of course 🙂 Now all you need to do is find the movie …
16 July 2021, 20:41
Hekimpd @jakko despite the tracks being short, I absolutely love the color you achieved there. Nice job.
16 July 2021, 22:05
Jakko Thanks. It was actually really easy: base coat of Tamiya German Grey, then Neutral Grey sprayed in the middle of the various panels, a wash of Games Workshop Devlan Mud (long discontinued, my remaining pot is running low 🙁) and then drybrushed with first Vallejo Dark Bluegrey and finally Vallejo Intermediate Blue.
Or did you mean the tracks? Those I painted the same German Grey followed by thinned-down India ink for the rubber blocks, with the end connectors/guide teeth in Tamiya NATO Brown; after that I just put a wash of Tamiya Flat Earth over the whole thing.
17 July 2021, 12:04
Robert PodkońskiThanks, Jakko, but I am afraid I do not know many war(time) movies - I grew up in communist times, the only tank from the movie I know is T-34/85 "Rudy 102" ("Redhead 102") from the Polish series "Czterej pancerni i pies" ("Four tankmen and the dog" - one of these tankmen, the driver actually, was from Georgia BTW... the others were Polish 😉 )
17 July 2021, 13:24
Jakko Stay tuned, then, as I will reveal the source once I think the model is finished 🙂 Shouldn't be more than a few days …
17 July 2021, 14:30
Jakko The Indian ink is something I tried on this model for the first time, BTW. I was in an art supply store earlier this week and decided to buy a bottle to see if it works better than my usual way, which is to use a wash of black paint instead. Altogether, it doesn't really seem to make that great a difference, but the ink seems like it may be a little more consistent in colour than thinned paint.
17 July 2021, 20:04
Jakko It's now done! Check the end of the album for proof that this isn't some imaginary tank I decided to build because I wanted to try out a rivet punch and die set 🙂
20 July 2021, 14:44
Robert PodkońskiTherefore, it was a kind of "Panzeratrappe". Germans had build many such contraptions used on military compounds in order to give an infantry a practice on combatting enemy tanks. Is there any consolation prize? 😉
21 July 2021, 05:18
Jakko It kind of is, but with a very different purpose. The Germans built them to represent their own tanks in exercises, this one is supposed to resemble (as far as I can tell) a SCM Search: Neubaufahrzeug — so, an enemy vehicle. Your consolation prize is the knowledge you got closer than anyone else here 🙂
21 July 2021, 08:33
Robert Podkoński@Jakko: I was kidding about this consolation prize, of course 😉 But with regard to German Panzeratrappen you are right with respect to Weimar Republic times, but during war there were mostly "copies" of Soviet tanks built and used. There is a very good documentary book: tankograd.net/cms/we..cht-Special-4013.htm
21 July 2021, 09:38
Jakko Oh yeah, they did that too … forgot about that. I mostly had the pre-war types in my mind. This VISMOD M3 is kind of similar to those, except I doubt any soldier who wasn't in the film ever got to practice against it.
And thanks, @WhiteGlint and @Mark 🙂
21 July 2021, 17:20
Jakko And thank you for your comments, and your attempts to work out what it actually was meant to represent 🙂
21 July 2021, 17:37
Michael OsadciwThanks for the video link. That was great. I always find the guys they have do those videos amusing; all of the family friendly slang is in evidence with that odd almost-NYC accent.
22 July 2021, 14:22
Robin (WhiteGlint)Guessing what tank it is was kind of fun, though my knowledge about tanks barely qualifies as superficial.
22 July 2021, 15:08
Jakko Thanks, all 🙂
@Dave Flitton: I wonder what they made the additional stuff out of. Plywood would be easiest, I would think, but then why add all those rivets? Maybe to blend it in with the real part of the tank, I suppose. Though I have this feeling the whole thing was made of sheet steel. (Which also wouldn't need the rivets, or at least not ones this big …)
@Michael Osadciw: yes, it's definitely one of those typical wartime training videos that really have this very American/Hollywood tone to them. There used to be comments under this video on YouTube, but they were disabled sometime after I started this model; anyway, many of those said pretty much the same you did 🙂 (Oh, and did you know Ronald Reagan used to make films in this genre during the war?)
22 July 2021, 17:25
Jakko Thanks. I don't think I'd have believed this tank existed either without some proof to back it up 🙂
25 July 2021, 17:02
Album info
Build of a rare variant of the Medium Tank M3. Try to guess what it is!
