Jakko’s M113 ACAV

[Guest]

I said I’d build the Italeri M113:



I get the impression this is an ex-Esci kit, but I’m not 100% certain. Here’s a sprue shot:



The kit has a partial interior, but is missing major parts. It has a floor, engine compartment firewalls, bench seats (but not backs) and commander’s seat and supporting pillar. What’s missing is the fuel tank, battery box, troop seat backs, radio shelves, and the whole driver’s compartment. Oh, and the inner roadwheel halves:

[ATTACH]327732[/ATTACH]

I have no idea why they omitted these, but if I had to guess, it was to keep costs down. From looking at another one of these kits I built a long time ago, though, it’s not a really noticeable problem once the tracks are on, so I decided to leave them like this.

This will be a Vietnam-era vehicle, and because I had a fair amount of epoxy putty left over from adding sand to my LVT(4), I put sandbags to the floor of this M113:

[ATTACH]327733[/ATTACH]

I made a fuel tank from more putty, given that I had it at hand anyway so I might as well not waste it. I took the dimensions (well, length) from a 1/35 example in my M113 spares box and just flattened the two visible faces; the top isn’t overly important because the roof will hide that. The bit of white plastic is a piece of 2 mm square rod to represent the battery box, again just a quick job to have someting visible through the rooftop hatch.

The driver’s seat is actually the commander’s,with the lower end of the pillar and the platform cut off. This bit of it will be visible through the rear hatch, if I keep the driver’s hatch closed Chances are I’ll add an instrument panel etc. so I can have the hatch open, though. I could use the commander’s seat for this, by the way, because crews sometimes (often?) removed the whole thing. Same for the bench seats along the sides.

[Steve Jones]

You have been busy. Nice work on the sandbags on the floor. Did they do this to minimise mine damage or was it for the comfort of the soldiers??

[Guest]

Against mines. US Army doctrine in the ’60s was that a squad of troops would ride in the back of an M113 but dismount for combat. In Vietnam, they found out real quick that being inside an M113 was not a good idea if the vehicle hit a mine, so the troops normally rode on the roof; the crew would put a layer of sandbags on the floor to dampen mine blasts. Later on, a belly armour kit was developed, that added an extra plate on the bottom of the hull, removing the need for the sandbags. (You can recognise M113s with belly armour mainly by the thick floatation cells on the hull front, and because you can see an armour plate on the lower nose plate at the front.)

[papa 695]

Great start Jakko

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
I don't think I have seen this vehicle modelled before. Looks a simple kit. I like the sandbags and the reason for having them makes a lot of sense.
Jim

[Lee Drennen]

Nice intro

[minitnkr]

Another reason was the early M113s were gasoline powered so if an RPG (the armor was for frags & low power projectiles) set off the fuel the aluminum armor would melt. Not a good environment to be enclosed in. PaulE

[Mickc1440]

Nice start Jakko

[SimonT]

Hi Jakko,
Yes, definitely one of the ex- Esci kits

[Guest]

I don't think I have seen this vehicle modelled before. Looks a simple kit.

It is, but the detail is actually quite good, especially on the tracks. It’s mainly let down by the lack of inner road wheels, but as I said, those aren’t all that visible in this scale so it’s something I can live with(out). The tracks, OTOH, are very well done.

Another reason was the early M113s were gasoline powered so if an RPG (the armor was for frags & low power projectiles) set off the fuel the aluminum armor would melt. Not a good environment to be enclosed in.

There are some quite vivid photos from Vietnam of what a burned-out M113 looks like. One I remember offhand from the excellent Vietnam Tracks by Simon Dunstan shows two hull halves that have fallen away from each other, with torsion bars sticking up at an angle from both sides … I wish I could find an online version of it, but not at the moment. However, this photo well illustrates what Paul is talking about:



This vehicle seems to have taken a severe hit on the right-hand side — not something a sandbagged floor would help with, but it shows how vulnerable M113s are to large-caliber hits or big explosions.