Sunday, October 30, 2011

MILITARY MIGHT

A long time interest in military trains that ran on the NSWGR ,has finally resulted in some modelling of this very much unknown freight traffic.
Articles on the TE wagons and CENTURION tanks have been done ,but none on the latter 70s period.
Collecting the few photos of these trains that are available, and then researching the actual military vehicles as used by the ADF in the 1970s to 80s  has resulted in a large collection of books on all the different variants which where used around this time
The M113 and M113A1 family of armoured personnel carriers was  introduced in 1962 and is available as a HO scale model.But to have the differant variations requires some kit bashing and some castings which where produced to speed up the process




                                   M113 IN BASIC APC ( ARMOURED PERSONEL CARRIER )
                                                        FORM AS INTRODUCED

 



                                                 FSV  ( FIRE SUPPORT VEHICLE )
                                          M113A1 WITH SALADIN TURRET AS FITTED BY
                                          AUSTRALIA ONLY .

 



                                                     M113A1 FITTERS CARRIER




 
                                           M577A1 ACV (ARMOURED COMMAND VEHICLE)
                                             
 



                                           M548 TLC (TRACKED LIGHT CARRIER)

                                       

    Pictures of these vehicles on dedicated trains can be seen in
    Australian Diesel Scene page26
    Modern Rail Portfolios - No 1 NSW page 30
    I still have some castings to do to produce the T50 turret and Scorpion turret versions


LEOPARDS

 The leopard family of fitting vehicles was introduced into Australian service in 1977 as a replacement for the Centurion tanks.And a very interesting picture of a train on the Grafton viaduct with a 45 long end leading with 1 x M548,  4x AS1 Leopards, 1xLeopard ARV, 2 x passenger cars and 1x Guards van .Can be scene on page 111 of the Alco DL541 book



                                           LEOPARD AS1 MEDIUM BATTLE TANK
                                                 Shown turret reversed as for transport

                                         


                                     LEOPARD ARV (ARMOURED RECOVERY VEHICLE )

  


                               A SHOT OF WHAT THE FINISHED APC TRAIN WILL LOOK LIKE


 So now that I have shown you mine ,I need you to show me yours  !
There must be someone out there with some photos of these trains and wagons loaded up. So if you have let me know as I feel an article coming on.But I will need your help with some pictures and info on the trains themselves.And if theres any interest then castings will be available too.

2 comments:

  1. There are quite a few mods to be done to the APC's and Tanks to Australianise them such as turrets for the M113's (two different varieties)

    A critical issues is also how they were attached to the flat wagons. I have a contemporary German publication somewhere that shows how this was done with German and US equipment c2005.

    It is an interesting topic.

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