After my paycheck today I went to Trains and Lanes and found about a dozen subjects in 1/35 that I am interested in building. It seems that I am on hiatus from ships at the moment, though I should get some work done on some ships this summer.
The M3 was one of the first tanks brought into World War II by the United States. It was an "interim" tank, one that fulfilled a role until the M4 Sherman could take the front lines, which it did, beautifully. I picked up the M3 because the tank looks weird. It was a trial by error process in designing the tank, and engineers got tank design down with the M4 Sherman after the M3 Lee. The M3..... well it is the odd duck. It has a turret mount above the turret, and the main gun is in a sponson off to the right side of the tank! Worse off, the tank required 6-7 crew to operate versus today's 4. The wheel design would carry over to the Sherman, as well as the exhaust system.
This model in particular was molded in a dark green, in fact the exact green color as my Ford G.P.A. (General Purpose Amphibian). While the color is fine, I feel I can get more detail and life out of the tank by getting a lighter green Olive Drab in there. Since most of the tank is colored this mold color anywhoo, I am going to go ahead and assemble the tank, then spray paint her the proper colors. From there I can go into brushwork, if necessary. The Lee only has about 3 parascopes from what I see on the box art- it is one tank I would not want to do battle in, but it was a necessary sacrifice to get tank engineering nailed down. I will be working on this one as I finish up the Ford GPA, which is practically done save the decals, the rear seat and clutch/stick/drivers wheel.
I like odd ducks- and certainly Tamiya has many interesting designs, not just American, to chose from in model kit form.
No comments:
Post a Comment