Hi there,
I'm building Tamiya's M8 HMC kit at the moment and intend to build it up as something a little different - an M8A1 tank destroyer prototype:



As you can see the 75mm howitzer has been replaced with a 75 mm M3 L/40 gun from a sherman tank.
I wanted to build this kit for a while and seeing this prototype built in a recent Scale Military Modeller International, was the push I needed to get on it.
Though it never saw action, I want to build a theoretical M8A1 that was field converted and saw action in europe. Though never accepted for service, I think that the combination of speed and firepower could have been quite formidable, and so I hope to place the finished build in a diorama to portray this.

Rudi Richardson (Tarok) is currently building the same kit as a M8 HMC and describing his progress in excellent detail that I won't even attempt to match. What I will do is explain what i'm doing different outside of building the kit and adding the Eduard etched sets.
Rudi's thread can be found here: Rudi Richardson (Tarok): Building Tamiya's M8 HMC

Hopefully with our blogs running 'parallel' you should get a good understanding of how the kit goes together and what you can do to improve it.

One last thing before I get into my progress: I am well aware of the dimensional accuracies with the Tamiya M8/M5 stuarts due to them being built on an M3 hull. While I considered it (to the point of marking up cut marks and getting the saw out!) I will not be correcting this issue. I want to get this build finished for a local model meet and did not have the extra time available to go to such lengths. To the casual observer it is not noticeable, and I figure my time is better spent on other issues of the kit.

Kits used (so far!):

- Tamiya M8 HMC
- Tamiya M4 Sherman
- Eduard M8 HMC Interior and Exterior PE sets
- AFV club T36 E6 track
- Verlinden Sherman ammo
- Academy US machine gun set
- THE SPARES BOX!

James

Ok,
On kits with an interior, I always tackle it first as the painting etc. can take a while and can slow down progress of the build at a later stage.

Tamiya provides an extremely basic interior which the Eduard interior set aims to fix. However, its not quite that easy, as the Eduard set requires you to leave the left hand sponson as is, which my reference material implies is inaccurate as there should be ammo stowage for the main gun and the .50cal here.

Starting from the back the mouldings for the Tamiya shells were removed and the Eduard racks added, the fire extinguisher (not in pics) also got the Eduard treatment. When using the Verlinden sherman ammo in packing cases in the racks a problem arrises, it's too tall and hits the bottom of the turret ring whic means that the upper hull will not sit down on top of the racks. Not sure if this is Tamiya or Verlindens fault, but to fix it I removed the Tamiya sponsons and added a shim to the upper edge of the tub from plastic card, meaning that the floor was now a few mm lower, this combined with a bit of sanding on the underside of the turret ring meant everything now fitted happily.
New sponsons were added from plastic card and a firewall added above the Tamia tub (Tamiya provide a slight suggestion of this which I removed). The Eduard firewall provided is good but a little undersized, this was glued on to of the plastic card wall so that its details could be used. Some wire and conduit detail was then added from references.

Please note these next photos were taken under bad light, I appologise, future ones should be better but the camera available at the time and the fact it was dark outside left me with little choice!



I used the Tamiya M4 radio on the right sponson rather than the Edward etch version as it was much easier to do and has better 3D detail. The stowage/conduit boxes from Eduard were then all added in the lower tub and on the right sponson. As mentioned the left sponson detail appears to be inaccurate and so a rack for 75mm ammo in packing tubes was scratch built from spruce and card and one of the Tamiya stowage bins with Eduard clasp added.



Moving forward I removed all the horrible battery housings (The kit was supposed to be motorized originally) and the typicaly associated holes in the floor were filled. Tamiya neglects to include any of the forward interior, and to be fair it is barely visible when the kit is complete, however, I thought it would be easy enough to add a bit of detail, ie. seats.
To do this the forward part of the Tamiya hull tub (that with no non-slip detail) was cut away, with the exception of a central strip, and the spares box ravaged for some suitable seats. Some from an old Italeri DAK VW beetle kit seemed to resemble them pretty well and so were added after being thinned down (otherwise they are a bit wide) and re-shaped slightly.

The central strip had an ammo stowage rack added, this was quickly knocked up from references and the Verlinden shells added (note in these pics this and the seats are not glued). A canteen was also affixed on the wall and Jerry can tucked behind the seat; the rest of the stowage will be added after basic painting.



Last but not least I managed to dig out a driver figure from Tamiya's M26 Dragon Wagon. As the M8A1 will be shown stopped in the dio, I was happy to go with a relaxed pose, the lack of any drivers controls also means it would be difficult to show him doing anything!



All together now:



It looks a real mess at this stage but hopefully with paint and under decent light it will look ok!

All feedback is greatly appreciated.

James

An interesting subject, James. Especially in the light of rather frequent German E-series posts. Nice build so far, I’ll be watching closely…

-A-

I'm interested in this also. Not a lot of allied prototypes out there compared to the German stuff.

Thanks guys, great to have you on board.

Yes it is a nice change from the usual 'paper panzers' and far more realistic being as at least one actually existed!
I like rare AFV's and especially anything that was 'up-gunned' and so this is a fun build.
I hope to begin painting the interior this weekend and hopefully should have some progress early next week.

Cheers,

James

Looks superb james

it doesnt look that messay it will make people appreciate the work and hours your putting in

you said you like up gunned tanks how about a M51 super sherman as your next project

Hi James,

Looks good! I'll be following your build closely - and even closer when I get to the tub

I take it you're building your M8 with the driver's vision hatch open? Perhaps even the co-driver's hatch open?

Nice job on the ammo stowage racks. What were your dimensions for the left sponson and central racks?

Rudi

Thanks James,

The M51 isn't one for me i'm afraid, I don't really dabble in IDF or post war stuff really, i'm a WW2 man. Be assured however that I have plenty of projects to keep me interested!




Rudi, glad to have you along, and hope this will be of use.

Yes the drivers vision port will be open, Tamiya mould the co-drivers port shut however so there isn't much I can do there!
What i'm doing is really a bit overkill for what will actually be on show but never mind.
I'm afraid I don't have the rack dimensions to hand, but will try and measure them up ASAP for you.

Hopefully I'll snap some more pics soon!

James

Thanks James.

Hey, while you're measuring, what are the dims for the ammo packing tubes?

Thanks mate

Rudi

Sorry its taken a while Rudi, im usually on the big A at work so don't have my kit to hand.

Dimensions are as follows:

Ammo packing tubes: 1.9cm tall, 3mm wide

Left sponson rack: 1.2cm wide (basically width of sponson), 2cm long, 8.5mm tall (careful you dont catch the underside of the turret ring!)

Central ammo rack is almost impossible to measure as its glued into position. It is1.3mm tall, long enough to fit 3 shells with room either side of the central one, im guessing about 3mm wide at the top. The bottom is the same width as the anti-skid plate part on the Tamiya floor tub that juts out from the rest of the area. Hope this makes sense!

Good luck with that!

James

Did you measure some actual 1/35 75mm AP shells to make sure they will fit with the hull on? They are much longer than the M8 howitzer shells and I seem to remember that there wasn't too much headroom in my M8 over the stubby howitzer rounds. You have to allow for the tranny that sits pretty much where you have the ready rack.

There are also two vertical roof supports that hold up the hull roof & support the weight of the turret. On an M8A1, I suspect these would be significantly beefed up as the recoil loads were much higher on the 75mm M3 than the pack howitzer it replaced.

Lastly, were you planning on putting in something to replace the floor mounted ammo racks or leaving them clear for the crew to serve the weapon? The latter makes more sense as the breech & recoil guards on an M3 would eat up an awful lot of the space in the little M8 hull. You could mount the radio in the aft turret bustle and place ready ammo in the right sponson,deleting the AA MG ring mount and then placing the MG over the front of the turret on the small flat area as was frequently done on M10s so it could shoot to the front.

I think one of the reasons the M8A1 was never taken up was that it was just too damned small to work in. That should be apparent with yuor model so that the viewer gets a feeling for how tiny this thing really was.

Interesting project. I once scratch built a T85 HMC prototype. It was an airborne 105mm howitzer on the M5 chassis. All the ammo had to be placed in armoured boxes over the aft engine compartment as there wasn't a lick of room in the hull, even with a new "Priest-like" box superstructure.

Paul

Thanks for the info James

James,

sorry I'm late I must have missed that build. You know I'm not an allied stuff fun but... I find your subject more than interesting. Of course I have never heard anything about this little thing but it looks really cool. Looking at the picture I have an impression that the vehicle is at least very dirty or maybe even worn (not battle worn ). I hope you'll make it look the way a real AFV vehicle should look like Once again, very cool idea and very interesting build to follow up.

spit

Pawel,

This vehicle was never put into production, AFAIK the picture above shows the prototype as a potential replacement for the M8 HMC. If it's dirty and worn then it's either the photo or dust from the test site.

Rudi

Yes Rudi, I agree and that's enough to justify nice, muddy & dusty finish But I think James have it's own idea on this so I'll just sit and wait.

spit

Paul, Thanks for your tips and comments.

-I found out about the longer shells the hard way, and my way around it is described in my post.
-I know about the vertical roof supports, but they wont be visible when the hull roof is fitted so I didn't bother with them.
-I have left the ammo stowage as is. Your suggestions make a good deal of sense, but i've already finished the interior and so it's too late to change anything now im afraid!
-On the prototype pic you can see the mount for the .50cal still in its original position and so i'll be keeping it there.

You are right, this is one teeny tank, and i'll be emphasisng this in my build!

Thanks again, I welcome any more tips!

James

Hi Pawel,

Great to have you along mate,
Its not a Tiger B, but hopefully it should keep you interested!

Rudi and Pawel; The picture shows the prototype at testing grounds somewhere in the US, and by the looks of things it has been tested hard. Its possible the 75mm M3 L/40 gun has been added to an older M8 howitzer already used for trials:

1. It has the earlier style of roadwheels fitted
2. The gun seems to be less 'weathered' than the rest of the hull

I don't intend to mimmic this pic, as I want to show an 'artistic license' version that is in combat in Italy/Normandy. This really just serves as inspiration for the build.

Its a bit early to go to definate on my weathering technique, but I'm thinking I might try the Steve Zaloga type dusty allied weathering with a light wash and dark dry brushing.

Be assured both of you, it will look like it has seen combat - thats a promise!

Thanks to you both for your comments,

James

OK, so the interior is now finished!

It was sprayed with white Tamiya acyrilic and then all painting was done with enamels.
Stowage has come from a wide variety of sources:

- All 75mm ammo from Verlinden
- Tools from Italeri, and those from the kit
- SMG's from Tamiya
- Maps from my PC
- .50cal boxes from Tamiya
- Jerry cans from Italeri

Weathering involved some drybrushing, a light wash with sepia oil paint and some nice dusty pigments from Mig.

In reverse to my last lot of pics, the light was too bright so appologies for the shadows!

Here you go:









Just in case you can't make him out in the other pics, here's the driver, painted with enamels:



The front glacis panel was fairly basic, hatch opening mechanism from Eduard and wire, and cotrol panel from the Eduard set.



All comments, suggestions and questions are welcomed.

Cheers!

James

oh my! this is beautiful. I was always wondering how should I paint the ammo. I have a lot of 88 mm to paint. Which colours did you use James?

Oh! Must say I love your "artistic vision" of this vehicle in combat!!

keep up the good work!

spit

James-- great job! The interior chipping is outstanding.
DJ

The interior looks great James the weathering looks subtle but great!

Keep up the good work

Hi Pawel, thank you very much.
Pleased you like it, we are both modellers who like our 'artistic vision' thats for sure!

As for painting the ammo, I use a revell paint I somehow ended up with, no. 94 which is a gold colour. To be honest, while the colour is nice for ammo shells, I wouldn't really recommend it. Like most revell enamels, its very thick, and I have to dilute it with enamel thinner, also this particular paint reacts badly to my oil washes which I use white spirit for, and lifts this paint a bit despite leaving it to dry for ages.
I don't know why I havn't replaced it, I just use it because it's there! I'd suggest the humbrol version may be a better option.
I then used olive drab for the upper parts of the shells, and painted stripes carefully aound them in silver, and the tips either silver, red or yellow to denote different rounds. I also used yellow to carefully paint thin lines like stencil lettering on the sides.
For your KT ammo (I presume this is what the 88's are for!) you'll obviously use a different scheme than these US shells (I think black or yellow with white tips).
To be honest you can't beat brass rounds in my opinion, I have the Tamiya sherman set but didn't use them as they wouldn't be that visible. A black wash on brass shells looks great.

Thanks again, hope that helps!

James

Thankyou very much DJ,

This was actually my first attempt at using the 'sponge technique' of chipping, and while I did get some good results, the tiny interior meant I couldn't use it in most places and so had to go back to the old fashioned thin paintbrush method.

I think chipping is one of the hardest weathering techniques to get right, as you can do too much or too big quite easily, so i'm pleased you think I've got it right here!

Thanks,

James

Just had to say that this is one really interesting build. Great subject matter and you've done very well with it. Impressive.

Jim
Large Scale Armory

Thanks James,

It's a hard line with weathering as to how heavy to go, some people like a lot (no names mentioned Pawel!) and others not so much. I tend to vary my choice depending on the build, and the type of AFV/scene I want to portray. Glad you think this version works.

Cheers,

James