Torro M16 Halftrack to M3 conversion
 

I had our half track dealer strip the AA quad .50 out of my half track as I didn't need it. I intend to scratch a 75mm AT gun and install a Battle Armor BARC3 and Rx18 for Tamiya IR battle.
I chiseled off all the hinges on the armor, chiseled everything that was molded onto the rear, and filled in the line all the way around. Then I blanked out the cut outs with sheet styrene and bonded and sanded smooth. Inside I removed the gun mount, (which is kinda sad for me, I have actually been in an M16 and spun the turret around and aimed and fired the .50s which were fed with propane. Still very awesome) I removed the extra ammo cans from the rear floor and chiseled the floor smoth and filled the holes. (any body need more ammo cans for show?)I still need to either cut out the door or just scribe it in and make some hinges. Then I can prime and paint. Then get started on the gun mount. I have the Osprey book on the way for gun mount reference.

Here is my planshttp://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2071956http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2071957http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2071958

I've always wanted to see an American halftrack with the AT gun on it. Especially one made for battle. Would love to see this thing battling when it's done. :)

Cool, nice to see some half-track TD's.

Hopefully I can swing a T-19, similar to the one used in 'Kellys Heroes'.




Jeff

Now this is what I like to see, ripping things apart to make something new. Looking forward to your progress.

Wow, Rich, that's cool. I don't plan to get that elaborate, I'll most likely just invent a story to go with it. In the summer of '43 there was a U.S. unit in England that had an M16 and the motorpool, no matter what they did or how hard they worked on it, just could not get the quad .50s to operate properly. Finally the CO got tired of his best men wasting time on this thing so he told them to just strip out the quads, cover over the floor and give it to HHC to haul gear in. Do you see the beauty of that little lie? Now I'm free to mount anything I want to on it and I don't have to worry about historical accuracy. As long as I don't try to load the back with plasma rifles in the 40 watt range I can get away with quite a bit. See, the hippie brain can have it's uses. :)

Seriously, though, that's a lot lower voltage than I thought it would be in those tail lights. Wait, I think that's in the other thread.

Anyway, what did you do with the quad .50s? I was thinking they might also be cool in some kind of ground placement or possibly on a trailer. I'll have to do more research on the quad .50 and what it got used for. Can't wait to see more of your build.

Gary, if you keeping the wiring harness and .50's assembly intact it makes a nice platform to mount a FPV or Gopro. Then you already have pan and tilt for the camera. Just have to make it interchangeable with
what your planning in the back deck area.

I never thought of using the .50 mount for a camera. Good idea.
i dont have it. Bob kept the guns and gave me a discount.

if you want to do brittish, you could mount the firefly gun in the halftrack.

I am thinking of removing the front bumper and building the roller as i think all the TDs had rollers.
The halftracks in Kellys heros were 105 howizter models i think. I just watched it two weeks ago.

The one thing i am not sure I want to do, is cut out the fuel tanks and move them to the rear as per the diagrams. I might. Im such a rivet counter in my train modeling i dont know if i can live with an error that big....

Wether you move them or not, definitely keep them as they are a good place to hide components if need be.

I kept the mount for tilt and elevation on my M3 TD - unfortunately that build stalled out after I discovered that the new location fouled the end of the EL-Mod board I was going to use, and I don't have a small enough soldering iron to pull the capacitors off the board and remote mount them.

You'll need to remove the fuel tanks to clear the gun shield if you want to traverse the gun tho.

Well of course they are 105MM guns... that's the allure. I have an oddballs tank, need to finish up the 105MM halftrack, then move over onto the JEEP and Kubel. Doubt I can swing an Opel now since all the new tanks have been announced.




Jeff

Carl hasn't quite brought his 105 gun to market yet, but you might want to contact him and see where he's at with it. http://www.radiocontrolcustomtanks.com/Workshop.html

Is that Carl Steckler?

Using it for a camera mount is a great idea, but this one's slated for a project I got into with my scratchbuilding Guru ... drum roll please ... Rex! :)

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2072105

Only mine will be on an M-41 chassis.

Yes. He used to work with Phil Pflueger, and I ran across him when looking at smoker units. Nice guy.

Hey Rich, I see you only have one mudflap. Battle damage? :)

Ain't those things horrible? Have you driven it outside yet? I really hated the way it would get hung up on those stiff plastic mudflaps, so I fixed it. You may have seen this already, or Bob may have told you about it. I sent him a video of it when I first did it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSAl-6eZtrU

This looks great. I'm curious, I'm trying to find an intact gun mount for this halftrack. 2 of my 50's broke their barrels.

Commander Bob will be your best bet for finding a replacement quad .50 unit. He's here on the forum as "The Commander". I think.

Unless those evil Philipinos have him again. :)

No the flap didnt come off from battle damage. It fell off when i had the armor box off. I will pop the other one off on elf these days. Yeah, i was going to look for a piece of rubber to cut up for flaps.
I was looking over the fuel tanks last night, i suppose im gonna have to cut them out and make shorter ones for the rear.

Max, you need to fill in the armor cut outs on that second halftrack wihout the AA mount.

why would you want to put a 105 in a half track, a 75mm TD is so much more interesting and usefull if you battle.

my battle damage is to the large front bumper. It goes like this, i was chiseling the brackets off the rear armor that were under the boxes after i unscrewed them. Th screw peg for the round thing was thick and stubborn, and i was pushing hard with a freshly sharpened chisel. The chisel finailly made it through and went right into my left palm. I dropped the half track and put pressure on my hand and ran for the house, when I got up i stepped on the front bumper. I really didnt care at the time as i had weird tissue coming out of the hole in my hand along with all the blood, which got all over the half track. Spent the night at the ER and got stitches. Pretty bad, but lucky i just barley missed all the tendons. Going to take a few months to heal.

Rich...

And what have we learned from this 'little accident'?

One: cut AWAY from her hands, & your body too, fool! I say that as a fellow-idiot who has chopped the heck out of his paws and other parts (slashed my kneecap while opening a packing box, ech!)

Two: Always keep first aid material handy when using tools that could injure yourself. Trust me, even if its just Kleenex for wadding, and some tape for holding it, you'll be thankful. With my illness, I have proper stuff handy: Telfa no-stick pads in various sizes, paper and plastic tapes in 1/2" & 1" widths, and I always keep a tube of Polysporin complete handy (the one with lidocaine in it!)

Three: Its a good excuse to wear a used lab-coat/apron/whatever, or otherwise 'junked' clothing. Why? Blood on the clothes is a pain in the butt to get out.

You can make a pretty decent DIY First Aid kit from the dollar-store stuff, trust me, I've pointed it out to friends. As for storage, either grab a small cosmetics bag, and label it well, or buy the Dollar-store First-Aid kit, salvage what ya can, junk/recycle the rest, and pack your gear in their nice red bag)

From Mr. Slashed-Fingertips hisself (damn hard to type sometimes, *sigh*)
WhiteWolf McBride

PS: The halfie looks good... keep at it! Gonna have to talk to The Commander about getting one now that funds are stable again.

Secret option B - use a Dremel with the appropriate cutter tools and eye protection. With a bit of practice you can quite cleanly remove any surplus detail without having to resort to sharp objects...

I have several dremmels, but was afraid of nicking up the armor too much on this one.

if you can clean up a chisel mark, you can clean up Dremel marks. Its just a question of using a tool that is sharp, enough rpm, and a Dremel that has some good bearings left (mines starting to get a bit wobbly after 5 or 6 years worth of abuse :( ).

Is this thing sitting on a shelf somewhere, Rich? Any progress? How's the hand? Did Bob put an elmod in this for you? What TX do you use with it?

Aren't these RC Halftracks a blast? Rich is doing the work himself. He is a very capable modeler. I don't know what system he is leaning towards. I do know he is a busy man. I just sold him the Halftrack without the Maxon Quad MG guns but with a floor template. If anyone wants the Quad M2s please PM me.

I do have M16 parts in stock both new and used. As well as NIB halftracks. My RCU buddies always get a discount.

PM me and/or see my rctankcommand.com website for more info: http://www.rctankcommand.com/

I have already produced the front roller bumper to increase the Halftracks surprisingly good cross-country ability. I couldn't even get it stick in snow and ice during a winter recon mission. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEPA...m45MJ47wobWY2g

That the huge overhanging (but nicely detailed winch bumper) can get in the way sometimes. Just like the mud-flaps...LOL. Here are some pix. They are all hand made by me from brass.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2085544http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2085545http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2085546http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2085547http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2085548





Here is a demo video of the roller bumper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zC9...m45MJ47wobWY2g





748, 223

i'm still looking for 10 rims and tires or just 6 rims and tires