1/35 AFV Club M-24 Chaffe
This one dates back to 2018 when the AFV Club offering was still pretty new. The kit is supposed to give you the option of an articulating suspension but bad engineering makes this very hard to achieve; I did not invest the time needed to make it happen. The hull parts are very thin and the molding is superb, and they also give you a metal barrel for the main gun.
That being said, it was a fiddly little thing to assemble, no one major problem but a whole lot of little ones that extended build time accordingly. It still builds up to a decent model.
The figure is a Tamiya leftover from somewhere, and the base is celluclay over styrofoam. Yes, that's a real driveway rock to the left of the tank. Grass is from Woodland Scenics, and the trees are what I think are called seafoam...some sort of fern that grows in far northern climates I'm told. In spite of the fiddly tank this was an entertaining project that was my first attempt at contoured groundwork which is probably why I had so much fun with it.
Very nice build, Mark @markh
An amazing diorama with lots of details and great paintwork.
Amazing job as usual, Mark!
Excellent painting and weathering! Excellent diorama!
Great diorama, Mark!
Great looking build and display, Mark! Well done.
@markh, That is a great little tank! ? I'm happy to see another Chaffee built as they don't seem to be that popular among armor builders. It holds a special place in my heart as an Italeri M24 was my first tank model. Your tank looks very realistic and the groundwork is sensational and if that's a first attempt, wow! ?
? If interested, here's the Italeri M24:
Before I acquired the AFV Club offering I was working on the Italeri one. It died and unfortunate death when, in my clumsiness, I fumbled a full quart can of paint thinner and guess where it landed. I decided to replace the build with the newer kit since after all, it was new and shiny, never suspecting all the little mousetraps laying in wait for an unsuspecting fool such as I. The AFV Club offering has much better mold quality to it I did note that.
You did a fine job on the Italeri version I must say. Perhaps the reason you don't see many M-24's is the inherent difficulty of both kits, neither one is an easy build
Ouch! I bet that did make a mess out of that kit! Thanks for the kind words too Mark! ?
Thank you all gentlemen I am flattered
Very nice work on this and a great result, Mark.
Thank you sir
Personally, I feel the reason one does not see too many M-24s is that it has been overshadowed by the Sherman and it's many variants. That is kind of a shame as the Americans had a number of AFVs during WWII that were of note, including the M-24 Chaffee. I built the Italeri version of the Chaffee some time ago, I did not experience any "inherent" difficulties in it's assembly, however, I did have to spend a great deal of time backdating it to a proper WWII version and adding detail to where the detail was soft, inaccurate, or not there at all. Your AFV offering looks mighty nice and you really have done it justice. I use seafoam for trees also. I spray it with adhesive and sprinkle it with crushed herbs such as sage or oregano. Once painted, they make marvelous trees.
1 attached image. Click to enlarge.
@seamus1, That's a great looking dio, and tank too of course! ?
Thank you sir, your build is a thing of beauty. I'd not gotten my Italeri try very far before the paint thinner incident so I did not get to the stage to note the things that needed improvement. I'm also kind of spoiled having done alot of the newer Tamiya offerings which go together so well you almost don't need glue.
You could be right in your assessment of the US armor fleet in those days, not much mention of the M-24 almost like it was a secret weapon or somesuch.