Tarkus II, M60A1 1/48 kit bash. Kitech & Monogram
Not knowing what was in the Kitech kit ,it was supposed to have reactive armor per the USMC [ it did not] it also was a motorized kit, which made the running gear less accurate than the snaptite kits. I decided to try to make it represent a US Army M60 from the late eighties. I took the Kitech M60A1 upper hull and turret assy. and married it to the Monogram snaptite M60 tread and lower hull assy. both kits are equally sparse in detail. As you can tell I'm not an armor guy, but this time I tried a little weathering. I always liked the look of that cold war warrior the M60. Seeing R. Clements excellent M60 build inspired me to finally finish this monster, thanks.
Looks OK to ME, Robert...maybe flatten out that "shininess" a little (no such thing as a tank that's too dirty). 🙂
I spent 4 years as a crewman in the real ones. I like what you have done.
The only things that I would change is where you have the auxiliary antenna. It was only used on a platoon leader or sergeants tank. Most of our tanks had a single one. If you did have two of them then the auxiliary one was mounted behind the loaders hatch. And it might look a little better if you made the flash suppressor on the commanders M-85 .050 cal. a little more pointed. It looks like yours has the later top loading air cleaners which would be correct for a tank in the 80's. The earlier version was a side load unit which was upgraded to what you have built.
I'm not trying to pick your model apart by any means. I really like it. It brings back some memories for sure.
Maybe now I'll get mine finished. There have been two recent M-60's on here. It's a sign.
Thanks again for the inspiration.
Thinking about it now, how the auxiliary antenna was mounted could have been a "unit" thing. Ours weren't like that, but it's entirely possible that another outfit could have used the forward location just as you have built yours. I really like it. You captured the colors nicely too. Great job my friend.
Thanks for the tips, it'd be nice if there was a more accurate 1/48 M60 out there.
Honestly I didn't know that the M-60 was available in 1/48. I mainly build 1/35 in armor, so I'm behind the times with this one. Sorry I can't be of much help here.
Both kits are old, the monogram is a snaptite kit , to my knowledge there's no really decent kit out there, I do so few armor kits that 1/48 is more manageable as far as space and my stiff fingers.
Great Robert! Glad my recent post got you going. I considered trying to do the stars black on mine but not having any black lettering or other marks decals I just went with the white but I like your black star. My Tamiya kit was originally to be motorized too, there are battery holders inside it.
Thanks for sharing yours -
Nice looking M-60 Robert, Tanks for sharing.
Looks pretty cool, great effort on these "basic" kits.
Cool build Robert, great camo scheme.