Friday 30 September 2011

M5A1 Stuart Platoon

Here's my latest FoW project, an M5A1 Stuart Platoon. The M5 twin Cadillac engine Stuart Light Tank was an ideal recon and infantry tank. It was fast and the engine was relatively quiet compared to the earlier radial engines in the M3 version. It also had an automatic gear shift making it easy to drive and very agile. However its thin armour and high profile made it vulnerable to enemy tanks and AT guns.


Incidentally there's an excellent series of pictures of a restoration project on a M5A1 Stuart on the Fighting Iron website.

Technical data:
Weight: 33500 lb.
Length: 15 ft.11 in.
Width: 7 ft. 6 in.
Height: 8 ft. 5 in.
Ground Clearance: 16.5 in.
Maximum speed: 36 mph
Turning radius: 21 ft.
Maximum grade: 60 %
Crew: 4 (Commander, gunner, driver, co-driver)

Armament:
1 x 37 mm Gun, M6
1 x Hull .30 MG
1 x Co.ax .30 MG
1 x AA .50 MG

FoW Stats:
Front 4;  Side 2;  Top 1;  ROF 2;  Anti-tank 7;  Firepower 4+

I couldn't resist comparing the dinky Stuart against the behemoth that is the King Tiger. It makes quite a picture, with the barrel of the Tiger equal in length to the whole of the Stuart! I know the Stuart was never designed with tank vs tank combat in mind (it was primarily an infantry support tank) but just the thought of accidentally running into a King Tiger while driving a Stuart makes my blood run cold.

15 comments:

  1. Nice unit, and thats quite a comparison! Great stuff

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  2. Now I do like the humble little Stuart tank and good to see a whole posse of them.

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  3. Awesome job on these. The dry-brushing to bring out the corners, edges and raised details is exquisite. Perfectly done.

    AJ

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  4. Well, maybe if you were with a group of Shermans he might not bother with your Stuart right away, and if he is among trees maybe he can't traverse as you scoot around, and then try shooting his treads up. Then run, behind a hill.

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  5. I switched brushes for the Dry brushing (from synthetic to sable) and it worked out a lot better.

    I normally use W&N Series 7 sable brushes for all my painting, but these are way too expensive to use (read 'destroy') on dry brushing. Instead I bought cheep synthetic brushes, but I've never been happy with them. So I bit the bullet and found some cheaper sable brushes just for dry brush work. Yeh they will be knackered quickly but at a fifth of the price of the W&N brushes I think I can live with it.

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  6. Lt. Jeb Stuart, of DC comics' The Haunted Tank, killed any number of Tigers, usually by getting an (insane) point-blank belly shot.

    Here's a Wikipedia entry for the Tank:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunted_Tank

    and somewhere in the Battlefront web-site are directions for modelling the Haunted Tank.

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  7. Beautiful work on the Stuarts Lee. Great last photo, makes you think...

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  8. Wow! .. I agree with Roger, certainly does make you think! .. Great work Lee and I'm with you on the use of sable brushes as opposed to synthetic for dry brushing. Synthetic brushes always tend to slip off any surface rather than brushing over them.

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  9. Great looking Stuarts.
    Cheers

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  10. Great looking models as usual, Lee. I particularly like the highlighting you've achieved.

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