CPT McMaster's Abrams of 1991 Battle of 73 Easting

Hello and greetings to all since it is my first post here. I am a beginner in modelling, therefore I have a question to anyone ready to help…

Is there on the internet a photo or a drawing or decals of CPT McMaster’s Abrams from the 1991 Battle of 73 Easting?

I’ve been looking for a long time, but to no avail. I’ve only found info that McMaster was the commander of the Eagle Troop, Second Squadron, Second Armored Cavalry Regiment, VII Corps.

I want to build a model of this particular tank, using a Rye Field Model 5006 M1A1 model.

Thank you in advance

You may be out of luck here. I know I haven’t seen anything on it. You could try contacting the unit itself: 2nd Cavalry Regiment (army.mil)
or a historical organization like this: 2D Cavalry Association
or see if there is a unit museum with information.
Ken

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Here are some pictures of H.R. McMaster and tanks from Eagle Troop.



For markings, all 2ACR tanks had a white X on a black rectangle on the back of the turret bustle rack for ID.

For his tank, here are the specifics.

Coalition ID Chevron and an up arrow on the side armor, both sides.

MAD MAX on the bore evacuator.

Bumper codes were, when looking at the vehicle both front and rear:

Left Side
VII 2/2 CAV

Right Side
E 66

Here is a very nice version of it that our own Pete “Epi” Becerra did a while ago.



Hope that helps and good luck with it.

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Did they actually have the bumper codes during the battle? I know most of our vehicles (1/3ACR) did not.
Ken

Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know for sure. I think it would be good to put on the model though to help ID it.

Thank you! You put a lot of effort to answer me as fully as possible.
If it’s not a problem, I would like to take advantage of this opportunity and ask two, more general questions about Desert Storm Abrams tanks…
1)As far as I know, M1IP of 24th Inf Div were first Abrams tanks deployed in Saudi Arabia as a part of Desert Shield operation, participated in exercises there, but were they fighting during Desert Storm?
2) Were US Army Abrams tank units using ID orange sheets, which are often visible on photos of Marines M60s or British Challengers?

The units that deployed with 105mm gun M1IPs had those replaced with M1A1s before combat started.

Yes, US Army units were supposed to be using the VS17 air ID panels, along with everyone else in the coalition.

You can barely see one on the bustle rack stowage here

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Thank you very much! And maybe one last question… Many photos show American tanks sometimes carrying a lot of barbed wire? What was it actually used for?

Usually that is carried as part of the mission for setting up a defensive position, obstacle, or check point at a location or objective. I’m sure that there is more beyond what I just thought up there. The purpose of wire will usually be listed in the operations order.

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Yes, we carried the VS-17 panels, orange side up. They were usually spread over the back of the turret. In this photo of my tank, you can see it next to the “C-4” sign.

Many units routinely carry the wire, called concertina wire. It is formed into a series of loops, that can be streached out to form a barrier. It is usually made from a type of short-barbed razor wire, like here:


But it can be made from barbed wire as well:

@Stikpusher pretty much covered its uses for a tank. We also used it to make holding pens for POWs.
Ken

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Thank you! Since you are a tank veteran, some more questions come to my mind…


What is this big rolled thing on a side of a turret? A one, large piece of a tarpaulin to cover a whole tank? Or a camo net covered with a tarp?

Was every Abrams tank equipped with a sand colored camo net before going to combat?

What is a size of camo net? I mean, is it a one large piece, or some smaller ones?
Sometimes you can see on photos, that only a small part of a tank is covered by a equally small net, for example a gun barrel, so I wonder if tank crews are allowed to cut a camo net what size they want at the moment?

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I just got caught in the wire and shredded my clothes….again. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

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@Stikpusher thats correct we still do that in our sbct as well… btw don’t wanna be the dude that gets out on top of the Vic at night to do bathroom ops and steps or get snagged on the wire :joy::joy::joy:

The big thing on the side of the turret is actually two things; the camo net(in its cover) in front, and the camo support bag (commonly called the pole bag) behind it. Both are held on with straps. There appears to be some other bag behind the pole bag.

The net consists of two parts, a large hex shaped piece, and a smaller diamond shaped piece. I do not recall the size of the pieces. These pieces can be stitched together, using a special cord, and then stitched to other sets to make any size net you want. The poles and spreaders, you can see one spreader on top of the pole bag, are used to raise the net off the ground and off the vehicle.

Not everyone was issued the desert nets in the Gulf War. And normally you do not cut up a net because that destroys it. But sometimes things happen. In my unit, we did not get the desert nets. we took the regular forest net, turned it to the “winter” side, which is mostly brown. Then we spray painted the green parts tan. We got issued ONE net system per platoon (4 tanks). We cut that up into pieces and passed those pieces out to the platoon. We were also issued some brown burlap (hessian) material which we used to cover the green duffle bags and backpacks.

Here is a Camo net in it’s cover:

Here is a net and pole bag over the main gun:
m60A3 Tank Top

This is my tank with the spray painted net and the burlap covering the bags on the side of the turret:

Legend makes a nice resin net bag and pole bag, it can be found in several different upgrade sets:

Ken

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Thank you for your kindness, sir!
And maybe that question… I have read somewhere that many the pre-Desert Storm vehicles were painted in a big hurry. And this paint wasn’t standardized or something like that … So my question is, was this paint very prone to chipping, fading and did the old NATO camouflage still show through the sandy one if you were standing in a close proximity to a vehicle?
Thank you again for the answers!

On some occasions, they didn’t use CARC paint, and it showed ! :wink:

H.P.

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I was wondering what dense forest a second tank had to pass through before joining the Desert Storm. Now I understand. There was no luck getting the right paint :grinning:


in close-up

IIRC, CARC (Chemical Attack Resistant Coating) paint has some sort of active properties in that it will react to chemicals, specifically chemical warfare agents but in this case a different formula of paint, that it in comes into contact with, and not allow them to adhere to itself in order to assist in decontamination of the CARC painted surface.

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image

Looks like they used Model Master Acrylic or Vallejo primer…. :joy:

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Gino (@HeavyArty ) and others have covered this before, so I will keep it short. Some vehicles were repainted in Saudi Arabia using local purchase paints of low quality, they peeled very badly. Others did not. Many of our secondary vehicles were repainted with good paint, we had very few problems with them.
Ken

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