I am building a model of Humvee a friend of mine used in Desert Storm. He was part of the Tuskers and served in a scout platoon. His vehicle was unique in that it had a tank thermal sight from an M60 mounted in the roof. He says it was one of only four vehicles modified that way. He also had extra radios with two rear mounted antennas. I have been scratch building his modifications using the Tamiya 1/35 scale vehicle as the foundation.
I have tried to upload photos but this site won’t accept them.
The rear, upward pointing chevron was called the Coalition Chevron and was worn by all vehicles in the allied coalition. The forward, down facing chevron is likely a unit marking. Many vehicles had both. The smaller unit one changed direction to denote platoon or company that it belonged to. For example, up could be 1st PLT, right 2nd PLT, etc.
Wow, that thermal sight looks interesting mounted on the Humvee. Well done making it from scratch… Can you give us more detailed images of the modifications you did?
Building the sight was a bit of a challenge. My friend said it was a prominent part of his unit of scouts. He described it as being removed from a M60 tank and mounted on his Humvee in the hatch. I could find pictures of the sight as it was installed in the tank but only the one above from an actual vehicle with it. The above picture came from a member of my friend’s unit but shows a vehicle in the depot after the conflict. That is why there are a large number of wires hanging down.
I used the photo to draw out the back of the unit in my Silhouette cutting software. I normally use the device to make masks but found it will also cut, or etch, thin plastic sheet. The nice thing is that you can use the software to make precise dimensions. I built a mock up to get the general sizing correct and then accidentally learned I could etch the much smaller details rather than cut through the entire plastic. The end result is very “stand off” scale. But incorporating it into the model was important,
This is a photo of my friend in his vehicle. The sight is barely visible behind his head. You can also see the stack of radios unique to his vehicle with his gun resting against it.
The Humvee also had a television, vcr and power supply unit installed to run the sight. That is the equipment seen below the white body of the sight in the first picture. Again, I used the silhouette cutter to fabricate the frame and box and used thin plastic strip to replicate the vanes on the power unit. I have yet to install everything but intend to use some lead wire to replicate the power lines. I could not find a photo of how this is done so, it will be guess work.
The vehicle also had additional radios installed. This included a unit hung on the back of the commander’s seat and required an additional antenna on the back. I ended up stacking the stock radio on top of a resin aftermarket radio and added handsets and some wiring. I had purchased an aftermarket resin replacement dashboard but my friend said it caused the radios to sit too high, in his recollection, so I ended up sanding most of it away to get the “look” right. Again, I am going with what my friend recalls about his ride so not sure it is entirely accurate. But he thinks it looks right and that is enough for me.
I was fortunate to find a 3d printed version of the radio hung over the commander’s seat. Again, this was something unique to his ride so it had to be included.
His ride also had a rack installed on the back. I fabricated this out of some photo etch grating that was intended to go across the front grill and some plastic strips.
