A side note that might rain on some parades to some extension but deserves to be mentioned. For what I can see Dynamo kit features the long-nose turret shield originally designed for the M16 half tracks though the box art shows the shorter snub-nose.
The Quad .50 had two different designs of gun shield assemblies, a shorter on the M45C mount, and a slightly longer on the M45D/F mount. Difference was that the shorter M45C was designed for the trailers and M45D/F was made for the M16 half-tracks (and navy IRC) that had higher mounts for a lower depression (as these were mounted on elevated positions).
I don’t know the mix of these during WWII but “post M16” both M45C and D/F ended up on the gun trucks in Vietnam (and later liberally applied on all types of mounts as of collectors). If you have Doyles Gun truck books there is a good shot on p.49 in the old one and p.60 in the new Squadron signal of both types on Quad-trucks in the same shot.
The M45C is still predominantly seen on the trailers, though people can probably dig up some pic the D/F in ground position trailer as I assume both was used on trailers as the M16 was retired. As seen on gun trucks in Vietnam an additional base ring was sometimes added to the trailer bed to give better height. Both M45C and D/F used single and double ring outfits on Gun trucks in Vietnam.
Pic left. Snub-nose [a nickname of mine, ie. unofficial] standard, single base ring. Pic right. Long-nose on a double base ring on Gun truck (this is not an original vehicle but a museum one, but montage is identical to the ones used in Nam). Note how M45C ends above the bolted turret ring and its blunt nose, and how the longer nose M45D/F “M16” with its sharper end is covering it.
Hello Paul!
Welcome to the forums and thanks a lot for your interesting remarks. The difference you’re writing about, while definitely something to pay attention to is not so easy to spot, unless you have a side by side comparison like you did here.
It’s no wonder Dragon and Dynamo kits have a halftrack style design in them - the Dragon kit was a way to repurpose halftrack sprues, you even get a halftrack windshield on the clear parts sprue.
I have to compare the Dragon shield with the AFV Club shield, I think AFV Club shield would be different style and maybe could be substituted here.
Here are some photos of my Dynamo kit build. I added an extra ring to the base, made from leftover AFV Club parts:
Than you Pawel and a really impressive kit build you got there! I’m most likely gonna get one too as soon as I can figure out what to do shield wise.
Though I haven’t checked them all and its hard to tell in that small scale from pictures not taken from the side, but at a glance it seems that many (or most) 1/35 scale M55’s & M16’s are actually various composite solutions of the C-D/F shields that tricks the eye.
As you say in reality they are hard to distinguish by them selves unless seen from the horizontal front or side (or know what to look for), and even harder in 1/35 possibly for reason above. And it doesn’t help that the one Doyle have as reference pics in his books seems to be a cut off long nose D/F shield to look like a C for a M55 staging purpose. If this is something of a home made job or unknown version of the shield I don’t know (or some other motivation behind this), but at time being its the only one I have seen and it is NOT standard at least up to mid 1960’s. [As often with military material there is always something one have missed or some explanation out there so I’m open for suggestions, but keep an eye on it till then as it is a land mine concerning reference].
Here is another comparison shot to train the eyes a bit. Its obvious a difference when lining them up like this. Still can’t say if the snub-nosed C is a modified D/F or they were produced separately as two different versions with different angels on the shape. [Left one is Alamy, right one by someone called Steve Heeb.]
Check the various Star Decal sheets of M55 quad gun trucks as they offer a few; some have ground mounts as well. They come with templates for the different shields on them.
Wow nice! Hey, I saw this one before! I mean your truck. Awesome.
Damn I have to get those decals. Really good templates for the gun shields.
And at least if Star decals are correct in size one could use them as a sort of guide for a scalpel job snubbing the nose off the M45 gun shield. Notice how the stripes covers the vertical front, that’s what we want on the 45C.
Unfortunately, the Star Decal for the nose armor is not a one-piece decal. You have to paint the white arc and the red stripes are each an individual straight-line decal of varying lengths. I placed them all on then retraced the arc using blue paint above to get the angled tops of the red stripes. They are in the green box below.
My name is James Lyles, author of several books on Vietnam gun trucks. I built Eve Of Destruction back in 2001 and King Kong in 2003. I’ve been wanting to build a Quad 50 gun truck with the M45C turret shield and thought I’d give it a try. I converted an M45D shield from a Kirin resin kit and found that it also fits perfectly on the Halftrack frame. Here are a few pictures of the new M45C shield placed on the unfinished Halftrack quad assembly if I can figure out how to post pictures.
Hello James!
Cool to see you on the forums here - I’m a big fan of your books!
That shield is looking good - maybe you could post a picture of it side by side with the kit part, for comparison? It would also be cool to take some measurements. That Kirin set might be really hard to get for some, and on the other hand we now have 3D printing, that might be the way to go given the measurements mentioned above.
Thanks for sharing and have a nice day!
Paweł
Hi James. That quad shield is looking good. The Dynamo kit is really nice. Their 3D Vietnam parts are well done. As you can see above, I used it on my Easy Rider quad gun truck recently.
Thank you, glad to be here. That Kirin kit I have is a junk kit. Many of the parts were missing so I didn’t mind experimenting with it. The Tamiya M16 Halftrack shield is identical. I think Kirin must have used it to cast theirs. The flash isn’t working on my camera all of a sudden but here’s the M16 Halftrack’s M45 shield beside the M45C shield I made from the Kirin kit. The angles of the two shields are much different and of course the M45C shield is shorter.
Keep in mind the Halftrack and Kirin shields are a bit smaller than the Dynamo shield and the AFV Nancy shield. In fact the Halftrack shield will fit inside them. see pic
Yeah, that would be a good moment as I haven’t built it yet… I have even developed a 3D model of a trailer base that could be used tu upgrade/correct the Nancy:
I’ll get some of my notes together and post some discrepancies I’ve found about that Nancy kit and the way many, many people are building it incorrectly.
Too bad AFV didn’t come to me for advice.