IDF M247 DIVADS (what-if)

[Jakko]

As soon as it had come out, I bought the Takom M247 Sgt. York DIVADS, but because the options for a real one are rather limited, I went searching for a believable what-if version. After considering Norwegian, South Korean and Taiwanese, I decided on an Israeli one, largely because that meant I could make some interesting changes from the basic vehicle.

I just finished it, so here it is:

I’ll add some photos of the model under construction in the next messages, because I can only add five pictures to a post.

[Jakko]

The tracks and drive sprockets come from the Meng Magach 6B kit. That required some surgery to the final drive housings, to make the Meng parts fit the Takom hull:

I drilled the two holes on the centreline, but this photo shows I got the forward (small) hole wrong, so I enlarged it after taking the picture, to make the part fit on the hull’s locating lugs.

I couldn’t use the Takom parts here because the Magach sprockets are narrower, meaning the “cone” they sit on is wider on the Meng parts than the Takom ones.

The air cleaners are from an ancient Tamiya M60 kit, with a new front made from plastic card and 2 mm rod, as well as new hinges:

I later removed the clasps on the sides, as Israeli M60s appear to mostly have used the later model that didn’t have those.

By accident, I glued the infantry telephone back to front on its shelf, and removing it again destroyed the shelf, so I had to scratchbuild it:

Takom has totally omitted both the channel for the cable to it, and also the edge of the lid that overlaps the phone box and the angled support underneath (not visible here), so I added all those as well based on photos I took at Bovington over twenty years ago.

As the IDF upgunned (?) its M163 VADS with a four-shot Stinger missile pod, I decided to add one of those to the M247 as well:

The parts for it come from the Italeri LAV-AD kit, with some detail added (basically opened up the slots along the long edges) and on a mounting on the turret side made from scrap bits and plastic card.

On the rear of the turret, I closed the gunner’s door with plastic card and added a roof hatch left over from a Hobby Boss XM706 armoured car:

This because I wanted to add a stowage rack, which would be just about impossible with a door there. The rack itself is 0.4 mm brass rod, superglued into holes drilled in the model. I debated soldering it, but didn’t think my skills were up to it.

[Jakko]

Front of the turret:

All of the green plastic is from AFV Club sprues that come in their IDF M113 kit, which I bought some years ago to build as a US Army one so I had those bits left. Because of the missile launcher, I filled the locations for the stowage rack on the right side of the turret.

Here’s a close-up of the commander’s MAG:

The mounting is a bit odd, I admit: the M247 has a swivelling bar for the machine gun, but I still put the Israeli swivel mount on top of that. This is mainly because the American mounting comes across as rather inflexible to me, but putting the IDF one in its place meant it had hardly any movement because of the commander’s viewer right in front of the hatch. Solution: put one swivel mount on top of the other for extra flexibility

There’s also a shovel on the air cleaner, like on Magachs:

This comes from the Tamiya British Second World War infantry set, with plastic card and strip mountings. You can also see here that I removed the clasps from the air cleaners.

On the right rear, I fitted the folding stretcher, again from the AFV Club sprue. Also two of the spare track links from the Meng Magach kit:

I wanted to put the stretcher on the left front mudguard, per the Magach 6, but there’s no room there because of all the stays. Sticking it on top of those stays would have put it squarely in the driver’s field of view, so I decided on that vertical rear side as being the most likely place to put it instead.

View of the model as it was before painting:

The drive sprocket is still loose, as is the missile launcher. The tow cables are from Eureka, and I had a devil of a time working out how to put them together because the set seemed to have too many parts and no instructions at all. From their web site I eventually figured out that the set, despite saying it’s for the Magach 6, actually has everything in it to make both Magach and Merkava tow cables, and it also showed how to build the complex Magach ones. Kind of.

[HeavyArty]

Looks nice. Definitely a possible use of it if it had been fielded.

[Jakko]

The tracks were fun. Not.

Here’s a stretch of them:

They’re workable, and assemble by means of a jig and pins that you push into one side only — on the other side, they click together as you put them into the jig. All fine and dandy, but those pins want to come out when you flex the track

This caused me a lot of head-scratching, because you can’t just put a drop of glue onto the pin: it will run down and glue the pin to both links, if not the two links together.

The eventual solution was gel-type superglue. After pushing in a set of pins and cutting off the sprue, I used a tool to push them fully home, then added a drop of the superglue on top of the pin, and again pushed them in. This secures them well enough that I only had two semi-breaks in the tracks when handling them for painting.

Meng says to use 101 links per side, so that’s how many I built, but after painting, I found I had to remove two to get the track to sit right.

[Dan]

Great job, glad to see your work here.

[GulfWarrior]

Looks good! I’m thinking I might have to pick up one of these kits for my stash!

[Jakko]

Thanks I built the Tamiya M247 about 25 years ago, and had the Academy clone in the stash with the idea to correct its engine deck etc., but sold it when Takom announced this. I didn’t regret that choice — this kit is so far ahead of the alternatives that it’s no contest. However, the kit tracks are not something I’d recommend — though I guess some people might like them. I originally planned to replace them by AFV Club T142s, but that was before I hit on the IDF version with the Merkava tracks.

[Johnnych01]

Great build. Looks really good

[Robert_Goldman]

Interesting concept. The air-conditioner killer would go absolutely insane here so yeah perfect for our guys to update the whole system to make it usable …
I really like what you did with it. And it totally fits the “What if” .

[Jakko]

Thanks I try to do what-if models to be realistic and plausible, so I pretty much looked at the kinds of upgrades/changes made to Israeli M60s and M163s to decide what to do here, without going totally overboard. I hope I succeeded

[gtdeath13]

A very inspiring build!!!

Those Meng tracks gave me some trouble when assembling my Magach 6B. Not a fan of those.

[Jakko]

Same. They’re quite some way from being the best workable tracks I’ve ever built, but I console myself with the idea that at least they’re not AFV Club Sherman HVSS or Bronco VVSS tracks The drop of superglue made the whole thing doable, but I would have much preferred better design with slightly longer pins, and a pin on both sides. Trumpeter Sherman T66 tracks, for example, are very similar in size to these but assemble very easily with a pin on both sides and no glue, so it can be done.

[metalhead85]

Excellent job Jakko. Great build and the finish is as well.

[Robert_Goldman]

Ya did good…

[SSGToms]

Your “imagineering” is outstanding, everything fits and is totally plausible. Nice tight build, excellent detailing, fantastic scratchbuilding, and phenomenal paintwork! All combine for an awesome model!

[Jakko]

Thanks, guys

@SSGToms

phenomenal paintwork!

Really? Thanks, but it’s just a base coat with sprayed highlights in the centres of the panels, a darker overall wash and a lighter drybrush. I even decided to not weather the model because I just wanted it to be done …

[SSGToms]

Well it’s just right. It looks great.