M3 Scout Car - which one to get?

Others: (Note placement varied a lot over time:
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Thanks guys, exellent info all around. It will be a Haganah/IDF build from the late '40s, so I’m not concerned with the figures included in the Tamiya kit, although I might actually buy it at some point because those are simply superb. The inclusion of an Asian Red Army soldier is a nice touch, not many manfucturers have that kind of attention to small details like this.

The lack of radios isn’t a big problem neither, as I suspect that some of the early Haganah/IDF Scout Cars didn’t have them anyway.

Generally, I prefer building OOB multimedia kits. I like Tamiya, but don’t think their offerings are the pinnacle in each and every case. Sometimes there are better (and cheaper) options available.

As for improving the HB kit, I might tackle detailing the engine, but that’s about it. Conversions such as these are certainly beyond my scratch-building abilities:

White-armoured-car-2

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I must admit - and this adds nothing to the debate - that I always fancied modelling Major General Pip Roberts’ mount in Normandy:

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Awesome topic! I like such freaks! :heart_eyes:Do you have any plans or will you make +/- photos? :thinking:

Not really, apart from what is available online:

http://www.modelersite.com/Ago2007/English/M3-Scout-Car_Eng.htm

http://www.geocities.ws/joritwintjes/Neue_Dateien/Depot.html

https://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/tanks/tanks-u-z/70184/view/white_m3a1_scout_car_idf/

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Great officer.

He was indeed; I was very lucky to meet him in HQ 3 Armd Div in 92/93 - I forget which. Our General was organising a battlefield tour in Normandy - not least as our antecedent Division was one of the assault divisions. Other luminaries also turned up, Hans von Luck, and the soldier and prolific author Kenneth Macksey. I was privileged to be introduced to all three. I recall General Roberts was quite small - age had obviously shrunken his diminutive stature even further - but a perfect gentleman, with no-nonsense eyes.

In the end I didn’t attend the tour which was a great shame, though cannot really remember why; quite probably due to pressing BAOR-Garrison type matters which I, in the HQ’s G1/G4 branch was inescapably committed to. A shame – as there’s nothing quite like getting it all from the horse’s mouth, from those who were there and also did it.

It’s funny in a away: I consider myself quite privileged to have enjoyed (endured?) my military career when so much WW2 stuff was still resonating. From an uncle captured in Normandy (9th SS Pz Div), another uncle wounded at Dunkirk - British this time - (Grenadier Guards) to the officers I worked with in a NATO HQ – a former Rommel ADC, a Hitler Youth Tank Hunter in Berlin ’45 (bicycle and Panzerfaust since you ask) and a Major General who’d won the Knight’s Cross on the Eastern Front, to the luminaries described above.

I also worked with a former SAS officer who’d parachuted into France with his armed Jeep and compatriots, and described to me how much he’d enjoyed shooting up trains!

I’ve been very fortunate in the historical scheme of things.

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And for a number of reasons. The last two drawings are from a Signal Corps manual, TM 11-2717 from December, 1944 covering the installation of the SCR-193, 506, 508, 510, 528, 593, 608, 610, and 628 in various combinations. Before that, the installations no doubt varied, if for no other reason than some of those radios weren’t invented when the M3A1 entered service. Depending on the exact fit the placement and vehicle modifications varied considerably. For example:
Capture

The modifications are a bit bewildering at first glance and will require careful study to get right. It’s probably best to get a photo of what you want and pick through the illustrations to find a good match and use the manual instructions to fill in the missing info.

KL