Fairly moot unless you want to remove the whole deck.
M47 at Ft. Carson:
And from the interweb:
only reason I ask is that itâs kind the norm to pull the entire power pack as one unit.
gary
Iâve been told several times that you only change the engine or gear box as a single piece in a dire emergency due to an alignment issue between the gear box and engine. Canât prove it by withy the exception of the gas turbine. With the Abrams they will take .0005" TIR, but really want to see .00025â TIR. I do know that itâs all to do with the splined plug connecting the two units.
gary
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I finally found the I love Kit M1001/M790 Pershing plans online:
https://www.scalemates.com/products/img/3/1/6/1428316-72-instructions.pdf
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Oh. My. God.
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The trailer tires appear to have a different tread than in the photo below, but whoâs nickpicky when it comes to this Cold War relic? (G.O. - you can hang up your Cold War certificate back on your girlfriendâs basement wall while you build this, andâŚwhatever else you do) 
Decals for this one:
I donât know if the many protests in Germany actually resulted in protestors confronting these as they rolled down the highway. My thought, given the world famous efficiency of the Polizei is, probably not. But it would make a great dio nonetheless.
Yes, someone please see my idea to fruition.
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You see Brian, there is a god! 
Kit has now announced the M53 155mm Howitzer to go with it.
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Excellent news, but with all these great releases lately, I will need a bigger pension!
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Sweet! The M53 and M55! Now for the M48A0 and the M57 & M75 APCs. Gonna need to stock up on OD paint⌠
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I did see an M53 broke down on Highway One once. We stopped to offer help, but they must have been waiting for a tow. Looking at the picture, I see that the green they used was a little more greener, and the barrel was different. The barrel I saw was more slender and did not have the bell mouth at the end. Might also have been slightly longer. Seems to me that they told us that it was the last one out of whatever theyâd brought over. Was probably head north to Five-Four right across the road from Fat City.
gary
H.P.
Youâre describing the M53. The shorter barreled version is the M55.
Barrel length is one difference,
the other difference is the minor
difference in calibre, the M55 is
an 8 inch howitzer and the M53
is a 155 mm gun
I though Iâd save time by not typing the obvious. I actually sent quite the walk around of the M55 to both Legend and AFV Club many years ago, to no avail. So yes, Iâm aware of the bore differences. The mere difference in barrel lengths would not have resulted in a different nomenclature. One need only look to the M109 series, where all barrel diameters of 155mm kept it in the M109 family, even with differemt lengths. But the different bore of 105mm eafned it a different nomenclature. Same as with the M110/107.
It may be prudent to note that the term caliber often refers to the bore to barrel length ratio.
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you are once again correct, as it was an M53 for sure. Another interesting thing is that the M55 pictured has no muzzle brake while the old Renwal kit did. I saw one at Ft. Sill about twenty years ago when my youngest son conned the old man into showing him Ft. Sill. Seems like it had the brake, but could be wrong.
The old Renwal kit was the first kit I ever did with anykind of an interior. Took me forever to get it built! Iâll probably have to buy both kits
gary
Yes.
âThe length of artillery barrels (muzzle to breech) has often been described in terms of multiples of the bore diameterâ
Language users tend to be lazy so messages are often conveyed with as few words/letters as possible.
Instead of writing/saying that the barrel has a length of 50 calibers (50 x the bore diameter) it usually gets abbreviated to âL/50â which is a useless statement unless the caliber is given (4" L/50).
This propensity for abbreviating communication only works when sender and receiver have a common understanding of the context.
Not typing the obvious.
I presume that the message was obvious to Gary (given his background)
I know it was obvious to you. It was obvious to me as well.
I added the extra information in case there is someone reading this forum who doesnât know the difference between the M55 and the M53.
Comparative example: the M109 also comes in shorter and longer barreled versions but they all have the same bore diameter. The chassis is/was also used for the M108.
The M108 has a 30 cal barrel and the M109 can have 23 cal or 39 cal barrels. Writing shorter or longer in this context requires that the reader knows the difference between the M108 and M109. In this case the 30 cal barrel is shorter than the 23 cal barrel. The 39 cal barrel is actually 27.5 calibres or 18.7 calibres longer than the 30 cal barrel. Both differences are valid depending on which caliber I use as comparison and make very little sense to anyone without knowledge about these SPHâs.
The early T97 pilot model had a muzzle brake and a âstate-of-the-artâ fire control system.
Both of these were deleted on the M53 production models (both the M53 and M55 were
upgraded when improvements were made to the M48 chassis)