Adding some stowage to my M113 in ODS period build, do these stowage items look period correct?
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Looks good. Just a technical note, but each occupant will have along one or two duffle bags and a ruck, so don’t be shy on those items.
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Camo net in its folded container, camo poles in bags, some ALICEs, a duffel - what’s not too like. The mech guys can give you a better idea than I can about how the bottoms of the duffels were painted. There’s also a thread on it somewhere. You might add some ground mats, either strapped to the tops of the ALICE packs, or separately.
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Are these vehicles always fully occupied? Would they be driven anywhere while deployed without being fully loaded?
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By Desert Storm they were no longer the squad vehicles (old squad TO&E of 11 grunts, plus TC & track driver for 13 carried total) for active army Mech Infantry, so fully occupied is variable. Depending upon what type of unit it is part of, and that vehicles role, the crew and number of occupants variable. An engineer squad track, a company commander’s track, or a platoon leaders track will have different numbers of crew and riders, anywhere from 3 to 7 occupants including driver and TC. When I was a platoon leaders driver, there were usually three of us on the track, the Lt, the Platoon Sergeant, and myself. The CO’s track would usually carry the CO, his driver, a commo sergeant, and an extra radio operator or two. Medics, MANPADS gunners (Stinger or Redeye) or artillery FO’s may get added aboard at some point.
If you’re depicting how it would look after the ground war kicked off, no. They would be fully loaded with everything needed for their role in the ground war. For any pre kickoff rehearsal training missions done out of and returning to an assembly area, potentially yes, they might not carry everything with them.
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Thanks so much for your valuable insight!
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As mentioned above, usually the bottom of the duffel bags are painted to easily ID your bag from a pile and to tell which is yours on the track since they are all the same.
In my experience, usually they were painted sand on the bottom with
the first initial of your last name and last 4 of your social security # on the top line, a capital A or B to denote which bag (you usually have two duffel bags, A & B) on the next line, and the unit on the bottom line.
Mine looked something like this:
Other variations:
Often, in FA Bns, we would also paint the bottoms red as opposed to sand so we could see them easily in a pile. I have also seen them with colored tape around the bag (different color for specific units) for easy ID.
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I’m no SME, but the “period” was what, 30+ years?
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