This is a very interesting pic since the jeeps are M151A1s. I have never seen a TOW on an A1, just A2s. I guess this was early testing or something.
Here are pics from the first combat tests of M151A2 TOWs in Vietnam, spring 1972.
This is a very interesting pic since the jeeps are M151A1s. I have never seen a TOW on an A1, just A2s. I guess this was early testing or something.
Here are pics from the first combat tests of M151A2 TOWs in Vietnam, spring 1972.
Well? Broke down and built the TOW launcher off the Dragon kit I mentioned earlier.
As with these Dragon figure kits. There was a bit of flash that I had to contend with. But it came together nicely.
Looks good. There is a cable that runs off the right side projection off the top of the box on the night sight. I don’t recall exactly where it plugs in on the traversing unit, but I think it was somewhere on the rear left side.
Also, when you get around to painting it, the lens of the night sight is silver in color, almost like a mirror or highly polished chrome. It is not tinted at all.
I’ll have to go over some of my books for the wiring. The main power cord goes from the traverse unit through the bottom of the tripod into the power unit. As for the lenses. I have some chrome paint pens I can use.
I think I found the right pic of that wire location.
The “power unit” is more than that, is the brains of the system. It is the Missile Guidance System or MGS. The day sight has two lenses, one that has the crosshairs and is what the gunner sees, and the other is for the MGS to track the missile in flight and then relay commands via the control wires to keep the missile heading for where the crosshairs are centered. It also has a battery to power the system. The battery packs are removable, rechargeable, and similar in size to a 7.62mm ammo can.
On the TOW 1 system, the AN/TAS-4 thermal sight had its own coolant cartridges and batteries that needed to be replaced every few hours when the sight was powered up to use. On the TOW-2, the AN/TAS-4A sight had the cooling system built in, and that power cable on the top routed power from the MGS to the sight. A new digital MGS was also introduced for the TOW-2. It was the same size box to fit mountings on vehicles and used the same battery pack as the TOW 1… IIRC… it’s been a LOT of years…
The chrome pen is a perfect choice to paint the thermal sight lens. If you are doing a day sight with the anti laser coating, just the larger lens, the gunner’s, has that coating. The smaller lens is the MGS eye, and does not have the coating.
I’ll have to check out my ground mount TOW figures from that set… I stored them all for moving years ago… by U-swivel, do you mean the traversing unit that is where the launch tube and sight mount upon?
Yes, the traversing unit. I built mine decades ago when the kit first came out and I believe I threw away everything except the TOW launcher.
Your M47 Dragon gunner came out very well…I don’t know why mine was so off balance. Then again, I didn’t have a lot of modeling experience waaaaaaaaaaay back then.
Too many pictures of TOW systems in nice weather. Here is a picture of one of my weapons deployed during a NATO exercise in Northern Norway. Good times.
And I would paint the lens on the thermal sight gloss black.
I found a good clear photo
The cable projects from just behind the left control knob and the connector end stows in a rubber cup on the rear of the traversing unit.
The funny thing about this photo is that the T-unit is for a TOW-2, with the night sight cable, but the night sight is a TOW 1 AN/TAS-4. The removable battery is to the right of the eyepiece, and coolant cartridge bottle on the lower left side of the sight.