Saturday, October 17, 2009

Verlinden Modeling Magazine Vol.1 No.4


The value of a bulldozer for removing obstacles or debris became clear in WWII. The advantage of having such a device mounted on a combat tank, which in the mean time regained its fire power, was even greater. In WWII, dozer blades were mounted on the M4 Sherman which on many occasions came to the aid of stranded convoys while under fire, capable of anticipating any hostile threat. After WWII, dozer blade kits were mounted to the M46 and M47 tanks to further improve the system, but test results were considered to be unsatisfactory. However, when the M48 tank became available, a standardized M8 bulldozer blade assembly was fitted and more test runs were accomplished. This was in the late 1960's. Fitting of the bulldozer blade to the M48 called for a complex installation of the hydraulic feed lines to operate the blade assembly. With the arrival of the new M60 tank series, a study was made to simplify the hydraulic feed system. A modified version of the M8 blade, designated M9, only needed one hydraulic reservoir mounted on the left rear fender and dual feed lines running underneath the hull to the front of the vehicle. The M9 type bulldozer blade became the standard configuration and was also used on the M728 CEV (although with a different installation kit), an M60 derivative with a 165mm demolition gun in lieu of the 105mm gun and an operating boom/winch assembly fitted to the front side slopes of the turret.

Verlinden Modeling Magazine Vol.1 No.3


The BTR-60PB is an Armored Infantry Vehicle developed sometime in 1965 and it is still used today by the Soviets and their allies. Although the BTR-60PB was not designed an Infantry Fighting Vehicle in the true sense of the word, adding it's 14.5mm KPVT machinegun and six gun ports was a step in the good direction. This eight-wheeled vehicle is powered by two GAZ49 gasoline engines (diesel fuel is scarce in the USSR), which are also being used to power the BRDM-2. The vehicle has room for 3 crewmembers and an additional 8-man squad. THE MODEL. Regular VP customers will be familiar with the set-up of this Trophy kit. They look so much like the VP releases because the same casting method is used to produce these accurate replicas of a machine-tooled master model. To simplify casting and to eliminate shrinking of matching parts as much as possible, the hull is casted in one piece. A massive piece of resin measuring 200x80x45 mm (8x3x2in). Additional parts such as turret, hatches, wheels and headlights have to be cleaned from flash (which is virtually non-existent) and separated from the casting earner which can easily be done with a pair of flush-cut nippers.