"US Armored Car for All Quiet on the Martian Front" Topic

As an avid player of All Quiet on the Martian Front (and as the author of a series of novels based on the game) I wanted to add a group of armored cars to my American Army. Unfortunately, I wasn't happy with the armored cars that the original owner of the game had created. These were basically just automobiles with some armor plate slapped on and a guy standing in the rear firing a machine gun. I mean they were okay, but I wanted something cooler.

Then, while surfing around for inspiration, I stumbled upon this incredible beauty: the Reeves "Octoauto"!

This was a real car! And from exactly the time period the game is set in. Wow! I wanted this as the basis for my armored car force!

But how to do it? I thought about making a master of it from scratch, or perhaps trying my luck with this new 3D printing stuff and then making molds to cast more. I mean I do have experience with 3D computer modeling and I've done a lot of casting. But it still seemed like more work than I wanted to go to for the limited number I'd need (10). So after thinking about it, I decided to modify an existing plastic model of an actual 8-wheeled armored car. This guy here:

A German armored car from World War II, the SDKFZ 231. The Plastic Soldier Company makes a very nice model of this in 15mm scale and I used that as my starting point. The first thing I needed to change was the spacing of the wheels. The Reeves OctoAuto has its wheels in pairs pushed forward and back with a gap in the middle, while the SDKFZ 231 has the wheels evenly spaced. Fortunately, the model has the axle assemblies as separate pieces and it was easy to clip out some of the supports and re-glue the axles closer together. I briefly considered modifying the wheel fenders to make them shorter, but I decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

The next thing I wanted to change was the turret. The German armored car's turret was pretty distinctive and I wanted something more steampunky :) So I scratch built a whole new turret using plastic tubing and sheet styrene. I carved the turret hatch out of the German vehicle and glued that on top of the new turret. I also decided to turn the whole car around so the back of the German armored car became the front of mine. (Interestingly, the actual German SDKFZ 231 was designed to be operable equally well in forward or reverse.) And I added a machine gun mount to the hull next to the driver.

Finally, I added some rivets to the body and the turret using white glue mixed with talcum powder. Then it was just a matter of painting. I like the results.

Now I just need to make nine more!

A commendable start. For me however the wheels and body arrangement is too recognizable. I prefer the parts of my vehicles to not be identifiable. Much easier said than done.

Handsome beast!

I'd have suggest SOMETHING to make that hull a bit boxier, but I'm probably not as picky, or knowledgeable, as Allen57, as the wheels are less an issue for me. ;->=

Commendable, indeed!

Doug

I think that the wheel arches do need amendment. More in keeping with the wheel layout, making them more boxy, steampunkish might change the overall look of the vehicle.

Ooh, fun project!

The tires don't distract for me, makes sense to upgrade for military field use.

The fenders do jump out to my eye. Removing the fender sidewalls and shortening the outer ends front and back would capture more of the lines of the astounding Octoauto. (Great find!)

One other thing that would help IMHO would be to replace the wheels with spoked ones. Could be tricky at 15mm, though.

Having said that, real life early ACs had both spoked and armoured hubcaps used.

Scott? Scott? You aren't pouting, are you?

I really dooooo love it. Almost too nice beside the tanks.

Oh, wait… *blush*

Turret and wheel adjustments are really ace! Nice when, 'if only the axles were moveable…', 'Oh, wait, they are!' moments happen, no?

Doug

No, I'm not pouting. I'm working on the rest of them and I'm taking all the suggestions very seriously. I managed to move the wheels a bit more and I'm experimenting with changing the wheel fenders and also making the hull, if not boxier, maybe look a little bit different. Of course I'm not going to completely rebuild the things since that would sort of defeat the purpose of using an existing model kit :)

As a point… with this particular kit, what do the wheels look like flipped around so that the inside is outside? That might be a quick and easy way to make them look significantly different. You can always drill out the axle and use some rod to make new axles if glue won't hold them strongly enough.

If you do this, you'd need to flip the spare on the back, too.

Another quick and dirty fix would be to just trim off the outsides of the fenders so they are more exposed.

The hull looks okay for my money. Plenty of real ACs had that long nose look. Including the American Mack (1916):

And… looking around pictures, I wonder if you'd considered using a Soviet BA-10 as a base vehicle instead? They are 6 axle vehicles, but carry two spares just back from the front axle, so a kit should have enough wheels. Boxier than the German one and Zvezda do them in 15mm plastic:

theplasticsoldiercompany.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=483

Edit: Found a picture of that kit's sprues. (corrected. Originally I thought I'd found one but it was for a larger scale kit…)

I actually looked at the BA-10 first, but I really wanted the 8-wheel look of the OctoAuto. And I now have 10 of the SDKFZ 231s, so I'm sort of committed :) But the first attempt to rework the wheel fenders is going well. they cover up a lot more of the wheels so the appearance of the wheels themselves isn't much of an issue anymore. I will post some picks when I have some finished.

Fair enough :)

Still, anyone wanting to do ahistorical early 20th C vehicles is well advised to check out WW2 Soviet kits. Zis-5 is another good one to use as a base for stuff.

The hull looks okay for my money. Plenty of real ACs had that long nose look. Including the American Mack (1916)…

While I had seen similar, consider me properly schooled. ;->=

Doug

Your creation is so much better than the tanks. They should have had you do the masters!

Lovely stuff indeed!