"Canuck 4CMBG M113's..." Topic

Howdy folks,

I recently completed another group of M113's to go along with my Team Yankee inspired 4CMBG Canadians…this post brings in M113s for my Foo and a second infantry platoon.

The vehicles are all about 99% complete…once the infantry are available I will paint some up to add to the vehicles for some dynamic modeling.

Take care…views and comments are always appreciated.

Are the 50 cals supposed to be green? Other than that they look awesome!

Sorry. Maybe that's the 1% left to do.

look great. Can't wait to see the Infantry.

I agree with Kevin

Nice paint job.

Very nice ! My Bde "battled" against the 4CMBG at REFROGER '88, IIRC …

Good job on the camouflage pretty accurate. A couple of things from a guy (me) who lived out of the back of one of those from '85 to '88.

We didn't have cargo hatch gun-shields. Looks like one of your tracks has one. Also looks like a Dragon on top of the same one? Never had those, and if we did there was a place in the back where we strapped the Carl Gustav 84mm that would have been for the Dragon. Never kept outside.
Something you can't fix, but maybe be aware of: we never wore AFV helmets. The driver and crew commander were always in soft hat or beret. Guys in back wore steel pots.

Last thing: way too clean :-) The mud around the tracks is good, but those things were dirt magnets. Just the rail move alone would cover them in enough dirt to almost make the camo invisible. Oh, and the cam nets we tended to keep tightly rolled unless in use while static. That might have been a battalion quirk though.

Yes, no M113 I was in/around in 3 US Mech Bns '79-'90 had any gun troop hatch shield(s).

And just for historical M113 data, only in the Mech Bns in the ROK, when I was there, 22 months,'85-'85 had the ACAV Turret, plus not even a gun shield on the .50.

And IIRC, the 4CMBG M113s we encountered during REFORGER '88 had the old US 1919 .30 cals(?) Plus I thought I saw a Black Maple Leaf on the turret sides of those Leos …

Would like to give a shout out to another Mech Guy JayM481 ! From a Yank to a Canadian M113 rider. I commanded a Mech Co., 18 months, '87-'89.

This might be of interest to people doing the 4CMBG .

link

Thanks for the views and comments folks…I appreciate the feedback. Funny enough, I've gone back to my notes and research pics and yup…

@Festerfest: I was so intent on the painting process I 'greened' the HMGs…will fix in the last 1-2%

@JayM481: Thanks for the feedback, I've definitely been using it already…apparently I was a little busy the other night when I posted this…I totally forgot to put a link to my blogpost, which totally explains the gunshields, lol.

@Legion4: thanks as well, the gunshields were "creative effect"…and yeah, just realized I didn't include a link…will fix, but yes, the Leo's have maple leafs on their turrets.

The blogpost link:
link

Take care.
Stan

I see the maple leaves now that you said that ! Again nice work ! Brings back some memories !

Hey Stan,
I didn't realize it was you. I'm afraid I haven't been following your blog for a bit so I missed that explanation. I'm not sure we would have done that (scrounged the gun shields) since we were never intending to fight from the things against the Red Hordes. Bosnia was a different kettle of fish though.But you never know, and personally, I'm thankful we never had to find out. The wire around the spare road wheel is a nice touch (it was a pain in the butt when we had to lower the trim vane to access the engine from the front). Black plastic water cans we used to keep inside mostly, but occasionally we'd tie them to the top. The two cans in back were always metal fuel cans, which tended to leak some making a black muddy mess on the cans and the fender under them.
I see you have a photo of RCRs with the cam nets covering the front. As I mentioned our (PPCLI) tendency was the roll them up, but they were never very tidy after a couple of moves. The RCRs probably had to have them dressed off by the Sgt Maj before every crash harbour.
One final thing – we covered the number plates with hessian when tactical unless we were moving outside of a training area. Probably would have removed them for combat. The CFR number was also painted on each side of the hull, at the top front, in flat black.
@ Legion 4 – I was a rifleman, track driver and mortarman in my time in Germany. Couldn't hold down a job apparently. REFORGER '88 would have been the RCR again, as my battalion had rotated back to Canada in July of that year. Not sure if they'd mounted the M1919s (ours were called C5 and chambered for 7.62 NATO) instead of the .50s. We certainly used the .50s.

Good to hear from another Brother in Arms Mech trooper !
Yes, that is probably what I saw, were your C5s in 7.62 NATO. Thanks for that intel !

That may well have been the last exercise they were used, as the C5 was replaced by the C6 (FN-MAG) around the same time ('88, I think).

That sound feasible too … And the new FN-MAG was superior in a number of ways, from what I could tell …

It certainly was. With the sustained fire kit we could even do indirect fire just like back in the days of the Vickers.

@Stan, you're using Team Yankee, how do you feel about how Battlefront did the order of battle? I suppose I can live with the idea of M125s for the mortar platoon (as highly unlikely as that would be in the circumstances of the late 1980s), and their justification ("they would have bought them") though feeble, is sort of believable. How do they justify the reversion of M109A2s that had been in service with 1RCHA since 1979 back to older models?

I can live with the idea of M125s for the mortar platoon (as highly unlikely as that would be in the circumstances of the late 1980s), and their justification ("they would have bought them") though feeble, is sort of believable.

Same as ,"In peace time, the Dutch 120mm mortars are towed by YPR-765 PRMR mortar tractors. As the chance of war became likely, the Dutch government purchased more M106 mortar carriers from the FMC corporation and converted them to carry their MO-120-RT 120mm mortars."

Its just BF's way of keeping "gun" teams out of TY !

It certainly was.

Yes, IIRC the FN-MAG in 7.62 NATO was the US M240. And replaced the US M60 MG almost completely. But that happened in the US ARMY/USMC a few years after I ETS'd, AFAIK. I know as a Mech Co. Cdr,'87-'89, all my M60s were rebuilds and prone to jamming often.

We got rid of all our M125s @ '84-'85. They were removed from Mech Inf Co. TO&E with the J-Series MTOEs reorganization. The M125s' 81mm capabilities had some short comings. However, more importantly getting Indirect Fire Support was much easier and quicker to get than previously.

But a 4.2in Mortar Platoon was kept in the TO&E as a Bn asset. With HHC, along with the Bn Scout Platoon. The CSC was gone.

And an AT Company added with 3-4 Platoons on M901 TOWs. Along with each Mech Co. had 2 M901s in an organic AT Section. If the US was to engage USSR/WP forces. We knew we'd need all the AT capabilities we could get. As they flooded across the IGB, etc., …

Those bad boys can be murder, even on a T-64.

I was there from 84-88 and my CS for a good while was 12C. Also if you wanted to do a little mod to the M113s, at that time we had external fuel tanks at the rear on both sides of the ramp… and the 50s should be black.

But hey, the do look great, nice job

Cheers

Howdy folks,

This has been a very fun thread to watch develop…I have painted the .50's black <hooray> I'm glad to correct that brainfart.

@Jay – as for oob…I can see some expediency in their choices. They were definitely made to max current stocks, etc with minimal change to give some national feels…as a former mud-gunner, I am dismayed by the choice of reverting to the original barrels.

With the M109A1's, the ADATS, the FN's, and the 113's it makes picking a 4 brigade snapshot in time rather difficult…

@Tyn Man…I mused for months on converting all of my 113's to A2's before I hit them with paint, but given the choice to go with the old small arms, I put my timeline in the sand around 1985-ish…and from the pics I had seen, the 113's didn't have the externals. From what I have been able to see, these didn't come online until 87-ish…did they happen to coincide with the fielding of the c7/8/9 series of small arms?

@Jay…again, any recollections from the mortar dudes?

All in all, thanks for the looks and comments folks. I will post some more updates soon-ish.

Cheers.

Well I'm glad to hear the .50s are now painted as they should be …

If I remember right, we had the A2 version when we got there in 84, but this was only in Germany. The tracks we had in Winnipeg never got this update as far as I know, but hey, I took my release in 88 and got out before the unit rotated back to Canada.