"Lamenting the loss of the old Polythene Airfix M113" Topic

I miss the Airfix Polythene plastic models. They were virtually indestructible. As a Kid the problem was getting paint to stick, many (many) years on the paint will stick and the indestructible bit counts for lots. All my 1/72 M113's have stupidly fragile Mar Browning so all are gone. No such problem with polythene M113's.

not enough interest in 1/72 to 3D print new ones as it's now a very secondary scale for me. Most of my games are 1/144.

I always found it odd that the M113 had an enormous M79 grenade launcher for armament instead of a .50.
Even odder was that they didn't make figures to go with it, until the bitter end

The "M113" was actually based on an FV432

The M113 preceded the FV432 by at least 2 years.

Yes, the Polythene one is more 432 than 113. Round rear hull hatch, commanders cupola on the right hand side,

Tally Ho!

it's the Panther, Tiger and the not available for very long Sherman and T-34 that I miss. Ok models, impossible to damage and cheap as chips.

if only they'd taken paint better!

Well all may not be lost. I found a Kids 1/72 M113 for £5.99 GBP inc. postage, not perfect buy a lot less than others at £12.00 GBP+ that are hopeless far too much fragile detail for a war game model.

The Elefant was the real prize, I managed to get a couple. The 25pdr and Quad was a really nice model as well, my 8th Army collection had a few.

They had the added bonus that you could throw them at enemies (or useless allies) in a fit of rage and not damage them (apart from flaking the paint) :)

I got the couple of Elefants I wanted – but I really wanted a few troops of the Shermans. But the model shop was always out of stock and the last ones of the range released were only available for a few months (as I recall it, anyway).

'Twas darn annoying that the WWII Assault sets all came with Centurions, "M113", an SPG and a Patton. I think the Pontoon bridge set had the decency to include a DUKW.

Someone is selling MIB vehicles for £50.00 GBP each on Ebay. Probably a bit steep, but there were some unboxed APCs for ~£8 + £8.00 GBP/postage

Ebay Toy arrived "A toZ Build and Play" M113 AZ pretty good model for the price. More than adequate for `1/72' wargameing, and cheap.

WAY, way back, Airfix polythene Israeli Centurions floor battled with 'Arab' proxy T55s (M60s)… all in Airfix 'Sand' just 'Arabs' had GLOSS brown 'camo'! lol. 'Paint' was a 'new thing' for 'that' me and only a few Glass Bottles!
Airfix poly Panthers and a Tiger got a lot of Table use.. but, sadly the , Sherman Firefly, Elephant, T34 and German H/T with gun came out too late.
The' M113' WAS based on FV432… just did not seem 'quite right', somehow.
The US truck was great… no other contenders at time.