Patton in the Morning Calm

[ANovaScotian]

Hey All

After a nice little car binge its time to return to military models. Today I present Tamiya's 1/35 M48A3 Patton finished as a South Korean M48A5K1. Enjoy...

I've become a real fan of these older Tamiya armour kits. They build rather well, have adequate detail and can usually be found relatively inexpensive. Like I said above, this is the M48A3 built as a South Korean (Republic of Korea) M48A5K1. The most noticeable differences are the 105mm main gun, side skirts, smoke launchers, shortened cupola and different style of IR searchlight. Most of the parts for the conversion came from Verlinden's M48/M60 Update/Conversion set while the rest was either scratchbuilt or modified from the kit parts.

The tank was first primed, then given a base coat of Vallejo Golden Brown. This was followed by Tamiya Field Grey, Deck Tan and NATO Black to complete the camouflage. This was given an overall wash of MIG Earth Wash with the engine grills receiving further treatment with Dark Wash. The side skirts recieved some generous splashes and streaks with Vallejo European Dust Wash and more MIG Earth Wash as well as some accidental pigments. Various pigments were worked into the tracks, wheels and lower hull followed by a light overall dusting of Tamiya Flat Earth to finish the "road worn" look these tanks have, as they are never truly clean yet not overly dirty. Lastly I added some guitar string antennas, some Verlinden Camouflage Net to the turret bin and filled all the viewports and periscopes with Weldbond.

All in all, I quite enjoyed this build. This one is definitely the best (real) tank I've done to date, If I do so say myself.

I played around with a different background and some different settings on my camera, let me know what you think.

Thanks for looking

Regards

ANS

[Foghorn Leghorn]

That's a sweet paint job

[phildagreek]

Nice job, I too am a fan of the "classic" Tamiya kits. They are good quality, relatively cheap & build up into nice kits.

[DaveyGair]

That's a bonny'un, especially like the how the tracks look.

Neat build

[Badder]

A neat and tidy job. Excellent work on the cammo pattern; not an easy one to pull off, in my opinion. Personally I like to see more dirt, but then I like to see dioramas too.

Thanks for sharing

Badder

[IanC]

That crisp paintjob looks great.

I've never seen a Patton with side skirts before. Makes it look quite different...

Superb work!

Ian

[ANovaScotian]

I've never seen a Patton with side skirts before. Makes it look quite different...

The side skirts and the camo are what really drew me to this tank. Definitely stands out in a crowd of M48s

[Reini78]

sweet camo work