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U.S.M.C. LCAC 1/72


Chris,760

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I have never built anything other than military vehicles, all types.

I'm now going maritime ISH.

Considering its 1/72 it's quite big.

My problem is how do you weather something like this? I think the main area of concern is the outer body of the hovercraft. Any advice welcome please

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Hi,

I believe that the craft are actually USN craft not USMC (although they are used primarily for transporting USMC equipment).  Specifically I believe that they are operated by the USN's Assault Craft Units 4 & 5 (ACU 4 & 5).

 

A good starting point for trying to weather a build would be too look at images on the internet.  Overall I believe that they are primarily Aluminum Alloy, with a rubberized type material used for the skirt.  In general I believe much of the Aluminum Alloy is unpainted and may appear to be oddly discolored  like shown in the image below (from Wikipedia)

 

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As also shown in the image above the cargo deck can also be discolored or unevenly colored due to oil stains, patching of the non-skid and other such issues.

 

Below is another image showing a slightly dirty and used cargo deck, along with some rusty tie-down chains and a little bit of fading or chipping of some of the yellow marker lines on the deck.  I think that you can also make out some "rusty" looking water at the fore edges (outboard the main cargo ramp) that I think may be due in part to the rusty looking boathook like items thread through the chocks port and starboard.

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A couple other things to also consider is that I believe that the skirt can get dirty and wear a fair bit along its edges and also gets patched from time to time, as shown in these links https://jeanfivintage.tumblr.com/post/20065968187/bassman5911-a-landing-craft-air-cushion-lcac

https://www.militaryimages.net/media/the-landing-craft-air-cushion-lcac.11307/

 

Also keep in mind that if the craft is "off cushion" without its skirt inflated, it will look alot different than when "on cushion"

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And finally, because the gas turbine exhausts get exposed to spray, the exhausts can end up fairly heavily encrusted in salt residue during a mission (which you can kind of see in the 2nd image above where the craft is underway and the top of the port side stubby exhausts looks a little bit white in spots.

 

Hope tis helps.

Pat

 

 

 

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PS. tp the above.  I believe that these craft typically get washed down at the end of a mission (or missions if they are doing more than one in a day).  As such stuff like salt, dirt and "rusty" water puddles on deck may not be present if you intend to show the craft in a well deck or between missions, but may if you intend to show the craft underway or after it has just come ashore, or is just powering up to leave the shore.

 

Pat

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PPS.  I wasn't able to locate a good image of the wear and tear that you might see on an operational LCAC skirt, but if you look at the images of slide 9 of this 1st link or slide 10 of the second link you can see some more extreme examples from other craft.  In general I think(?) that the fingers of the skirt on a LCAC would get swapped out before they get as bad as shown in these images, but the images are useful in showing the type of wear you might see and how it looks on the rubberized material that the skirt is made out of.   As such, if you are going for a "weathered look" it might not be unreasonable to show a bit of fraying along the bottom of these "fingers" with maybe a little lighter color material showing to represent the embedded fibers within the material that would get exposed by wear and tear.

 

https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/SNAME/011ba975-36be-4d76-9128-9885276d3c1b/UploadedImages/ACV Developments to SNAME-IHS 9Jun05.pdf

 

https://pdfslide.net/documents/skirt-design.html

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