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Kangaroo question.


Bullbasket

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As these were converted from Priests in the Canadian's workshops in France, I was wondering about which colour they would have been painted in. I'm leaning towards SCC15, but would the Canadians have used this or would they have used OD? Thanks for any help.

 

John.

 

PS. Does anyone have access to, or know of the location of any interior photos of Kangaroos. My info on these is virtually nil.

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The base vehicles would have been OD of course.  Bits were largely removed rather than added on with just a few new pieces, so would an overall repaint have been needed?  SCC15 would have been the colour of the day.  I suspect you might be looking at just the new parts being SCC15 and the remainder staying in OD to save time.  I don't know that you'd necessarily pick this up in monochrome photos.

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4 hours ago, Das Abteilung said:

The base vehicles would have been OD of course.  Bits were largely removed rather than added on with just a few new pieces, so would an overall repaint have been needed?  SCC15 would have been the colour of the day.  I suspect you might be looking at just the new parts being SCC15 and the remainder staying in OD to save time.  I don't know that you'd necessarily pick this up in monochrome photos.

Thanks Peter, that's a great help. It'll give a bit of contrast between the two shades. It's basically the added armour along the sides. Thanks again.

 

John.

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13 hours ago, Phil1960 said:

Hi John, I had the same idea but with regret I abandoned the project.  Which model you'll use to made a Kangaroo?

May this can help you https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/missinglynx/viewtopic.php?p=1622168#p1622168

Ciao

F

Hi Fillipo,

Thanks for that link. It'll be very useful. I'm basing it on the Italeri kit, but I'll be substituting a lot of the parts with Dragon pieces, especially the lower hull, as the Italeri kit is devoid of detail. As soon as I get some spare time, I'll start my thread.

 

John.

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1 hour ago, Mick4350 said:

Have you watched the YouTube video from the Tank Museum number 46 as it shows the interior of the Ram Kangaroo.

Yes, thanks for that Mick, but it was more the layout of the Priest Kangaroo that I was after.

 

John.

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46 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

Yes, thanks for that Mick, but it was more the layout of the Priest Kangaroo that I was after.

You might need the Tankograd book on the M7 Priest #6007.

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2 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Yes, thanks for that Mick, but it was more the layout of the Priest Kangaroo that I was after.

 

Now i haven't had a chance to go through these albums but this guy has been all round the world photographing a lot of allied armour and there might be something useful in his albums...... warning though it's a lot of stuff so you could be there for some time going through it all.....

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/13963542@N08/albums/with/72157673454918482

 

Just had a very quick scan through and there is 8 plus albums just on the M7 and although your not doing the RAM there are several albums on those too ..... a lot of Israeli stuff John

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16 hours ago, M3talpig said:

Now i haven't had a chance to go through these albums but this guy has been all round the world photographing a lot of allied armour and there might be something useful in his albums...... warning though it's a lot of stuff so you could be there for some time going through it all.....

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/13963542@N08/albums/with/72157673454918482

 

Just had a very quick scan through and there is 8 plus albums just on the M7 and although your not doing the RAM there are several albums on those too ..... a lot of Israeli stuff John

 

16 hours ago, Mick4350 said:

have a look at this site  www.warpaints.net/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=10556 

Thanks very much to both of you for the help. As soon as I have the time, I will trawl through them.

 

John.

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On 18/03/2021 at 15:33, Mick4350 said:

have a look at this site  www.warpaints.net/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=10556 

That's a very useful page and he's done a great job on that model. Thanks Mick.

 

John.

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My father, who as an officer in the 51st Highland Division was a passenger in one of these vehicles during Operation Totalize. He never referred to them as Kangaroos, they were always 'de-frocked Priests'. And no he never made any comment about what colour they were painted.

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11 hours ago, WarhammerAdjacent said:

I'm hunting down kits to base a Kangaroo build on...

As Bullbasket says, the Italeri M7 kit is pretty long in the tooth these days  Their Kangaroo does at least contain an attempt at the Kangaroo parts but I suspect that none of these are beyond a bit of simple scratchbuilding.  The Italeri kit has been widely re-boxed, but not in Kangaroo form.  Anything that isn't Academy, Airfix or Dragon will be Italeri.

 

The Academy offering and its Airfix re-box is the original M7 with the M3 suspension, no use for NWE. Unfortunately so are both of the Dragon offerings, Early and Mid production.  I don't believe they ever did a Late production M7B1 with the M4 bogies.

 

So the alternative to the Italeri kit is a fair degree of kitbashing the Dragon or Academy kits with new suspension and new final drive cover plus new M4A3 engine deck and hull rear.  Keeping it in the family, so to speak, would suggest crossing the Academy M7 with an Academy M4A3 or doing the same with Dragon. 

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8 hours ago, Das Abteilung said:

The Academy offering and its Airfix re-box is the original M7 with the M3 suspension, no use for NWE.

According to the Panzerserra site, the Academy kit comes with both M3 and M4 suspensions.

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13 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

According to the Panzerserra site, the Academy kit comes with both M3 and M4 suspensions

Sadly it's a bit more than different bogies and a cast final drive cover: the easy swaps.  The whole rear hull is different as the M7 was based on the radial-engined M3 whereas the M7B1 was based on the  Ford V8-powered M4A3. Maybe Academy failed to appreciate this.  I'm not aware that any radial-engined M7s were fitted with the M4 bogies or that any radial-engined M7s were in British or Canadian service in NWE. 

 

It is surprising that we don't have a more recent M7B1 kit than the aged Italeri offering.  It is unlike Dragon not to have finished off their M7 family: early, mid, no late.  A new M7B1 kit with an option for a Korean War M7B2 might be nice.

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20 hours ago, Das Abteilung said:

...... I'm not aware that any radial-engined M7s were fitted with the M4 bogies or that any radial-engined M7s were in British or Canadian service in NWE. 

 

 

 

Are you sure you have that the right way round? Surely it should be no M7B1 in British or Canadian Service in NWE?

 

Piecing together data from Hunnicutt's Sherman and Zaloga's Osprey M7 books, production broke down as follows:-

 

ALCO - 599 (or 600)   Apr-Sept 1942 - M7

ALCO - 2214 Sept 1942 - Aug 1943 - M7

Then a gap in production until:-

ALCO - 500   Mar-Oct 1944 - M7

Pressed Steel - 628 Mar - Dec 1944 - M7B1 (only 25 in March 1944)

Pressed Steel - 198 Dec 1944 - Feb 1945 - M7B1

Federal M&W - 176 Mar - July 1945 - M7

 

Total M7 production - 3489 (or 3490)

Total M7B1 production - 826

Grand total - 4315

 

M7 deliveries to Britain totalled 832 and were complete by the end of 1943, meaning that they would all have been from the first 2 ALCO produced M7 batches. Given normal delivery times from the factory to the battlefront I would not have expected to have seen any M7B1 in combat until at least late July 1944.

 

As for the bogies, Zaloga (caption to a photo on page 10) notes against an M7 manufactured in Dec 1942 with the heavy duty M4 style bogies that were "used intermittently on the M7 105mm HMC until being standardised in 1944". So they were on at least some of the M7 production in the second ALCO batch and all of the third ALCO batch and the Federal batch. British example in Burma in 1945

http://panzerserra.blogspot.com/2020/01/m7-105mm-priest-howitzer-motor-carriage.html

 

There were 3 final drive covers used during the M7 production run. The earliest vehicles had the E1230 3 piece bolted differential from the M3 tank (with a notch on the rhs) while most production from the first two batches received the same without the notch, the E4151. But in the summer and autumn of 1942 a number (unknown) had the one piece Caterpillar transmission cover. The third ALCO batch had the one piece E8546 "Mary Ann" cover (along with a number of other mods).

 

And there is also the deeper pulpit introduced on the production line by Jan 1943.

Edited by EwenS
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