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A Kangaroo, with "Fatherly" beginnings.


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Having almost completed the M51, and having a load of work to do on the new modelling room, I was looking for something to build that would fire my enthusiasm. After going through my stash, it came down to two contenders; An AFV Club M5A1 (Early) Stuart (Stuart Mk.V), or a Canadian Kangaroo ISV. From the title, you can see which one I have chosen, although, I might make a start on the Stuart to run in parallel. We’ll see.

So, first, a bit of waffle. The “fatherly beginnings” is an indication of these vehicle’s history. They were converted from Priest 105mm SPGs. 72 of them had their 105mm gun removed, along with the storage for the ammunition, as well as having the infrastructure reinforced and improving the interior armour, the work being carried out in the Advanced Workshop Depot of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division under the codename “Kangaroo”.

Later, Churchills and Shermans were used, as well as obsolete Ram tanks, 500 of the latter being converted. Prior to the Priests being used, M3/M5 Stuarts became Kangaroos, but these weren’t so successful, due to their light armour.

b84f56d1-242b-4a88-ac39-fa5f6e250082.JPG

 

And so to the build. I’ve had the Italeri Kangaroo for some years now, having picked it up for a song at Telford. I believe that the kit goes back to 1999 in it’s present form, but like the original, it was based on the Priest kit, which goes back even further, 1979 according to Scalemates. As is to be expected, detail isn’t great. There are no bolt heads around the base plates for the VVSS units, and no bolt heads where the final drive attaches to the lower hull. The rest of the kit isn’t too bad and serves as a good basis for the build. I decided that I wouldn’t use the kit’s lower hull nor the running gear, but instead, I would use parts from the Dragon Sherman 1c Hybrid. Surprisingly, the internals for the Italeri Kangaroo drop into the Dragon hull with only the minimum of alteration.

So, that's got the ball rolling, and I'll post some progress as soon as I get something done, hopefully over the weekend.

 

John.

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Damn John thats a kit i've not seen in years.....this should be great fun to watch over not too mention a great place for info on these unusual vehicles....ill pull up a chair ifin yer don't mind.

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I'll take a seat as well if you don't mind?

Don't know a lot about the Kangaroo so looking forward to learning about them.

 

  Stay safe           Roger

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8 hours ago, M3talpig said:

Damn John thats a kit i've not seen in years.....this should be great fun to watch over not too mention a great place for info on these unusual vehicles....ill pull up a chair ifin yer don't mind.

You are most welcome Steve. It's a bit of a change for me as it doesn't have a big stick out in front which goes BANG. But I wanted a bit of a change, so I found this in the cupboard and thought, why not. I've found a couple of web sites that are useful (Panzerserra is great), and so is the one that @Mick4350 gave me. And the added bonus is that it's M4/M3 based.

 

John.

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14 minutes ago, Hamden said:

 

I'll take a seat as well if you don't mind?

Don't know a lot about the Kangaroo so looking forward to learning about them.

 

  Stay safe           Roger

Pleased to have you along Roger. My knowledge of the 'Roo is limited also, so it will be a learning curve.

 

John.

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Brilliant subject John. I’ve got at Ram kangaroo in the stash that I’ve been researching recently so going to follow this with interest. I hadn’t realised Churchill’s were used as kangaroos too.

 

Is this going to be in Italy theatre markings?

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35 minutes ago, bigfoot said:

Brilliant subject John. I’ve got at Ram kangaroo in the stash that I’ve been researching recently so going to follow this with interest. I hadn’t realised Churchill’s were used as kangaroos too.

 

Is this going to be in Italy theatre markings?

Hi BF,

There's more info available for the Ram Kangaroo, especially as The Tank Museum has got one. As for markings. I may have to stick with the Canadian ones in the kit, as there doesn't seem to be much available for these vehicles. So probably Northern France, '44.

 

John.

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39 minutes ago, Phil1960 said:

Great, great idea, John 👍 I'm looking for wip! Which theatre? Normandy or (please tell me yes!) Italy?

Ciao

Filippo

I was thinking about NWE, but according to someone on that thread that you gave me a link to, these particular vehicles weren't used there. So it's more research then.

 

John.

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52 minutes ago, bigfoot said:

Not sure if you’ve come this in your reading but it covers a lot of the development and usage of kangaroos with the Canadians from the priests to the Rams.

 

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/143680439.pdf 

It makes an interesting read, and helps to understand the development of these vehicles. Thanks for that.

 

John.

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21 hours ago, PDH said:

If you are on Facebook there is a lot of information/photos etc on the Group 'Canadian Kangaroo Regiment Archive"

 

P

 

Thanks for the info. I need all the links that I can get at the moment.

 

John.

19 hours ago, Nenad Ilijic said:

Interesting choice John. Rather unusual subject and I am always curious about these older kits and how will they turn out, but it's definitely in good hands :)

 

Cheers,

Nenad

Thanks Nenad. The more that I read, the more that I'm getting confused. I'll get it sorted eventually.

 

John.

17 hours ago, edjbartos said:

This looks unusual John, will follow this with interest

 

Ed

Thanks Ed. I'll try and get something posted soon.

 

John.

1 hour ago, Vaastav said:

The Sherman God had set his sights on another Sherman derivative. The rendition will be divine and well I'll follow along. 

Thanks Ivor. I'm having to make a lot of changes in direction as I read more about these Kangaroos. It seems that the kit is a bit of a mish mash.

 

John.

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1 hour ago, Bullbasket said:

It seems that the kit is a bit of a mish mash.

 

Is that not a thing with Italeri as was pointed out to me when I built there M32B1.

I'm sure you will make this into a stunner going by your usual standards!

 

  Stay safe                Roger

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9 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

The more that I read, the more that I'm getting confused. I'll get it sorted eventually.

 That's normal for Kangaroo builds I think ;) And we have the upmost confidence in you John, nice subject choice, should be very interesting :)

 

 Matt 

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13 hours ago, Hamden said:

 

Is that not a thing with Italeri as was pointed out to me when I built there M32B1.

I'm sure you will make this into a stunner going by your usual standards!

 

  Stay safe                Roger

 

5 hours ago, Cerberus said:

 That's normal for Kangaroo builds I think ;) And we have the upmost confidence in you John, nice subject choice, should be very interesting :)

 

 Matt 

Roger, Matt, I thank you for your confidence in my ability. I've been looking at a couple of sites where people have been building Kangaroos, and in both cases they have said that the best starting point would be the Academy Priest. I had a look around to see if I could pick one up, but all the ones I tried (on the continent), don't have it, so I'm going back to what I know best, and that is convert with what I've got. I had already made a start and intended posting the work so far, but I've had to start again. I'd relied on the Italeri kit as a guide, but as I said, it's a mish mash, so I'll try and base it on some of the original Kangaroo conversions, which had the three piece final drive housing. I'm taking a lot of my inspiration from the Panzerserra site (that's a mine of information), and the Warpaint.net site. Both have excellent builds by people more knowledgeable than myself.

So bear with me a bit longer, and I will get something done and posted (in between building the new hobby room and cutting an acre of grass).

 

John.

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Could you not use the 1/35 airfix priest as that is an academy rebox? 

 

Looking forward to seeing progress on this 😁

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54 minutes ago, WYATT said:

Could you not use the 1/35 airfix priest as that is an academy rebox? 

 

Looking forward to seeing progress on this 😁

Yes, I could, but I've decided to go down the "make do with what I've got" route. When I worked out the cost of the kit and what the postage rates are now to the EU, I thought no, I'll make do.

 

John.

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39 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

Yes, I could, but I've decided to go down the "make do with what I've got" route. When I worked out the cost of the kit and what the postage rates are now to the EU, I thought no, I'll make do.

 

John.

Makes sense, I was actually just looking at the kit the other day 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Before going any further, just one small observation. Why on earth would the artist who did the box art for this kit, think that having marked the Kangaroo as a Canadian vehicle, it would be a good idea to make all the crew members American? Just saying. And why did Italeri include US figures?

Originally, I was going to go with a one piece final drive casting, but after looking at a couple of sites with photos of Canadian vehicles with the three piece unit, I decided to go with that. The only one available to me at the time is the one from the Tamiya M4. After checking it out, it seemed as though it would marry up with the Dragon lower hull with some slight adjustment, that being the removal of the strip running along the bottom forward edge and the forward pair of triangular strengtheners. I added a strip of card to give the Tamiya part something to bond to.

8fbe59ec-f740-4516-8d5a-f2b83303f614.JPG

 

The eight missing attachment bolts on each side of the forward part of the lower hull were punched out and glued in place.

9b1e36d7-303e-4d54-b4f4-b84bd26856ce.JPG

 

 

So using a razor saw, I cut the front off of the Tamiya hull, and assembled all of the relevant parts. I added a strip of card running along the top and three more bolt heads.

42cdaddc-f16b-459d-8218-0ecb1c7338b8.JPG

 

The FDH and the hull glued together. Once the glue had hardened, the gap in the Tamiya FDH was filled with putty, and the slight gap at the back with Milliput.

4454fb0a-95f0-4ca6-8f6c-e998c5552531.JPG

 

That's as far as I've got so far. Progress will be slow because of my 1/1 scale build.

Thanks for looking.

 

John.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

The eight missing attachment bolts on each side of the forward part of the lower hull were punched out and glued in place.

 

Hi Bullbasket - could you give some more details on the bolt punch please? Thanks

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