M3 Lee as "what-if" US WW-1 tank ?

[Erwin]

Hi all,

 

Looking at the M3 Lee gives me a "what-if" idea .

The design looks very much like WW-1

Lots of rivits and bolts.And a cannon like the British tanks.

 

Do away the top turet,lights,radio antenna,railway hooks and some other small items.

And a WW-1 looking paintjob could look convincing.

 

There are plenty kits in 1/35 th.

But I'd rather go with the 1/32 nd kits from Airfix,Revell or Monogram.

They are a bit bigger.

 

Any thoughts ?

 

Edited May 12 by Erwin

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

That could be an interesting idea.  I would probably also consider adding some sort of machine gun ports somewhere along the side as well.

 

Pat

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

Here are a couple rough sketches I cut and pasted together in PowerPoint along the lines that you mentioned.

 

The first two show a top and side sketch, where I just removed the turret, the antennas, and some of the WWII-era optics, while adding a couple machine gun mounts off a WWI era French Schneider tank (though I wasn't real careful how a scaled them so their size might be a little off).

 

In this next view I replaced the running gear with a "lengthened (cut and paste) view of something similar to the running gear from the French Scheider tank, to try and make that look a little more WWI era.   In this image you can see how a kind of cut and pasted the running gear to make it a little longer with respect to its height for this tank, and once again I didn't really try to accurately scale it, since I was just going for something that looked a bit more like a WWI era running gear than what was on the M3.

Next, I decided to flip the running gear around to put the drive sprocket back aft since I figured that would be closer to the engine, as shown below.

And finally, the next two images show a real rough idea of how th aft end of the tank could potentially be raised if more room was needed to WWI era machinery.  

I have a simple toylike model of an M3 that I may play around with later to try and make something along these lines.  

 

Pat

 

 

[Erwin]

Thank you for the info.

 

It all makes sence.

Extending the compartment and the drive wheel at the back looks logical for WW-1.

They wouldn't have a complicated gear box at that time.

 

I would have to add more rivits to the extended structure.

 

 

Edited May 12 by Erwin

[Kingsman]

The Holt-type tracks are a good bet for the period if you don't mind butchering a couple of St Chamond or Schneider kits for them.  They were what the French and Germans were using on their tanks despite us Brits deciding very early with the Lincoln No1 Machine that commercial-pattern tracks were inadequate.   But put the drive sprocket at the back.  Blast Models do click resin tracks for the Schneider: the Hobbyboss kit tracks will sap your sanity.  Yet Hobbyboss have click tracks in their St Chamond.

 

As for the gun, the M1917 75mm would be more appropriate.  You can nick that from a St Chamond too. 

 

Engines of the period were quite tall and you would be looking at something like the Ricardo straight-6 here.  The Liberty V12 wouldn't fit.  That might mean a taller engine compartment.  Perhaps extend the sloping sections inboard with a flat top.   Top exhaust, probably.  Some sort of radiator grille, made of riveted slats though.  Welding as an industrial process did not exist in WW1.  If the US were taking advice from the French then this tank might have been electric drive like the St Chamond.  Mechanical transmissions were a major problem for WW1 tank designers.

 

Armour castings were in their infancy in WW1.  Renault used some hull castings on their FT prototypes but changed to fabricated riveted parts for production, retaining just the cast turret - although a fabricated riveted type also had to be used.  So you might want to think about something more angular with rivets for the hull nose and sponson gun mount.

 

Some sort of box cupola on the hull top like a MkV, or maybe something more like the MkVIII or even the "conning towers" from a St Chamond.

[Erwin]

The more I read the replies.The more I want to have a go !

[europapete]

And especially if you do an "historical" service write up and take it to a local show. It would be VERY interesting to listen to the comments from "experts" 

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

I wasn't able to locate the M3 Easy Build kit that I have yet, but while at a local hobby shop this weekend I did find an old Haseawa 1/72 scale kit that I picked up for $10.  I figure it might be too small to mess with trying to make rivets and all, but it should be big enough to try out a "proof of concept" conversion to compare against some of the other 1/72 scale WWI builds that I have.  In the second image below you can see it early in its conversion alongside an Emhar A7V and Mk IV Female build as well as a resin Schneider build for reference

 

Edited May 21 by PF Naughton

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

Here's my latest thoughts on layout for my build.  I've added a box cupola ontop like Kingsman suggested, and added the twin fixed machine guns from the early M3 concept back in, plus another machine gun mount at the back.  I'm going to look into what type of machine guns and main gun would be best suited for the WWI time period and may either update the main gun to either the French 75mm gun from the Schneider (like Kingsman suggested) or maybe even consider the 57mm (6-pounder) from the UK tanks of that time period. 

 

PS.  I'm also still messing around with the suspension and haven't fully decided what to do with it yet either.  The images above show a rough modified version of the Schneider system lengthened for this tank with a smaller idler and and drive sprocket than I had previously shown.

[Erwin]

I guess rivits could be made from very small copper nales with round tops .

Drill the holes and insert the nales.

The lenght is not important.

 

The bigger the model.The better it will look.

I still like to use a 32 nd Monogram.Slightly bigger than the 35 th scale

 

 

Edited May 22 by Erwin

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

Instead of trying to modify the suspensions from an existing tank for this build I decided to just throw something together that looked kind of like something that might be used on a WWI tank, as shown below.  I'll try and 3D print it tomorrow. 

 

Pat

 

 

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

This isn't a great picture (and the paint is still a little wet), but here is how the new suspension looks. For some reason one spring did not print out on each side, but I think that I can add a piece of styrene round tube to replace them.

Pat

 

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

I'm not quite done yet, but it is gwtting there.  I still need to add a few small pieces nd paint/repaint the gun barrels, exhausts and treads then hopefully it will be done 

 

Pat

 

PS. to give credit where credit is due, this build is a kitbash of both a styrene Hasegawa kit, some stuff I scratch built myself, and some parts kitbashed off of some other 3D models that I have collected over time.

 

Edited May 27 by PF Naughton

[dnl42]

Excellent idea!

 

I always thought the M3 looked anachronistic.

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

This build is probably about 98-99% done now.   I just have to:

• Add the missing spring to the suspension on each side 
• Decide how I want to model the bow machine gun(s)
• Decide whether I want to add the headlamps and other misc pieces
• Touch up the paint around the drive sprocket and idler wheels
• Maybe add a wash to make the color look a little less "green"

Looking at other WWI tank builds I'm not sure that headlamps were common, so I think I might leave them off, but I should go back and add some putty and paint to hide the locater holes in the fenders for them.

 

Regards

 

Pat

 

 

Edited May 29 by PF Naughton

[Erwin]

Hi all,

 

I just managed to get a cheap 1/35 Academy kit for this idea.

Stay tuned for a progress topic in "What-if" soon.