Garrick Gilham's Tires and Tracks

Kit #07 and #23

Bradley M3A1 and M3 Halftrack

Reviewed By Stephen Bierce, #35922

I decided to try these models out because I've been an aspiring wargamer for years.  I like the current 1/144th and 1/160th scale science-fiction wargames, namely CAV (by Reaper Miniatures), Heavy Gear and Gear Krieg (by Dream Pod 9), and Mechwarrior Dark Age (by Wizkidz).  For a while now I've been building a little "army" using pieces from all these systems and others (and creating "porting" rules to use the same pieces in multiple games!).

One problem is that while fighting vehicles are easy to find--and even support vehicles like Mobile Headquarters and medevac units are as well--infantry squad carriers are frequently neglected as subjects.  So that my own "PBI's" can tool around the tabletop battleground in style, they needed vehicles of their own.

Both these kits are simple resin casts, with few parts, no decals or color instructions and only the most basic in assembly instructions.  The pale orange resin is tough, very dense and nearly free of air bubbles.

The Bradley IFV consisted of a hull piece with molded-on skirt armor plating, a turret, two track units and a piece of metal wire for a gun barrel.  The Halftrack kit was a hull, two track units, two tires, an axle brace and a piece of wire for the front axle.  All the pieces had very little flashing. 

The Bradley went together very easily.  I needed to sand away much of the hull sides to allow clearance for the track units, but I was able to get a snug fitting for the tracks.  When I added the gun barrel to the turret, I simply put the wire in the chuck of an art knife and reamed a hole in the mantlet for it until I went far enough for the barrel to stay in place.  With a drop of Super Glue on top, it was secured.  The barrel looks about 4mm too long, but I don't mind as I could say that the vehicle was up gunned.  Unfortunately, there is no provision for a positionable turret, you have to decide which way to point it and glue it in place.

The Halftrack was a little trickier, since Gilham didn't provide instructions for its construction.  The axel brace turned out to be too thick, so the nose of the vehicle sits somewhat high--higher if the wheels were to scale, they look a little small compared to the drawing for the packaging.  I also had to fiddle some with cutting the front axel wire to size.  The track units are horribly sparse in detail, especially in comparison to the ones on the Bradley.

Because of the size of the models, I kept the paint jobs simple.  Overall color was a concoction bred from years of cheap paint-buying habits: once I got a load of old Pactra International Colors packs on sale, and over time, I had a surplus of various shades of olive drab green.  In a need to free up space for new paint bottles, I threw all these paints together in a large former thinner bottle for a "Suicide Stew" olive green, which for this project I lightened with some Zinc Chromate Green.  The resulting shade has a "Russian Tractor Factory"/"Toy Soldier Green" quality that is about what I was shooting for.  I used Pactra acrylic Rust (from a Ship Model Colors set) for the underside of the Halftrack, but having seen a real Halftrack since, I think that was overkill.  Flat Black for the tracks, wheels, and grille venting and I was finished!  Two down, perhaps twenty or so to go!  (It's not easy equipping a whole Infantry battalion!)  Sure, I could have done a two- or three-tone camouflage on the Bradley, but with a model so small, it's too easy to botch an involved paint scheme.

At this scale, a model usually is more representative than accurate.  The Bradley model beats the Halftrack one in terms of faith to the subject matter--in fact, I think Gilham pantographed the Bradley model from a larger scale model.  The Halftrack, on the other hand, has suspect shaping up front, mainly around the fenders and hood and grille area.  Still, both models are more than adequate for the purpose I bought them, and are a good value in comparison to metal models of the same type.

Thanks to Magic and Fun World Hobbies for my sample kits.

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