Tamiya
6502

One has to wonder what was going through the minds of the brain trust at Tamiya, circa 1980, when someone said, "Hey, let's make a pack howitzer." To which someone else responded "Right on! And let's make it out of...white metal!"

This was a period when Tamiya dabbled in their "Metal Casting Series" which yielded a handful of kits and figures (white metal has long been a staple of figure makers). A pack howitzer certainly was certainly a novel subject back then. This kit has been out of production for some time and sought after by both collectors and builders, even though there is an S-Model kit that is reportedly a resin copy of the Tamiya. Roy Models also has a pack howitzer, though it may be hard to find.And Ted Dyer's Japanese Armor King offers three other versions: The M8 and M1 (earlier version with wooden-spoke wheels) broken down and packed on a cart, and the M3 "straight leg" version on the split trail carriage. The most recent M8 airborne version is the 2007 highly detailed kit from Resicast.

Indeed, it was the arrival of the Resicast kit that prompted me to finally take this box off the shelf and put the super glue to it. I had picked it up several years before at the local hobby store and was partcularly impressed at the unique way of shrinkwrap packaging that held the parts to the cardboard insert. There are only 23 pieces to this set and it took me little more than an hour to clean up the seams and assemble the parts. However, be aware the was a long seam running down the length of the trails on both the top and bottom sides. This seam is presenton the trail parts, though a bit off center. You want to leave it as is o file it down and replace with a seam made of sprue or one of the resin transfers from Archer Fine Transfers.

Everything went together like clockwork. Interesting choices were made when developing the patterns, such as having the equilibrators molded as part of the trail interior side walls, rather than as separate pieces. There are certain simplifications, particularly to the joints in the carriage where the cradle parts come together to trap the elevation arcs. These can be filled with putty. The lunette is a bit different from the photo examples here. The modled-in receptacle for the hand spike seems to be inverted, but I did not bother to remove it since it seemed like it would be more difficult and damaging than it was worth. The gun sight is also different from the photos of the Hubbard Museum piece, being the panoramic telescope M1. The elevating cranks are the weakest representation, as they are molded onto the trail sides and lack handles, but those can easily be scratch built. Otherwise, the detail is fairly crisp for its time and the model gives a good representation of the howitzer.

The most significant absences from this kit are the handspike, cleaning rod, range stakes, and ammo. The first three items you can scratch out of plastic rod. For ammo, spent cases, and tubes, Tiger Model Design offers these in resin, but in two separate sets. Verlinden used to make a set that has been out of production for a long time; it includes wooden boxes, which are not available with the TMD sets.

The box art and instructions show the trails "unlocked" while in the firing mode, but historical photos I've seen show the trails locked and arched as above (otherwise, there is little to prevent the howitzer from jack-knifing during recoil).

So, even though this kit is a bit behind the times, the weapon's simplicity works for this type of offering. It was a pleasure to build (how many kits can be built and finished in under three hours?) and the unique opportunity to work on an all-metal armor kit. With just a little bit of updating, Tamiya could reissue this in plastic and combine it with the jeep and a couple airborne figures for a very nice D-Day set. Are you listening Tamiya-san?

References

• 75mm Pack Howitzer photos by Kurt Laughlin.
• TM 9-1320 75mm Pack Howitzers and Carriages, April 1944.
  
• TM 9-319 75mm Pack Howitzer M1A1 and Carriage M8, November 1948.
  
• Light Artillery and Anti-Tank Guns, Easy 1 Productions, www.easy1productions.com, 2005.
• Standard Guide to U.S. World War II Tanks & Artillery, by Konrad F. Schreier, Jr., Krause Publications, 1994, ISBN 0-87341-297-4.
  
• The American Arsenal: The World War II Official Standard Ordnance Catalog of Small Arms, Tanks, Armored Cars, Artillery, Antiaircraft Guns, Ammunition, Grenades, Mines, etcetera, introduction by Ian V. Hogg, Greenhill Books, 2001, ISBN 1-85367-470-2.

-tss