6496 - T19 105mm Howitzer Motor Carriage

DRAGON MODELS LIMITED

Product Specifications.

6496, T19 105mm Howitzer Motor Carriage Smart Kit. 1/35th-scale styrene/multimedia kit. Contains: 363 styrene parts (including eight clear), one etched brass fret, one turned aluminum part, five decal/markings schemes and eight pages of instructions in 15 steps.

Introduction.

As the United States geared-up for its inevitable participation in the Second World War, the US Army designed self-propelled artillery pieces, which would accompany the armored divisions into battle. While eventually settling on the M7 105mm Howitzer Motor carriage based first on the M3, and then the M4 medium tank chassis, other options were investigated. One of these included the 105mm Howitzer M2A1 on a T2 mount, placed in the troop compartment of the M3 half-track personnel carrier, which was classified as the T19. Although never standardized with an M-series designation, T19s saw service with US forces in North Africa beginning in late 1942 and in 1943, on Sicily; examples also served during the invasion of southern France in 1944.

This is DMLs sixth release based on their US half-track kits, with in this case, parts from their recently-released towed 105mm Howitzer for the main weapon. Additionally, a new fighting compartment and interior is provided, with parts to mount the howitzer as well as ammunition stowage. In a smart move by DML, the revised parts for the hull armor, featuring slotted screw heads is included in the box. Strangely, this is not something that consistently occurred in all subsequent kits.

Tracks.

DMLs designers came up with rather creative solution in order to provide for an unprecedented level of accuracy and fidelity in this area. Therefore, the track assemblies for each side are split into two injection-molded styrene parts, longitudinally; this provides for crisp tread detail on the faces of the continuous rubber-band-type tracks that the prototype was equipped with. The inner surface also has nicely-rendered guide chain details; the kits designers have succeeded extremely well in this area.

Suspension System.

The suspension system features drive sprockets and idler wheels with delicate skeletal-style rims and hubs; accurately reproducing these items are not conducive to the traditional styrene plastic injection-molding process. But, using an old technique in an innovative manner has resulted in drive sprockets and idler wheels that accurately mirror the prototype to a remarkable degree. The remaining road-wheels and return rollers are traditionally-rendered as inner and outer halves and include crisp tire, rim and rim-bolt details.

The bogie units assemble from about ten more parts each and this break-down allows for an excellent amount of finesse and detail. The modeler may wish to add the oval-shaped hole to part D-32, a round hole to part D-21, some bolt-head details to part D-34 and some foundry casting numbers and symbols from Archer, as per reference photos. The idler wheel adjustment arms and other items are separate parts, while the spring mount unit represents the later style with a large outer coil-spring unit over a tube that housed a smaller inner coil-spring unit; drive shafts and associated hubs finish the assembly. The final item in this area is the exhaust pipe and muffler assembly; a separate end to the pipe is fitted in order to properly depict the opening.

The conventional front wheels feature tires that are weighted; they include complete inner and outer wheel-hub details, brake unit details, drive shaft, axles, steering linkages and leaf spring units.

Chassis Frame.

This is a single-piece item that has some nice bolt detail on the lower face, as well as the bottom of the engine/transmission unit molded in place. There is a very basic, multi-part White 160AX engine and radiator that gets fitted to this as well as the front and rear suspension system, drive train, rear bumper and the associated tow hitch. The front bumper only mounted the roller, so although some of the winch parts are included on the sprues, they are marked as not for use. The roller is movable, while its frame is topped by etched brass plates and styrene hooks.

Superstructure.

The front end of this vehicle features a multi-part cab enclosure. It has optional opened or closed wind-shield armor view-port covers rendered in etched brass (the entire assembly can be shown raised or lowered as well, to include the rods that keep it in place), while the entire armored cover is specially configured for this version. A clear styrene wind-shield and frame as well as etched brass wiper blades completes this assembly. The separate doors feature separate upper parts, also with etched brass view-port covers. The door opening handles are (unfortunately) molded in place, both on the inner and outer surfaces; naturally these assemblies can be depicted opened or closed.

The engine access lids are molded closed, although they have scribed lines on their inner faces to aid the modeler who wants to open them up and detail the engine; the screw heads are now properly slotted. The characteristic T-shaped closures are also molded in place and seem to my eye to be rather anemic. The armored nose section comes in two versions. One is devoid of the armored radiator cooling slats, which are separate etched brass parts depicting them opened up. The alternate part has them closed.

All of this gets attached to the main drivers cockpit floor/fender unit, which includes separate battery housing. There are some ejector pin marks under the fenders that the modeler may wish to address, but under normal viewing conditions they wont be seen. The floor of the drivers cockpit features molded-on non-skid texture as well as his foot pedals; certainly in this day and age the pedals should be separate parts.

Optional head-lamp configurations are provided for the early-style or the combat-style mounts, both of which feature clear lenses; the early one actually has a bulb depicted inside and is the type normally seen on the T19. An externally-stowed shovel and pick finish the area on the drivers side. Note that the cockpit side wall sections now have slotted screw head details and are completely devoid of the mounts for jerry cans. The remaining body panels also now feature slotted screw heads where appropriate. The rear panel features a separate entry door, separate latch handle, separate hand-holds and a tow hitch. Etched brass mud flaps complete the area.

Interior.

The drivers cockpit features a nice instrument panel/dash-board unit as well as separate control levers, steering wheel, and a small fire extinguisher. The seats in this area have nice cloth texture, as do those in the crew compartment. However, the bases for the drivers cockpit seats do not precisely match reference photos, while the cushions themselves do not overhang the bases as they should.

Each side of the gun/crew compartment features fuel tanks with a pair of seats, four stowed 105mm rounds, and a pair of jerry cans. As the T19 only carried a total of eight rounds, there is enough ammunition, but it would have been nice to have the option of a few separate rounds and shell cases as well as an empty rack or two. A separate floor panel along with the multi-part T2 gun mount is fitted in the vehicles centerline, with the M25 machine-gun pedestal mount towards the rear. There are other rod-like objects, which are probably bore swab staffs for the howitzer and aiming stakes. Hunnicutt states that a Thompson SMG and either four .30 cal.M1 carbines or four .30 cal. M1 rifles were provided for the crew, but there are none in the box, nor are empty racks given.

Although the instructions show the .30 cal. M1919A4 machine-gun fitted to the supplied M25 (Modified) pedestal mount, Hunnicutt states that the authorized fit was the .50 cal. M2. Both are supplied in the box. The machine-guns are created using slide-molds; this means that the bore-ends are already opened up, with the .30 cal. MGs also having the slot at their bores, and the .50 cal. MGs having detailed interiors to their receiver housings. The .50s also have separate receiver covers, but these are marred by having the cocking handle molded with them, which is inaccurate, especially if they are to be depicted opened up; separate grips finish these assemblies. There are two styles of cradles and ammunition boxes for the .30 cal. MGs, as well as a spare clamp-less shovel, axe and pick. There are also two radio sets on the sprue, the SCR-510 and the SCR-508. Neither was fitted so they can be consigned to the spares bin.

105mm Howitzer M2A1.

The main shield is of the proper configuration for fitting inside the half-track. It is well-rendered as an extremely thin single part to which other details such as mounting struts and stowage boxes are attached; one side features the opening for the range quadrant. There are no ejector pins visible on any surface of the shield. Note that photos show some of the vehicles for which markings are supplied did not have the shield fitted.

The core of the howitzer is slide-molded, with the recuperator cylinder and the main portion of the gun tube molded as one piece. The gun tube is completed with a turned aluminum bore end (with rifling inside the tube), and a multi-part, slide-molded, two-position breech block. This is mounted to the elevation mechanism, which has the proper lighting holes and gear detail on its quadrants. Separate linkages for both elevation hand-wheels and the single traverse hand-wheel are given as are the hand-wheels themselves. The final main items are the panoramic telescope, elevation quadrant and their mounts as well as the slide-molded equilibrator assembly and housing. Many other small, non-descript parts provide for the final details.

Molding, Fit and Engineering.

A dry fit of the major components revealed no major (or minor) fit issues. Anywhere it mattered, there were no visible ejector pin marks; there were no shrink marks whatsoever.

Accuracy and Details.

Essentially, this kit accurately depicts the subject matter. I have no completely reliable 1/35th-scale plans to compare the parts to, so I had to rely exclusively on photographs. The flattened and bulged tires are still present, but they really are not anything to be concerned about; while properly-inflated tires may not bulge, they certainly have a flat foot-print. Regardless, a bit of sanding will correct that issue quite easily and if the modeler is that upset about it, there are after-market alternatives. There are some detail simplifications such as molded-on drivers foot controls, as well as an omission: none of the crews personal weapons are provided, nor are their racks (if they were in fact visible).

Instructions.

These are in the traditional line drawing format; there were no issues in this regard.

Decals and Markings Information.

The decals, as usual, supplied by Italys Cartograf, are well-printed with crisp edges and fine color registration. Two sheets are provided. One is generic in that it consists solely of numbers, letters and armored division triangles. The second sheet is larger and contains tailored markings for the following five named vehicles:

Cathy, US Army 1942.
Alamosa, US Army 1942.
Bull, US Army 1942.
Battering Ram, US Army 1942.
Evelyn, 7th Regimental Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Morocco 1942.

The main differences amongst the five provided schemes are the individual vehicle names as well as the registration number sets. According to photos seen in the cited references, one vehicle did not have shields fitted (the first one given on the instructions and also the subject of the box-top art). The registration numbers are given in yellow and white when they should probably be in blue drab at this stage in the war. The photo of Evelyn (at a distance) shows no visible number, which supports this observation; it also has bumper codes, not given in the kit. The photo of Cathy (which has no shield) also indicates the numbers may be blue drab.

Conclusion.

This kit is very well-done and fairly complete, with only a few glitches. It fills in a gap in the lineage of US self-propelled artillery, and for all its rareness, saw service for quite an extended period of time.

- Frank V. De Sisto