First post of 2022 - Israeli towed artillery

Here's the progress report from the first few days of January.

The Shermans were put to one side for final detailing after scratch building 10 xenon searchlights for all the Israeli armour, with a bit of research on mounts and frequency for the various tanks. They are very common on Shermans and AMX-13s, but less so on M48s and especially Centurions (only found one or two photos). Each had a unique mount but the lights seem to have been left in the original French olive drab.

Anyway, I found myself distracted by another unfinished project when finding the bits in the spares and projects boxes; being a great believer in "going with the flow" when it comes to enthusiasm and "striking when the iron is hot" if you find yourself assembling or mentally solving something, I put the armour to one side.

The Israeli army of 1967 while being keen to develop SP artillery, found itself very reliant on mortars and still had a quantity of towed artillery (mostly vintage 25pdrs). Among the arsenal were some French supplied Model 50 155mm howitzers (Obusier de 155mm Modele 50) which were also mounted on Sherman chassis as the M50 Tomat. They also developed a 160mm Soltam M66 mortar, only one battery of which existed in 1967. It too was later mounted on a Sherman chassis.

The howitzers are heavily modified Roco Long Tom carriages with cut down barrels from the SP 155mm. Modified bits from another sp gun and wheels from German armoured car. Lots of plastic rod and strip added - the model is simplified and not 100% correct but looks the part. The Soltam is entirely scratch built apart from the wheels, using plastic rod and bits from spares. All need fine details, once I can find some bits (I have enough elevation wheels for two models but know I have something suitable elsewhere).

In a fit of enthusiasm and probably misplaced optimism, the guns can disassemble into a towed version; I suspect this will be too fragile for gaming.

Before the break ends, I want to do some painting and this will most likely be Egyptians using Contrast Paints.