Sixty Drivers 1/6th

M8 Howitzer Motor Carriage

This project has kept me busy all summer, little did I know what I was getting myself into. This page chronicles the transformation of a 21st Century Toys M5 Stuart into an M8 Howitzer Motor Carriage. Well it's a neat little vehicle and I've always liked it's odd looks. The M8 was itself a converstion of the M5 filling the need for mobile artillery support. It fought from Italy to the islands in the Pacific during WWII, and continued to soldier on with Vietnamese forces well into the 60's. Not bad for a stop gap weapons system!

I'd love to do a complete how to on building this thing but that would be insane and impossible. Rather I'm just going to show the progress and point out anything that I think would be of interest.

A humble start. The turret was constructed from styrene. At this point I thought things were really ripping along and I'd have this dog done in a month, boy was I wrong!!

I fretted over making the cheeks of the turret which were cast steel on the real deal. I carved them from foam and coated them with resin. Some spot putty took care of the blemishes and I thought I had the hard part done, silly me.

Another goofball part to be made. The mantlet was constructed much like the cheeks, foam and resin. I laminated styrene on the sides for durability. The gun tube is a butchered up plastic tailpiece to a toilet faired in with Sig brand EpoxoLite.

The M8 was armed with a modified version of the the Pack Howitzer. Well the breach block was the same but nothing else seemed to be. The recoil mechanism was taken from the M4 Sherman tank and at this point I discovered that the real M8 was a real life kitbash! Here the basic gun assembly is completed. PVC pipe and styrene were used.

Here the Howitzer is nearly completed. The breach guard is made from brass rod soldered together. The actuators etc. are likewise made from brass rod soldered where applicable. I've made everything as durable as possible, I don't want the bits breaking off every time I touch the darn thing and this has created some engineering challenges along the way but the results have been well worth the effort.