Israeli AMX-13 in 1967 Six Day War modeled in 1/35th scale

France's AMX-13 light tank was designed soon after World War II ended. Design of the tank began in 1946. The first prototype was finished in 1948 and production began in 1952. The AMX-13 entered service in 1953. The AMX-13 has an oscillating turret with a separate top half and bottom half. The top half of the turret has the gun, an autoloader and a store of ammunition. The top half was mounted on two trunnions in the bottom half. In order to raise or lower the gun, which is fixed, the top half of the turret must be raised or lowered. The addition of an autoloader to the AMX-13 light tank eliminates the need for a human loader, so a crew of only three men - driver, commander and gunner - is needed. The driver sits in the front left of the hull, with the engine on his right. The commander and gunner sit in the turret, which is mounted in the back of the hull. The commander sits on the left, and the gunner sits on the right. Model 51, the earliest version of the AMX-13, had a 2.95 inch (75mm) main gun. It was used by Israel during the 1956 Suez Crisis and the 1967 Six Day War and by India during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War. Below are photos showing this tank in IDF service:

 

 

 

 

Some of the details on the Heller kit are soft and probably not mechanically correct but I massaged it a little to get this result. Some places the fit was not great. Careful dry fitting can usually solve these issues. I had purchased the Dragon "Hetzer" just to steal the rear idlers with the 6 large holes. This type are very noticeable on Israeli machines so they had to be included. To my pleasant surprise, the Hetzer kit also came included with the early rear idlers, so I didn't destroy my chance to build this one in future. I did purchase the expensive, but accurate Friul tracks for the AMX-13 and this is the most time consuming stage of the build. I love the way they look, but absolutely hate to assemble them. I learned alot about these little tanks along the way while studying my references from the Six Day war. I tried not to get too much into the photo-etch add-ons and and tried to work mainly with styrene plastic when I could.

After some attempts at markings of my tank. I finalized on these. The logos are handpainted in Hebrew. They read: Express to Damascus. On the back of the turret is my own name.