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Scratchbuilt LCM6 Landing Craft

Onward to the Beach!

Armed with what I thought were enough references I made a start.

I was originally going to make a full size model and put it on the back of a Dragon Wagon but it leaves an awfully large space inside the LCM and I wanted to try and fill it. My intention is that the model will eventually rest on resin waves on a nice base but I just haven’t had time to get round to it yet. Once I had decided to make a waterline model I had to choose where I wanted it to be. I think that I had three choices, either the Pacific, D-Day or the Rhine crossing. The Pacific or D-Day would suggest Navy grey colour schemes and the Rhine crossing olive drab. As I wanted the vehicles to be olive drab that ruled out the Rhine. I recently purchased the LVT 4 so that is going to be my Pacific model, that left D-Day.

I can’t find any photographic evidence for LCM 6’s hitting the beach on the 6th so I decided that my model would be of the follow up forces. At a recent show I picked up the M20 for half price and the Dodge was next to nothing in a bargain box. The only real expense was on the Dragon and Tamiya figures and the Hornet heads. I bought the plastic card at my friends shop so overall this was going to be a cheap project.

I am afraid that I did not record exactly what thickness’ of card and strip I used. I just used what looked right according to my references. I made the basic shape from very thick card. It was so thick that I had to cut it with a cutting wheel in my mini drill. It is very important to get the basic construction straight and level. No amount of paint and filler can hide fundamental errors.

Copyright ©2002 - Text and Photos by Andy Wright. All Rights Reserved.