M5 Halftrack

Manufacturer: Battlefront Miniatures

Product Code: BR????

Date of Article: 05 Nov 2008

Description

The M5 was a version of M3 (built by a different company) with some differences in armour composition, etc. Functionally, it’s a halftrack. 🙂

Front Fender Attachment

The M5 blister comes with 2 front fender attachment; one is a winch, the other is a roller. The winch is typically attached to the Platoon Commander’s vehicle, while the rollers are attached to all other M5s in the platoon to assist them in unditiching — the roller act as a lever to allow the back end of the truck to gain purchase and thus move out from whatever ditch they are in. Yes, I screwed up in the picture above — I attached winches to all my M5s.

Cupola

The M5 blister also comes with a post and a cupola. The cupola is fitted to M5s, and seems to be prevelant for Normandy campaign M5s, but many older M5s never got refitted — feel free not to have the cupola. The cupola rests on the right edge of the M5 and is supported in its rear left corner by the post, which incidentally doubles as the mounting post for the 0.5 cal MG of earlier M5s. But most British M5s never had the 0.5 cal MG, so it’s a moot point about attaching them.

Driver Position

Also, remember that the M5 is an American vehicle. Thus, while British vehicles would have their drivers to the right, M5s in British service would have drivers to their left. The wonderful thing about this is, if you attach the cupola, there’s no way for you to get this wrong, because it’s really silly to have the driver sitting in the cupola…