M10 Tank Destroyer

Manufacturer: HäT Industries(Armourfast) (Kit #99004)

By Alan Phillips

The M10 tank destroyer is thethird kit in the Armourfast range now being produced by HäTIndustries aimed at the wargames player.

On opening the box one isconfronted with two very basic kits of the M10 tank destroyer,but with a little help from the spares box one can turn thisbasic kit into something special.

Kit bashing the M10

As the M10 has an open topturret one will need to put in a crew to serve the gun. The quickway of doing this is to cut off some suitable figures at thewaist, but I wanted to take things a step further.

What I wanted to do is cut outthe turret floor and insert a cage so that I could put some fulllength crew figures in to serve the gun and include some moredetail.

The first thing one has to do isto drill out the turret ring from the base using a power toolwith a burr, and then cleaning up with a sanding drum attachment.Next we have to drill out the hull top with the same drillattachments. You should be left with a 25mm ring in both thefloor of the turret and hull top into which you fit the turretcage.

The construction of the turretcage is quite simple. You will need a circle cutter which can beobtained from any good art shop. Out of thin plastic cut a circle23mm in diameter for the floor of the cage and then four 4x7mmhangers to suspend the floor from the turret base. Glue the fourhangers to the cage floor and turn the turret upside down andglue the other end of the hangers to the turret floor.

Before gluing the twohalf’s of the turret together one can carry out somedetailing to the inside. You will need six shells to fix to theturret back wall [three either side] you may have these in thespare’s box I took mine from an old ESCI Elefant kit . The88mm and 75 mm were roughly the same length. A gun breech wastaken from the same kit and cut down to fit into the turret.Looking from the front to the back of the turret two flip upseats are located one at 11 o’clock and one at 2o’clock.

I took these from an old Airfix88mm gun. Bed rolls were made from Duro and hung on the outsideof the turret. Another dip into spare’s box produced somejerry cans and spare track links. The next job which turned outto be the hardest was to find and convert a crew for the turret.I finally settled on three figures from the ESCI Nato pilot andground crew set. Helmets were shaved off and US style helmetswere fashioned from Duro. Some shaving down of the torsos wasalso required, and then new jackets were fashioned again fromDuro. The gun commander was made as above, his two arms were cutoff and new ones made by bending thin wire and again coveringwith Duro.

As there are no decals suppliedwith the kit I had to look in my own stock to find suitable Starsand numbers.

Conclusion

After carrying out the aboveconversion I came to the conclusion that this kit would be verysuitable for someone who is dipping there toe first time intoconverting kits as with a little care one can end up with a verynice representation of the M10 tank Destroyer.