Military Veterans Museum and Education Center received about 10" of snow this past week. Museum volunteers decided to make the best of it by taking the half-track out for a drive.
My favorite WW2 armored vehicle. I love them so much. I have 8 of this models by Tamiya,new ray,revelle brands. I want to get an R.C remote control one. We have an army surplus here in Idaho Falls. And they have a real one inside the store.
This half-track was originally built as a M3 GMC with a 75mm gun mounted on it for tank destroyer duties. The M3 GMCs were ineffective against German armor and were replaced by M10 GMCs. The M3 GMCs were then sent back to be rebuilt. This half-track is one of the 1,360 M3 GMCs that were converted by Autocar to M3A1s. Sometime later in it's history the M49 machine gun ring mount was removed and replaced with a M25 pedestal mount. That would mean that it is a M3A1 in M3 configuration.
So M3 75 GMC that was converted to a M3A1 and then back to a standard M3, would still make it a M3, since there is no ring mount, so it is only semantics, but since it doesn't have the M49 it is better to list it as a M3 so non-HT people know the correct nomenclature.
They don’t do all that well in deeper snow say up to the bumper or on slopes . They did make chains to fit the tracks for mud and ice. Standard tire chain can be put on the wheels
No the Ross steering is very good except if your standing still on pavement , then if you creep the vehicle foreword or back the steering effort is reduced. It a combination of the steering wheel diameter and the ratio in the steering box and its design
Seeing that they put sandbags on top of the front mudguards to keep the front down it may have been. Unlike German halftracks which could also use their tracks to steer using skid steering the US halftracks were reliant on the front wheels for steering. The US halftracks used rubber tracks whereas the German halftracks used metal tracks.
