Tankers!!!
My agony continues...My apartment was not ready yet and my workshop remains offline. So, let's continue review some projects already completed. This time, it's a kit from 2006.
The amazing DUKW!
History:
The DUKW (colloquially known as Duck) is a six-wheel-drive
amphibious truck that was designed by a partnership under military auspices of
Sparkman & Stephens and General Motors Corporation (GMC) during World War II for transporting goods and troops over land and water and for use approaching and crossing beaches in
amphibious attacks. Designed only to last long enough to meet the demands of combat, productionized Ducks, a modification of the 2-ton capacity "deuce" trucks used by the U.S. military in World War II, were later used as tourist craft in marine environments.
Designation
The designation of DUKW is not a military
acronym; rather, the name comes from the model naming terminology used by GMC:
- "D" indicated a vehicle designed in 1942,
- "U" meant "utility",
- "K" indicated driven front wheels,
- "W" indicated two powered rear axles.
Decades later, the DUKW designation was explained erroneously by writers such as Donald Clarke who wrote in 1978 that it was an acronym for "Duplex Universal Karrier, Wheeled". However, the name is not an acronym.
The DUKW was designed by Rod Stephens, Jr. of
Sparkman & Stephens, Inc. yacht designers,
Dennis Puleston, a British deep water sailor resident in the U.S., and Frank W. Speir, a
Reserve Officers' Training Corps Lieutenant out of
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Developed by the
National Defense Research Committee and the
Office of Scientific Research and Development, it was initially rejected by the armed services. When a
United States Coast Guard patrol craft ran aground on a sand bar near
Provincetown, Massachusetts, an experimental DUKW happened to be in the area for a demonstration. Winds up to 60 knots (110 km/h), rain, and heavy surf prevented conventional craft from rescuing the seven stranded Coast Guardsmen, but the DUKW had no trouble, and the military opposition melted. The DUKW would later prove its seaworthiness by crossing the
English Channel.
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| DUKWs at the sea... |
The DUKW prototype was built around the GMC ACKWX, a
cab-over-engine (COE) version of the
GMC CCKW six-wheel-drive military truck, with the addition of a watertight hull and a propeller.
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| GMC CCKW - COE - 6X6 |
The final production design, perfected by a few engineers at Yellow Truck & Coach in Pontiac, Michigan, was based on the CCKW. The vehicle was built by the GMC division of
General Motors, which was still called Yellow Truck and Coach at the beginning of the war. It was powered by a
Chevrolet straight-6 engine of 4.416 cc. The DUKW weighed 6.5 tons empty and operated at 80 km/h on road and 5.5 knots (10.2 km/h) on water. It was 9.4 m long, 2.51 m wide, 2.17 m high with the folding-canvas top down
and 2.6 m high with the top up. 21,137 were manufactured. It was not an armored vehicle, being plated with sheet steel between 1.6–3.2 mm thick to minimize weight. A high capacity
bilge pump system kept the DUKW afloat if the thin hull was breached by holes up to 51 mm in diameter. One of every four vehicles were produced with a ring mount for machine gun,
which would usually have held a .50-caliber (12.7 mm)
Browning heavy machine gun.
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| A DUKW with .50 ring mount being transported by an Autocar |
The DUKW was the first vehicle to allow the driver
to vary the tire pressure from inside the cab, an accomplishment of
Speir's device. The tires could be fully inflated for hard surfaces such as roads and less inflated for softer surfaces, especially beach sand. This added to the DUKW's great versatility as an amphibious vehicle. This feature is now standard on many military vehicles.
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| DUKW in X-ray draw - Notice the Speir's device braces in the wheels |
The DUKW's windshields were provided by GM rival
Libbey Glass (Ford) under the "Defense Plant Corporation" umbrella as a result of Henry Gassaway, one of the GM engineers
whose wife's family worked for Libbey, and whose test driving broke the first windshields.
Service history:
World War II
The DUKW was supplied to the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps and Allied forces. 2,000 were supplied to Britain under the
Lend-Lease program...
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| British DUKSs |
...and 535 were acquired by Australian forces.
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| Aussie DUKW |
586 were supplied to the Soviet Union, and they would build their own version post war: the
BAV 485.
The DUKW were initially sent to the
Pacific theatre's Guadalcanal, and were used by an invasion force for the first time during the Sicilian
Operation Husky in the Mediterranean. They would again be used on the
D-Day beaches of
Normandy, but also during the
Battle of the Scheldt,
Operation Veritable and
Operation Plunder.
Its principal use was to ferry supplies from ship to shore, but it was used for other tasks, such as transporting wounded combatants to hospital ships or operations in flooded (polder) landscape.
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| DUKW transporting troops... |
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| DUKW with cargo |
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| Invasion force |
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| ferry supplies duties |
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| transporting a P-38 fighter to shore |
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| DUKWs with CCKW : Sons and father... |
Post-WWII
After World War II, reduced numbers of DUKWs were kept in service by the United States, Britain, France and Australia with many more stored pending disposal. Australia transferred many to
Citizens Military Force units. The U.S. Army reactivated and deployed several hundred DUKWs at the outbreak of the
Korean War with the 1st Transportation Replacement Training Group providing crew training. DUKWs were used extensively to bring supplies ashore during the
Battle of Pusan Perimeter and in the
amphibious landings at Incheon.
Australia — 535
Canada — approximately 800
France
Philippines
Soviet Union — 586
United Kingdom — approximately 2,000
United States
Specs:
| DUKW 6x6 amphibious truck |
|---|
Type
| Amphibious transport |
|---|
Place of origin
| United States |
|---|
| Production history |
|---|
Manufacturer
| GMC |
|---|
Number built
| 21,147 |
|---|
| Specifications |
|---|
Weight
| 5.9 t empty |
|---|
Length
| 9.4 m |
|---|
Width
| 2.5 m |
|---|
Height
| 2.17 m without ring mount |
|---|
Crew
| 1 |
|---|
|
Main
armament
| ring mount for .50 machine gun fitted to 25% built |
|---|
Engine
| GMC 6-cylinder 269 cid 94 hp |
|---|
Power/weight
| 14 hp/tonne |
|---|
Payload capacity
| 2.3 t or 12 troops |
|---|
Suspension
| wheels, 6×6 |
|---|
Op. range
| 640 km at 56 km/h on road,
50 nmi (93 km) on water
|
|---|
Speed
| 80 km/h on road
10.2 km/h on water
|
|---|
The kit:
I got this kit for my wife as birthday present. The 105mm howitzer I stored for use in other madness ....
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| Italeri's DUKW with 105mm howitzer - kit nº 6429 |
In my researchs about this beast, I found this
excelent review in PMMS. And found another interesting pics...And if it's different, I like it!!
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| A DUKW with A-frame crane carrying a Jeep on another DUKW |
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| The A-frame crane in close, in the DUKW rear |
I decided to make one of this frame crane ... I found that there is a rare and discontinued resin kit, but because it is too hard to find, I decided to make one in scratch.
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| A-frame in resin...Too hard to find it!!! |
But, let's built the DUKW first...The kit presents the air vents injected, with no details..
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| Awful... |
Surgery time !!!
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| Cutting the air vents..holes to guide the cuts... |
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| Other side... |
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| Cutting the plastic... |
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| Using nylon net and plasticard strips... |
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| Done... |
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| In place... |
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| Notice the exhaust pipe... |
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| ...and with the water deflector... |
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| Building the DUKW body... |
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| Done... |
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| Using metal stripes from Soda cans... |
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| Soda-etched !!! |
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| Frontal view |
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| Starting the scratch of A-frame: plastic , spare parts and soda can... |
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| Testing the right angle... |
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| More metal... |
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| front axle... |
I lost some píctures... Here, you see the DUKW almost ready, with home-made metal details...
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| Notice the sides of the hull. I removed the bulges of the howitzer wheel. |
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| The threads are provisional ... |
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Making the tarp with tracing paper plus white glue diluted in water.
Notice the decals almost applied |
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| The tarp growing... |
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| Drying... |
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| Starting the weathering... |
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| almost there...The rip in the canvas is battle damage ... |
To not let the crane empty , I added some wooden planks, made with popsicle sticks. My idea would be depict an amphibious vehicle, after Normandy D-Day landing, assisting the logistics tasks, in the beach:
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| DUKW with A-frame crane |
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| DUKW with A-frame crane |
Sorry for the loss of the photos of some steps, but I think I managed to convey the idea of the project ...
Bye, Gents....See you, soon !!!
hello , a nice project again
ResponderExcluirhubert
Thanks, Hubert !!!
ResponderExcluirTake care !!!