1/48 M8 Greyhound for Bolt Action

Over the last two weeks I have been working on a model that SC John generously gifted me: the Tamiya 1/48 M8 Greyhound, a lightly armored reconnaissance vehicle. Thousands of M8's were built and used during WW2, by the British and by the Americans. Here's a good shot of one in action:

I wanted to build a model with plenty of visual character and I had my mind set on adding sandbags to the front. The crews in the front of the Greyhound were vulnerable; the armor on the front and bottom was woefully thin. I read that many crews put sandbags on the bottom of the vehicle for extra protection from mines..
Anyway, on Google I could not find Greyhounds with sandbags on it and I was about to give up when I found this image

on this site called Warwheels. I was so happy to find it! These images don't seem to show up on Google and the site has an amazing bunch of links to obscure but very detailed and cool military model sites. Anyway, I realized that is what I wanted to build...and here's the result:

After building the vehicle out of the box,  I started working on the basket. I created it from plastic tubing and L-shaped pieces from Evergreen. I got a rod and tub assortment and used the thinnest piece for this:

After drilling some holes I added the base wire and slowly began to add cross bars. To finish it nicely I added L-shaped bars along the sides.

Then I started the sand bags. I am sure most of you already know how to do this, but just to make sure, this is how I do it:
1. make a long roll of green stuff

2. flatten it a bit

3. cut pieces. keep a soldier at hand, so you can keep an eye on the scale

4. once cut, press with good, textured cloth

5. add to rack. Make sure not to forget the stuff the bottom of the rack and and let some of it stick out of the bottom

Make sure to bend some of the corners to make it more realistic.

Hopefully some of you will give this easy process a try, it's great fun!

Here's another great action shot of the Greyhoud, although this image was indicative for the times to come. The M8 was great on the roads and hard surfaces, but in the field it was slow and had to large a turning radius; it was quickly beat out by the jeeps.


It was a joy to work on this vehicle and in the second part I will show you the painted version; that might be a week or two! If you have comments or more info, I would love to learn a bit more about the M8!

SC Mike