MOBILE ARMOURED PLASMA CANNON (MAPC)

A Formidable Trio of Tanks!

I began this little exercise by purchasing an M1A1 Abrams, along with a pair of Trumpeter M1 Panther 11 Mineclearing tanks. Luckily for construction purposes, all three chassis were identical and lined up very well. I removed all vestiges of the inner wheel supports of the mineclearing tanks and joined the two halves together with sheet styrene. This was also used to build up the rear section for the weapons platform.

The main weapon itself is a plasma cannon, constructed from; a child’s swimming goggle container, a pen box, the lid from a toy saucepan set, a tank barrel and half a plastic disco ball. For interest, I added a flashing LED to the tip of the plasma cannon and ran the wires through the unit to a battery box which served as the base for the gun.

The rear of the unit was an old electrical fitting that seemed just right to detail the back. Additional details consisted of kit parts, sheet styrene and small glitter tubes bought from a local store. The rotating base for the cannon was constructed from sheet styrene, with brass tube for articulation and modified kit wheels for disguise.

Side skirts for both front and rear sections were constructed from styrene and detailed with kit parts. The upper hull of the Abrams was added to the front and a clear, Christmas bauble became the Command Centre atop this.

Side details, made from more glitter tubes and aircraft drop tanks, are removable, as is the plasma cannon unit. This enables the platform to be re-used again at a later date for another version of the model. After a coat of primer, the basic Jade Green colour was sprayed, along with separate sprayings of the orange sections. Decals, weathering and pinstriping completed the details.