One of the most attractive attributes of the LVT series, is their appearence. They were not made from heavy guage armor plate, or thick cast armor steel. Instead, since they had to be able to float, they were built of light weight materials like mild steel plate and in some places plain old sheet metal.
With their assigned tasks being either carrying infantry and supplies directly into hostile combat conditions (Amtracs), or leading the first waves of an island assault, using their main guns to destroy bunkers and beach defenses (Amtanks). The reliable old LVT's took a real beating. Small arms fire and strikes from shrapnel contained in the many mortar and artillery shells that rained down on these vehicles, caused a lot of damage to these somewhat fragile work horses.
Bent and torn metal, rust and general wear and tear gave these machines tons of character. Many LVT's, after just a few days in combat, already had the look of many years of abuse. Common damage would be puncture holes in the pontoon faces, bent and mishapen fenders, many bullet strikes all over the exterior surfaces.
The turrets on the Amtanks were from the M5 and M8 HMC light tanks and made of heavier armor. Bullets and shrapnel would not penetrate the turret sides, but many photos do show the nicks and dings on the turret sides caused by repeated strikes.
In this first installment of this article, I am going to concentrate on replicating the punctures and damage to the pontoons and lower hull. I first used my small power hand drill, with a round steel grinding bit, to grind away the plastic on the inside surface of the Italeri kit part. I carefully removed enough of the kit plastic in several areas until I could hold it up to the light and see the light showing through the thin layer of plastic still remaining. Sometimes this would cause a slight bubble to appear on the outside surface of the pontoon piece, where the part had been thinned. Do not worry about this because many times the areas of penetration had a small dent or dimple around it anyway.
I carried out this same technique on the upper hull pieces, including the bottoms of the fenders, the fighting compartment and upper hull surfaces.
The front and rear of the hull were treated in the same way.
Next came the task of adding the actual damage to the exterior surfaces. This was achieved with a good old X-acto knife with a new No. 11 blade. Bearing in mind that most of the damage came from the outside of the vehicle and punctured into the interior.
I carefully reviewed good clear photos of actual LVT's taken in action during WWII. I noticed that the punctures were all at different angles and varied in size from 1 to about 3 or 4 inches in legnth and very narrow, maybe half an inch wide. This was most likely caused by shrapnel from artillery, mortars and grenades (not all from the enemy, by the way!!). The small arms strikes were visible as round holes with a puckered/ripple effect around the hole. Larger caliber damage was shown as 12 to 20 inch strikes that bent the thin metal in like tin. Many of the bullet and large caliber hits had ripped clear through both sides of the vehicle and buried themselves in the surrounding terrain.
In the next installment, I will concentrate on the damage to the upper surfaces and the reworking involved with the kit turret.
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